This video is brought to you by Campfire. All according to MY plan! Hey! Wait… I died didn’t I? I knew I shouldn’t have done that mentor
episode. Wait. Is this the afterlife? Is this the beyond? Did I make it to paradise? DEMON: Try again, JP. Oh no! Am I to suffer my eternal punishment for my
bottomless greed, endless arrogance, two-faced nature, and excessively long ad segments? DEMON: Actually there’s this small, backwater
church in Minnesota that is the only correct religion, but don’t feel too bad. I’m pretty sure even in the most lax interpretation
of divine law you would still have ended up here. Regardless here’s your mask. Make sure to wear it at all times and observe
proper social distancing. After a 14 day quarantine period your torment
will begin! Well I may have died in the last episode in
a rare fit of continuity and destined to suffer eternal torment for my numerous sins, but
that won’t stop Terrible Writing Advice! Death is only the beginning of my lesson on
how to teach writers to properly handle the death of their characters. Better gather the dragon balls, because Terrible
Writing Advice is going to show writers the proper way to thin out their cast faster than
you can say “That’s Xcom Baby!” Now the most important thing to consider about
killing off characters is the tone. Specifically, how to completely ignore the
tone when it comes to killing off characters. The best approach to all story telling is
to always be tone done deaf and to make sure the tone flails about much like the central
thesis of most of my videos. Tone works best when it constantly upsets
audience expectation, much like killing off characters should. For example. We could establish the tone early by killing
off a likable character in the prologue. Then the best move would be to never kill
anyone else again. Will this make the prologue needlessly dark? Of course! That’s the point. Will this drive away the early audience members
who are after a more lighthearted story while also disappointing those later on who want
a more dark tone? Well they can all just get over it. Conversely, brutally murdering characters
later in a lighthearted story with zero foreshadowing will maximize the deaths’ emotion impact
on the audience that will in no way be directed at the author for such an ill advised move. Foreshadow and transition this tone shift
early? What needless setup. Narrative payoffs don’t need setup. Carefully considering tone is a waste of time. We all know the real reason that authors like
me kill off characters, shock value! Yeah. Nothing beats the rush of shocking your audience
with a sudden character death. The audience will never see it coming because
that would actually require the story be well built enough to grant context to the events
of the plot and actions of the characters. We can’t do that because it would rob me
of the smug satisfaction of pulling one over on the audience by making character deaths
come out of nowhere, you know, like the same place where I pull my plot twists from. And if one out of nowhere character death
shocks the audience, I bet the hundredth will be just as effective. I can’t think of a single reason why the
emotional impact of character deaths would be subject to the law of diminishing returns. Excessive character deaths work best when
the major characters all have plot armor and it’s the side characters that die all of
the time. In fact, authors should murder side characters
off constantly and then be surprised when the audience refuses to get invested in the
new replacement side characters, that I also intend to murder. With the pesky tone safely ignored, a writer
can now focus on which characters to kill off and when. While unimportant side characters may be murdered
at any time, the author should consider a little more carefully when killing off important
supporting or main characters. The best way to approach this is like a classic
villain, the writer should kill off any character who has outlived their usefulness. This means that mentors may be killed early
in the story. Oh poor mentor. I’m afraid you have dumped your last info. If in an exposition heavy story, then the
mentor may make it to the middle before being offed. Conversely, comic relief is usually useful
to keep around until the dramatic climax when comic relief is simply not needed. Usually. Though I can understand if you can’t wait. Love interests may rarely die at the end of
a story, and usually if the writer is going for a tragic end or if the writer cant think
of any other way to resolve the love triangle other than murdering one of the angles. However, more commonly love interests die
in the beginning of a story in order to give the, almost always male, protagonist a revenge
motive. In fact I highly recommend murdering off a
female love interest in a way so brutal that it will cost me ad revenue to describe in
order to motivate that male protagonist and drive his character development. Make sure to shove her corpse into a refrigerator
too. This is even more effective if her gruesome
death is presented in a titillating way. Yeah have fun with that one in today’s cultural
climate. Since we are on the subject of “things that
have mostly definitely aged well” if any token characters were added, one way of getting
rid of them so I don’t have to bother myself with the actual legwork of research and nuanced
depiction of various minority groups is to kill off said minority character first. See, minority audience members get their token
representation and I get a free character to kill off! Everyone wins! I mean if they don’t like it what are they
going to do? Get on some vast network designed for instant
worldwide communication and complain about it? Too bad for them that no so such thing exists. So I’ve murdered off the mentor, the love
interest, the comic relief, the side characters, and the token representation. How else can I inflate the story’s body
count? I guess there’s the villain but he only
dies in the series the finale or if he finds redemption. The last thing a villain should want to do
is try to find redemption. If the story ends without the redeemed villain
dying then that is going to make everything like… really awkward. I guess there’s all the villain’s minions
too, but who cares if they die? You see, that’s what it’s all about, attitude. A real author uses death on a casual whim
in order to play out this imaginary game of one-upsmanship with the audience rather than
as a calculated move based on tone, conflict, and characterization. Am I killing characters off because it’s
best for the story? No! I’m killing characters off so I won’t
have to actually flesh out their character. Having a character’s death be the natural
result of their actions is dumb when I can have the character’s death be a result of
the author’s inaction when it comes to actually considering how to handle character death. Another easy pitfall to avoid is having the
other characters dwell on a character’s death. If they must react, be sure to have them melodramatically
scream NO! And then you are basically done! No need to show any of the other stages of
grief or have it become a central part of the survivor's character development and characterization. Remember, it’s all about attitude and tone. As in the attitude towards death should always
be casual and the tone should always be all over the place. I mean it’s not like death is a heavy subject
or anything. Now what if a writer got a little too causal
with their character pruning? Well fear not, because we can always just
bring a character back from the dead! Now there are many ways to resurrect characters
but the two best are either the diet Christian approach or the instant resurrection. The first approach has a lot more fanfare
and basically resurrects a character through use of Christian symbolism. Does the work make use of any other Christian
themes or motifs? Well no, I just borrowed the one I needed. The faster method is instant resurrection
when the character dies and the story makes a big deal about it, but then the character
just comes back to life with no explanation what so ever. You know, like I just did! BOTH: Stop using my catchphrase! CONSPIRACY GUY: Hey! I was doing the whole ploty schemey thing
first. Get your own gimmick. BARON: Oh please. You ancient conspiracy types couldn’t pull
off casual Fridays, much less a sponsor heist. Why don’t you just admit defeat now and
hand over this video’s sponsor to us and save us all the trouble. CONSPIRACY GUY: I’d sooner turn in my false
flag before I gave House Bad Guys the satisfaction of knowing their first victory. BARON: Very well. I challenge you! To a plan off! BARON: Foolish Ancient Conspiracy. You think I didn’t foresee this eventually? I’m afraid your entire misadventure infiltrating
the Knights of Artistic Ineffectual was all part of my grand design. KNIGHT COMMANDER: Oh no! Reinforcements! Sir Redshirt! Hold them back! CONSPIRACY GUY: Please. I anticipated your meddling and simply let
you believe that. It turns out that your intervention has played
right into my hands. KNIGHT COMMANDER: They’re eating Sir Redshirt. And then they’re going to eat me… Oh my God! SOLDIER: My Baron, the battle seems to be
turning against the Knights. Perhaps we should... BARON: Shush. Baron Daddy’s busy putting the conspiracy
wannabe in his place. Which he is already too late to stop I’m
afraid. The wheels of my plan are already turning
and soon will bear the most delicious fruit of treachery. CONSPIRACY GUY: Your mixed metaphor is as
poorly thought out as your meager scheme for you have already fallen right into my trap! Enjoy your cross as I’ve upgraded to a double
cross. BARON: Oh yeah! Well I’ve doubled your double cross to a
quad cross that you’ll never see coming! CONSPIRACY GUY: I’ll see your quad cross
and quad your quad cross of the double cross which makes it a… um... BARON: Hang on. I’ll pull out my betrayal flow chart. CONSPIRACY GUY: No need. I wrote down my master plan using this video’s
sponsor, Campfire. Campfire is a writing software program to
help writers and more importantly, conspirators organize their notes. From character detail pages for backstories,
relationships, character arcs, and magic systems to a detailed timeline so I can keep track
of how well my foolproof plot is going with a 10 day free trial. TWA fans can go to bit.ly/CampfireProTWA3-20
or click in the link in the description below. See. Here it is, the master plan. Our ultimate goal is too… um… well that
stands for... World Integration Population. BARON: Oh I’m sure. And it mostly definitely doesn’t stand for
Work in progress. CONSPIRACY GUY: Fine. Point out one critical detail that my master
plan has forgotten? BOTH: Gah! HAND MONSTER: The endless greed comes!
The part where he brought up shock value sounds pretty accurate in regards to describing The Last Of Us Part II in a nutshell.