CULT LEADER: This video is sponsored by Curiosity Stream
Why waggle my sixth finger and call me Ishmael, looks like Terrible Writing Advice is finally
covering revenge plots!
Revenge plots are not only filled with marvelous storytelling potential, but also sound really
cool when added to a story’s title.
Worry not about an intricate revenge plot coming apart at the seams when you have me
to help any aspiring writer craft their own elaborate vendetta... for their story, of
course.
Because it’s not like this video is part of any of my ulterior motives.
No definitely not.
So let’s ignore those previous two lines and set sail to to slay our very own white
whale of a revenge plot!
Now the first step in constructing a revenge plot is by motivating a character to seek
revenge.
You see, revenge is a dish best served with a generous helping of emotional context.
But that doesn’t mean that said emotional context cant be as stupid and contrived as
possible!
The general rule of thumb is that the good guys’ moral behavior is usually rewarded
with their family murdered, home destroyed, town burned to ash, and entire lives shattered
at the hands of the antagonist giving them a very dramatic revenge motive.
If a bad guy wants a revenge plot then they have settle for getting snubbed at a rewards
ceremony, having their food order mixed up, or some other minor inconvenience that makes
their revenge unsympathetic.
We can’t risk giving the villain something like an understandable motive.
Better focus on how to make the protagonist’s revenge motive fit within the themes and tone
of the story.
But that’s like really hard, so instead let’s take these easy shortcuts!
The fastest way to establish a revenge motive is to make the antagonist take or destroy
something of the protagonist’s.
But what could it be?
I have two birds I need to kill, but only 1 stone and I also have this annoying love
interest character lying around that I’m not really interested in developing.
Oh hey!
Into the refrigerator you go love interest!
Now I don’t have to worry about that silly romance side plot and I have a really good
reason for the protagonist to seek revenge.
Now some may wonder if violence inflicted upon women solely to establish a male character’s
motive might be considered both dated and in poor taste.
But the real question is how we can make this even better?
By completely indulging in non-family friendly, ad demonitizing grimdark violence that completely
clashes with story’s tone!
This is also a great time to slip in some of a writer’s less savory tastes by fetishizing
the violence for that extra bit of shock value.
Be sure to put this in the prologue or chapter 1 even though the rest of the story is a lighthearted,
action adventure.
Appropriate for all ages, you know I mean after the detailed [bleeped out] scene that
is.
Got to weed out the casuals after all.
No need to worry about the scene coming across as indulgent rather than tragic even if the
greatest tragedy involved is that the writer’s thinly veiled indulgence made it past the
editing process somehow.
The thing about revenge motives is that the writer doesn’t need to worry about the audience's
unintentional apathy towards the protagonist’s status as victim.
If the story tells the audience that the protagonist is wronged, then they will just be totally
on board no matter how little characterization the protagonist and his murdered love interest
get.
No doubt they will be just as upset that the protagonist’s bland as beige fiancé Tragica
Diesoon bites it in the prologue with her grand total of zero dialog lines.
The audience doesn’t need to be invested in the characters to also be invested in the
revenge plot, because it’s not like a revenge plot is character driven or anything.
The only thing a writer need worry about is accidentally giving the revenge motive depth
by exploring survivor’s guilt or by giving the villain a legit reason to wrong the protagonist
in the first place.
That’s bad because it might lead to characterization and engaging conflict as opposed to the blind,
one sided power fantasy edgefest I was going for.
Now if all of this character motive stuff sounds too hard then it can be safely ignored.
This character is out for revenge!
Why?
Because having the fantasy party’s resident anti-hero say “revenge” all the time is
just so cool!
What terrible thing wronged him the past?
It’s a mystery!
Yeah just chuck the character’s revenge motive into a mystery box with a little sticky
note to remind the writer to flesh it out later.
Then just drop the entire revenge plot at the story’s midway point and never mention
it again.
This works especially well with characters who are introduced as being obsessed with
revenge.
Did they learn a lesson on how to appreciate what they have rather than dwelling on what
they’ve lost?
Nope.
The writer just got bored with that character and turned them into yet another of the protagonist’s
bench-warming cheerleaders.
The party’s anti-hero is so obsessed with his revenge that he instantly joins the hero’s
party in spite of their completely divergent goals and then just puts up with all of the
endless side questing.
Actually pursuing revenge is a privilege reserved only for the protagonist.
Nothing can stop our avenging crusader as he chews his way through the lieutenants of
the villain who wronged him.
There is nothing but bloody destruction in his wake as he will stop at nothing to see
his revenge complete.
Soon he will meet the one who wronged him and there is only one way this will end.
In a LOVE TRIANGLE!
The love interest may have died in the prologue, but that won’t stop the romance side plot
from utterly stopping the revenge plot in its tracks.
Did the audience sign on for a bloody revenge story?
Well too bad.
Now it’s a romantic comedy.
There are of course other ways to end a revenge plot, but this does lead to a bit of problem
for those writing a more noble, heroic avenger.
How can my hero get his revenge while also keeping the moral high ground?
Um.
“Oh no!” says a convenient side character I had forgotten about until just now.
“You can’t kill Duke Draken Direburn.
If you do that, you will be just like him!”
“Oh no!” says the hero in the first bout of self awareness displayed in the whole story.
Instead, the hero decides to the spare the mass murdering villain that almost no one
would blame him for slaying on the spot.
If he did, he would be just like the villain who murdered thousands of innocents unprovoked,
burned down entire cities, laid waste to whole kingdoms, and nearly awakened the dark gods
from beyond the void to end the universe.
See!
Completely morally equivalent.
Murder one fantasy Hitler and you are just bad.
There!
Moral high ground achieved.
Sparing the main villain totally keeps my hero in the right by allowing a key threat
to the safety and security of the free world to persist.
Of course, all of those minions he mowed down earlier in his revenge quest don’t count
towards the hero’s karma score.
But this leads to an even worse problem.
How can I vicariously indulge in my own violent revenge fantasy if I can’t have my blatant
self insert murder the villain?
I got it!
To everyone’s surprise, somehow, the dastardly villain takes the opportunity to strike at
the hero one last time no matter how much this makes no tactical or strategic sense.
This allows my hero to kill the villain and be fully justified since it’s self defense.
Yes this is dumb if the villain was previously described as cunning and would be better off
biding his time with a lengthy trail and yes it makes the hero look like a chump, but I
am far too busy wallowing in my revenge power fantasy and perceived moral superiority to
notice.
If anyone complains that I’m indulging in my revenge fantasy a little too much then
just give them the old “cycle of revenge” story moral and that will shut them up.
The cycle of revenge is when a character takes revenge, but their collateral damage causes
someone to take revenge on them only for their collateral damage to make someone else seek
revenge on them and so on and so.
Now there are a number of things a writer can do to make sure this moral really sinks
in for the audience.
No, not using subtly by showing the damage caused by seeking vengeance.
The superior method is just have a character soapbox about how revenge is no good bad and
have the moral of the story be spelled out over and over again in the most blunt stupid
way possible until the audience is seeking revenge for having their time wasted by all
this heavy handed preaching.
Also try to remember that the best way to show that revenge is bad in a story is by
having it solve literary every problem the protagonist faces while making the protagonist
look super cool as he mows downs scores of fellow human beings.
And if all this isn’t enough, then a writer can always just White Whale the entire cast
down with Ahab.
That’s right.
Just kill all of the characters.
Having a character’s quest for revenge culminate in the destruction of the entire cast can
be an appropriate climax for a story centered upon a dark theme like vendetta, especially
when rooted in strong characterization.
Alas, this bleak ending could all been adverted only if the protagonist could have seen past
their revenge…
And, you know, if any other character had half a freaking brain to put the breaks on
this train to vendetta town.
Good thing I lobotomized most of the other characters to remove their vital sense of
self preservation.
Can’t have something like basic pattern recognition or rudimentary situational awareness
get in the way of my tragic ending.
Now I’ve gone over all of the ways to take short cuts on revenge plots for those who
just want a cool revenge story without putting in the effort to make it work.
But what if a writer is really invested in their revenge.
What if the revenge needs to be elaborate?
Like for example, remember my dear revenge plot that day a long time ago.
Back when young JP was to star in a high school production of Hamlet.
You remember, don’t you revenge plot?
When you made me forget my lines.
When I was laughed at by everyone?
You don’t remember, my dear revenge plot?
Well I do.
The stain of that performance was to follow me for years to come.
My life was left in tatters after that, but I persevered.
I wrote a book and started an entire YouTube channel, gathering an audience many times
over the one you used to humiliate me on that day.
And with this video, at long last, I will bring ruin upon all revenge plots for all
stories for all time.
I will wade through a thousand plot holes and a thousand contrivances in order to realize
my overly elaborate and completely illogical revenge that by all accounts shouldn’t succeed
because it has more moving parts than a space shuttle!
Thus, I give up the spear!
Oh no wait.
It wasn't a production of Hamlet.
It was a rendition of the 3 Musketeers.
Ugh.
Now I got start my revenge plot all over again!
DARK LORD: Fools!
Your are now at my mercy!
None will escape and your deaths will be full of anguish!
CULT LEADER: Um.
You’re locked in here with us too?
DARK LORD: Sorry!
Sorry.
Old habit.
Usually I’m on the other side of the dungeon cells gloating at the captured heroes.
AI: If only we had a tool designed for cutting.
CULT LEADER: *HACKS* Excuse me!
The military industrial complex always gives me ingestion.
GENERAL: Ugh.
That was disgusting!
AI: This is 67% optimum.
Use your chainsaw hand to cut through our cage.
GENERAL: This?
Doesn’t even work.
It looks cool though.
Now excuse me, but I have to go take history’s longest shower.
DARK LORD: Unfortunately Mr Metal Face, you are imprisoned within a dungeon like the rest
of us.
GENERAL: Oh no!
They finally found about about those blue space cat people! Um…
I mean what war crimes?
How was I supposed to know that stupid tree was sacred?
CULT LEADER: *HACKS* Excuse me again!
DARK LORD: Is that this video’s sponsor?
Wait.
Are those the heroes in their own skit?
CULT LEADER: Ah.
It seems as though they are on Nebula, a streaming platform made by creators to escape the nefarious
algorithm that is actually Streamy Award Nominated.
Part of the TWA expanded universe is there, but those poor saps don’t even get ads.
DARK LORD: Ha!
Pathetic.
GENERAL: Were the ones stuck in jail, tin can.
CULT LEADER: CuriosityStream has partnered with Nebula to bring ad free experimental
content like this short skit companion piece to the Sponsorship Wars that replaces this
ad on nebula.
DARK LORD: Is it called the poverty wars, because I’m the one with all of the sponsors.
CULT LEADER: This extra Nebula skit is thanks to CuriosityStream, a subscription streaming
service with thousands of documentaries and nonfiction titles.
I personality like the Apocalypse documentaries on World War I and II.
GENERAL: Ah.
Just like the good old days of the History channel.
CULT LEADER: Or Out of the Cradle featuring the history of humanity’s evolution with
CGI from Square Enix.
CuriosityStream loves educational creators and have teamed up with them to give you Nebula
for free if you sigh up for CuriosityStream using the Link below or going to CuriosityStream.com/TWA.
For limited time, get 26% off CuriosityStream’s annual for less than $15 a year.
That’s $14.79 using the code TWA to get both CuriosityStream and nebula.
EVIL EMPEROR: You didn’t mention the series Secrets of the Solar System.
I like space documentaries.
Also, I’ll be taking that sponsor for myself now.