I'd Rather Be Lucky Than Good

It's okay to save your main character from a bad situation by a happy coincidence or dumb luck.  The trick is to avoid using this too frequently.

For example, if your main character can't get through any fight without divine intervention, no one will want to read about the character.

On the other hand, if your character has shown themselves capable in the past, and this time they simply cannot best their opponent, then a little intervention (divine or otherwise) may be merited.

If you find yourself resorting often to convenient reinforcements, opponents slipping on banana peels, or the authorities arriving to break up the fight, you might want to make the opponents less capable, or your main character more impressive.

In the second novel of my Remnants series, the main character (Celesta) finds herself in a fight with 2 gods.  They are older than the Olympians, and hold the current pantheon in disdain.  They view Celesta as something even more inferior, but they have deigned to kill her, because they think she is dangerous.  Celesta manages to trick one of the gods, and puts him out of the fight.  The other one, though, is too powerful.  All of her training, powers, persuasion, and trickery don't even make him flinch.  Ultimately, another character has to intervene to save Celesta.  I don't often use this technique.  Usually, Celesta can talk or fight her way out.  But it's interesting to see just how big a fight a character can be in... before it is too much.

In this writing prompt, try writing two versions.

1. Write about who (or what) intervenes to help the main character win or escape, then
2. Write a way for the main character to win/escape without help.

Prompt:  Why does this keep happening to me?

Next time, she thought, I turn down the quest.  It had seemed simple enough when the king asked her to look into his troll problem.  But after investigating, she found the troll problem was actually a trolls with goblins and zombies kind of problem.  She should have retreated, but by then the passageway behind her had collapsed, and the only way out was through.  Fifty feet ahead, the tunnel lit up, and the temperature became almost unbearable.  Wonderful.  Now, it was a troll, goblins, zombies, and dragon sort of problem...