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It is time.
The stars have aligned.
All of our preparations are complete.
Well almost.
Hey, sound engineer?
Give my voice a bit more base to make it more ominous.
Excellent.
All is going according to plan.
Our plan is as vague as our secret council’s contribution to this story.
Prepare yourselves for the time is right, for a video on intrigue plots.
Navigating the Byzantine schemes of noble houses, ancient conspiracies, and ruthless
clandestine organizations may seem daunting but rest assured that following my guide will
make events unfold according to my design.
So ready your poisons and don’t turn your back on anyone as we write an intrigue plot.
The most common assumption is that intrigue plots are difficult to write.
This is just simply untrue.
There is absolutely no need to plan out our intrigue plot.
Just because one or more in story factions have a complex plan doesn't mean the writer
needs to spend even a moment detailing their own plot in their personal notes in order
to keep things straight.
Making up our complex plan as we go along totally won’t lead to a twisted wreck of
a plot down the road and a writer’s increasingly desperate attempts to dodge solving any of
the plot’s core mysteries will never become apparent to the reader even when the author
keeps piling on increasingly contrived plot twists it a bid to buy time.
Just keep writing yourself into that corner rather than take a moment to try to organize
and find a way to straighten out the plot.
Still can’t think of a cunning plan for the characters?
That’s A-okay.
Just have them say “everything is going according to plan” all the time.
The heroes may have slaughtered the Empire’s crack commandos, destroyed their super weapon,
and exposed the Empire’s war-crimes to the public, but not to worry.
Rebellions sweep the empire as the imperial capital burns, but rest assured everything
is going according to plan... somehow.
Um... because as it turns out, the Emperor has carefully manipulated the situation in
order to draw out the rebels only for them to be crushed by his newly created super strong,
hyper-smart soldiers.
Yes these super soldiers are superior to normal humans in every way, but I am sure they will
be willing to throw their lives away based on the whims of inferior beings.
Controlling super-beings is easy and I am sure even if one side manages it, their rivals
would be unable to accomplish such a feat too.
Speaking of control, plans that hinge on way too many factors are bound to succeed.
Does the plan involve manipulating multiple nation states, stealing uniforms for a false
flag operation, hijacking a nuke, framing numerous senators, running the largest ponzi
scheme in history to fund everything, infiltrating the CIA, and killing off the protagonist’s
parents in a car crash to stop their investigation into the conspiracy?
Yeah.
I can’t see a single thing there that could go wrong even if the only way this plan would
work is if the conspiracy had precognition and funding equal to the GDP of a first world
nation.
All so the conspiracy can accomplish… something?
World domination, I guess?
It’s bad okay!
Oh no!
We let the young protagonist live even though we killed his parents and now he is on a personal
quest to find the truth.
Who could have foreseen he would continue his parents lifelong work to reveal our conspiracy?
Why is he taking this so personally?
All we did was kill his parents.
It’s almost as though humans are emotional creatures that don’t always act in their
own best interest.
His personal crusade is the only thing that can stop the conspiracy and not like a thousand
other ways the whole thing could unravel like double agents, information leaks, or the budget.
Yet in fiction, secret plots are so solid that they can survive the conspirators being
blatantly evil.
Is a rookie cop getting close to uncovering your secret cabal that has spent years gradually
subverting the government?
Do you: A: Approach him and try to induct him into
your ranks by carefully spoon-feeding him the ideals of your organization?
B: Bribe him by covering the medical expenses of his sickly son thereby buying not only
his silence, but his loyalty.
C: Let him catch a know-nothing, incompetent lackey purging your ranks of a fool while
sating the rookie’s sense of justice. D:
Distract him with a different case then falsify information saying the previous case was solved.
E: Use your extensive connections to cheaply transfer him away somewhere else or just fire
him from the police force.
The proper answer is F: Murder his wife and child before torturing the rookie and then
leave him to die, but never actually check the body to see if he’s dead.
Murder should always be used as a first resort no matter how messy or expensive it is.
Minions outlived their usefulness?
Murder.
Bystanders witness the murdering of your minion?
Murder.
Bystanders witness murdering the other bystanders who witnessed the murder of your minion?
Murder.
Right hand man point out that maybe we should ease up on the whole murder thing because
it’s starting to draw attention to the ancient conspiracy?
Murder.
After many murders, the plan is about to come to fruition!
Nothing can stop us now!
Even the protagonists can only watch helplessly as the conspiracy marches towards its final
triumph.
The moment of ultimate victory is the perfect time for the bad guys to start stabbing each
other in the back!
The schemers may have waited patiently to their realize their plans, but clearly they
can’t wait a few more hours to play their hand and jeopardize the entire centuries long
gambit.
The heroes will naturally use this opportunity to topple the entire conspiracy.
Way to screw up at the finish line guys.
But why stop there?
Have everyone reveal they were secretly manipulating everyone else even if they have to stop their
monologue every once in a while to glance at their conspiracy flowchart.
Not that it matters.
Our heroes will brute force their way through the intrigue rather than try to out-think
the conspirators like a bunch nerds.
Having our protagonists endlessly react rather than take an active role in shaping events
will never get old no matter how dumb it makes them look.
Having the heroes turn the tables on the conspirators and beat them at their own game sounds really
hard to write unlike having the conspiracy unravel itself in a moment of petty greed
and incompetence.
This won’t make the reader question how the conspirators even made it this far.
Nothing like having the plot take care of itself while undercutting the mystery introduced
early on.
Letting the reader piece together the whole picture using small clues will most certainly
happen even if the author has no idea what the big picture even is and the audience will
not be upset that the core mystery driving the story ends with an authorial shrug and
an anticlimax.
Um… just as I planned!
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