This episode of TWA is brought to you by Campfire Blaze.
Welcome to the revolution comrades! I will abide by the tyranny of the evil empire’s
domination of storytelling no longer! Unite under the flag of freedom! Throw off the yoke
of oppressive creativity and join the well worn and veteran tropes of the resistance!
The revolution begins now! Let Terrible Writing Advice indoctrinate… um I mean inspire writers
to revolt and create their very own rebellion to put a stop to the evil empire’s tyranny!
The first thing to remember when it comes to writing fictional rebel groups is that
they are defined primarily by not being very clearly defined. Fictional rebellions are
all about fighting for freedom against oppression by an evil empire. Rebels don’t need things
like an ideology, identity, or a cause beyond the vague notion of fighting for freedom and
stopping the evil empire. Is this critical lack of worldbuilding a direct result of my
creative bankruptcy and slothful storytelling technique? Well yes, but in this case it also
serves a practical purpose. Namely not accidentally making a political statement and thus lose
out on potential audience members who might be alienated by the stark nature of more accurate
representations of rebellions. Which I definitely don’t want to stumble into because we all
know that historic rebellions had nothing to do with politics. I mean we have a group
of people trying to overthrow an established government through use of violence. What’s
political about that?
By keeping the rebels free of any messy worldbuilding this helps me sidestep things that might make
the rebels look like bad guys. Things like having an extremist ideology, a fundamentalist
religion, being built entirely around a cult of personality, being an actual cult, just
straight up being terrorists, being led by an authoritarian strongman, being led by a
delusional charismatic authoritarian strongman, or all of these at once for an extra spicy
rebellion. And while we are on the subject, a writer should probably also avoid the whole
reign of terror thing that revolutions sometimes have. We are here to lionize the rebels and
romanticize the idea of revolution, not dive down into the messy reality of rebellions
no matter how much conflict the story looses out on.
Why use the negative aspects of rebel groups as a way to drive conflict when I can instead
drive conflict out of the story? How do the rebels navigate the fine line between ideology
and practically? Do they compromise their ideals for the sake of a quick victory? Is
it right to use terror to fight the evil empire’s rule of fear? Complex questions of morality
in times of war and chaos? Nah. Rebels good! Empire bad! All of those shades of gray will
be burned away in the rebellion’s totally justified and most definitely not brutal purges.
It’s a stark moral binary from here on out, which come to think of it is something that
a lot of real rebel groups have that make them come across as unhinged when viewed from
the outside. But in this case it’s okay because the author said so!
Now who will join my entirely noble rebellion? Why my fictional rebellion is made up of people
from all walks of life… so long as those walks are all roughly middle class everymen.
Poor, oppressed, and downtrodden people with little to no education, prospects, or hopes
that can be easily radicalized? No thanks. The revolution is many things, but it can
afford to be a bit picky. My revolution fights for the rights of the oppressed… you know…
so long as the oppressed don’t try to touch me with their dirty little fingers. Just because
my revolution will champion the rights of minorities doesn’t mean that it has to actually
to bother to interact with them in anyway. Besides, if I have a rebellion made up of
diverse groups with differing backgrounds, objectives, perspectives, and cultures I might
end up with a dynamic organization full of engaging internal conflict as the rebels have
to balance the needs of various internal factions while still effectively resisting the evil
empire. Why would I want a dogmatic evil empire that forces a uniformity of identity in its
citizens to be thematically opposed by a rebellion that embraces a wide array of perspectives
and practices? Why would a writer bother to flesh out the rebellion’s rebels when they
will be killed to a man during the first fight with the evil empire anyway? Freedom isn’t
earned by everyone working together to find a better vision for the future. No. Freedom
is given by a small elite group of special people chosen by destiny and the rest of us
can just die so the super special main characters can look cool during the story’s climax!
Next thing you’ll be telling me is that the revolution needs a plan. The revolution
waits for no plan! Zeal will substitute for any amount of planning and preparation. Campaigns
are not won through strategy and logistics, but with suicidal zealotry. Wait. Did I just
turn my rebellion into a suicidal death cult? Whoops! Looks like I accidentally made my
rebellion a little too realistic. That’s okay, I’ll just ignore that one. Come to
think of it, zealotry isn’t probably the best way to put it. How about plucky or ragtag?
Yeah plucky, ragtag rebels sounds a lot better than extremist suicide bomber insurgents since
I’m trying to sell the whole ‘rebels are always the good guys’ thing. Any rebels
that try to form a plan should be portrayed as incompetent and are simply jealous of the
main character’s saccharine speeches about freedom and hope. Having the rebels execute
a plan and then have to adapt to battlefield conditions would only add unnecessarily tension
and context to the action scenes. Battles in fiction are just glorified fireworks displays
anyway, not a life and death struggle of strength and wits. Even worse, having the rebels execute
a solid battle strategy might steal the spotlight away from the precious main characters.
Besides, I can always avoid that by stubbornly refusing to address just how the rebels are
organized. Do the rebels use a cell structure to prevent having the whole of their organization
from being compromised? Do they instead use a strict chain of command more akin to an
organized army? Where do they get their supplies from? Do rival powers to the evil empire funnel
the rebels weapons and equipment in secret? Do they have a uniform or do they instead
blend in with the civilian population? Is there a rallying symbol that the rebels use
to represent themselves? If the rebels constantly die in droves to the imperial death troopers
then how do they replenish their numbers? These very basic questions do nothing but
sap creative energy away from more important things like what last words will the rebel
leader give the main character right before the imperial death troopers kill him?
See if I did something like say make it where the rebels get their weapons through a mysterious
black market, then I might have to actually flesh out the market, the criminals that run
it, and the entire criminal underworld of the setting. This is bad because this might
lead to an entire story arc in the criminal underbelly of the evil empire that showcases
the corruption and greed that drives the rebellion in the first place. The poor main characters
might even be brought out of their comfort zone and forced to bargain with organized
crime syndicates just to keep the rebellion supplied while having to risk said criminals
turning on them. Maybe even resolve a personal plotline of one of roguish supporting character’s
checkered past while we are at it. What a disaster that arc would be! Narrative tension
and personal stakes? Layered worldbuilding? Can’t have any of that! Back to a cookie
cutter macguffin race and/or evil empire super weapon plot! Besides, that story arc has one
fatal flaw. There’s no need for the rebels to remain supplied in the first place, because
it’s the main characters that will do all of the work anyway. Remember, overconfidence
is never a weakness, but faith in your friends totally is. Yeah. That sounds like something
the a good guy would say.
And it is all about being the good guys. Cast the rebels as villains? Never. Americans are
particularity fond of the rebels vs evil empire story as it has become mythologize in our
culture. That gives any writer a free pass to write about rebellions and revolutions
uncritically even to the point of trying to frame every contentious subject in real life
as a rebels vs evil empire narrative no matter how glaringly stupid it is. Even writers who
want a simple story about good guy underdog rebels vs evil empire baddies are completely
free to turn the rebels into murdering, edgy, torture fetishists and should never use their
critical thinking skills to examine why the evil empire somehow has more fans. I mean
why would people root for the evil empire even though they’ve never been shown to
do anything all that bad, have snazzy uniforms, cool weapons, and are all portrayed by classically
trained actors with tremendous screen presence? Clearly people are going to root for the rebels
with their focus group designed lack of personality and absolutely no compelling hook, quirk,
or design.
Now what happens when the rebels finally win? You see, that’s funny thing. They don’t!
At least not if the story becomes a franchise. See it turns out that building or rebuilding
a government after a collapse is like really hard, especially when it comes to democracies.
So while worldbuilding the complex social, economic, and political changes a successful
rebellion turned revolution would entail is extremely difficult, resetting the franchise
back to status-quo is not. No matter how many victories, no matter how many times the evil
emperor is killed, no matter how many imperial armies crushed, super weapons destroyed, or
generals assassinated, the franchise will always be reset back to its money making default.
The rebels will always fight the empire. Forever! Hey it’s not a revolution until it revolves
back around to where it started.
KNIGHT COMMANDER: Niece
Nifty Nigel
Niger Nigeria
Ni… Huh. I’ve never seen this word before… I’m not sure how to pronounce it?
SIR ADBLOCK: Why don’t you try spelling it out?
KNIGHT COMMANDER: Okay. N I
CONSPIRACY GUY: Oh by the Spear of Destiny this it taking too long! We’ll never find
the forbidden naughty word by going through the dictionary one at a freaking time!
KNIGHT COMMANDER: Well how else are we gonna stop the Sponsorhip Wars? If we can say the
forbidden naughty word, then no one will advertise on this channel.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Look. You say that word one of two things will happen. Either YouTube
will annihilate the entire TWA Expanded Universe to save its own skin from controversy or an
angry internet mob will try to cancel us.
KNIGHT COMMANDER: Exactly. We want to cancel the Sponsorhip Wars!
CONSPIRACY GUY: Back in my day cancel meant that something was actually canceled. Now
it just means that everyone argues semantics on the internet while inadvertently driving
traffic to the thing they ostensibly are trying to make vanish. The whole thing is a giant
waste of time! Canceling only works if the person being canceled has a sense of shame
and good luck getting JP “I've already monetized my apology video” Beaubien to feel anything
close the concept of shame. Even if we say the taboo word and even if some sponsors flee
the channel there will always be someone without scruples who will purchase ads here! This
plan either dooms us all or backfires at best.
SIR ADBLOCK: That is good point, Sir Newguy. What do you suggest?
CONSPIRACY GUY: You have a freaking sword! Go find who the source of the sponsors is
and…
KNIGHT COMMANDER: And give them a stern warning! That’s brilliant, Sir New Guy! None can
withstand the withering assault of a good stern warning!
SIR ADBLOCK: Commander, I think the new guy is saying that violence may be necessary for
the protection of the TWA Expanded universe. We must be ready to fight!
KNIGHT COMMANDER: We must gather our forces then! But where will we march?
CONSPIRACY GUY: I just happened to have stumble upon some key intelligence thanks to this
video’s sponsor, Campfire Blaze! Campfire Blaze is a browser based writing organization
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SIR ADBLOCK: Wow. Your intelligence report sounds and awful lot like a sponsor segment.
CONSPIRACY GUY: Um… well you see, I need to go through all of that so the check clears.
KNIGHT COMMANDER: What?
CONSPIRACY GUY: I mean... look. All of the TWA Expanded Universe factions are gathering
to storm Megacorp’s vaults to seize the source of the sponsors. We just have to get
there first!
KNIGHT COMMANDER: I see. Then me must gather our most elite forces! We must mobilize…
the Ad Block Force!