GENERAL: This video is sponsored by Campfire,
and victory! I don’t know about you, but I could sure
go for a power fantasy right about now. Power fantasy is one of the greatest parts
of story telling. In fact, power fantasy is one of the few tropes
to rival even the mighty love triangle. Especially in terms of the number of stories
ruined by it. But that won’t happen to me because a real
writer wouldn’t be so weak. Follow my power fantasy guide and you’ll
be churning out the best stories and you wont even have to do 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups,
and 100 squats and a 10 Kilometer run! Every! Single! Day! So let’s rip and tear our way into a lesson
on how to power level the power level of our power fantasy! But what is power fantasy? Power fantasy is when a character, usually
intended to be the audience’s surrogate, is empowered, very often excessively so, and
is considered a type of wish fulfillment. It usually doesn’t have clear definition
and has a lot of negative connotations to the point of often being a criticism. It’s also the bread and butter of the vast
majority of American entertainment. A character who gets a bunch of super powers
and saves the world is a power fantasy. So is a serial killer protagonist who murders
his way through a secret cabal of other serial killers. It can even be something like a kid from the
slums becoming the CEO of a powerful corporation or a young girl that stops a war by herself. Power fantasy can be incredibly broad. Yet like any trope worth adding to a story,
Terrible Writing Advice will always champion adding it in excess! The best way to add a power fantasy is to
over power the story with the unlimited power of our flawless main character. Power fantasy is good for catharsis. Building up the tension and then releasing
that tension through strategically placed power fantasy can create truly awesome moments. All it requires is just a bit of patience. Yeah. I can manage that. No problem. Just gotta wait. Yep. Can’t let my protagonist be awesome just
yet… NO! I can’t stand it anymore! I must unleash my over powered protagonist! YEAH! IDDQD and IDKFA! That’s how you do it! Just let your protagonist rampage through
the story on god mode! If having the character effortlessly beat
up villains is awesome in one scene, then having every scene be that will surely make
the entire story awesome. This will make the story about as exciting
watching a steamroller flatten pavement, but that is a small price to pay so I can indulge
in my personal power fantasy. Making power fantasy personal is the best
way to go about implementing it. It will look a bit odd when the superhero
protagonist sidetracks the middle of the story to beat up a random English professor who
gave me… um I mean our hero, a C- on a paper that was totally an A+ essay you withered
tenured fossil! But that will just make the hero relatable! Indulging in petty personal vendettas with
disproportionate punishments against specific individuals is something that we can all relate
to. That’s what heroism is after all, using
power for personal advancement and to get even over perceived slights. Only losers stick to the moral high ground. True heroes abuse their power at every opportunity. The key to making this work is to make sure
that the story always sides with the character’s abuse of power by never suggesting that they
are in the wrong or even worse, by taking a neutral tone and letting the audience decide
for themselves. While power fantasy can be indulged and explored
with an amoral character, at this point I’ve projected myself too much onto them so I’ll
just have the story say they are the good guy even while they brutally murder thinly
veiled caricatures of my book’s critics. I just can’t see how this can make my all
powerful character unrelatable? Some writers suggest that characters exist
on a spectrum of supermen to every-men, with the every-man being more easily relatable
and supermen being less relatable. The vulnerabilities and flaws of the every-man
make them easier to identify with given their more mundane problems and outlook. After all, it can hard to identify with a
perfect superman like being. Too bad this is completely wrong. I know this is wrong because I am perfect
in all ways, on top of being the single most humble person on the planet, and I relate
perfectly with myself. Yes we could make the everyman transition
to the superman by actually having them earn those powers. Having power come at a high cost or with significant
investment has the potential to balance the power fantasy aspects somewhat. After all, with great power comes great references
to that one Spider Man movie. But we’re not here to explore the nuances
and perils of balancing power with personal responsibility, we’re here to indulge. The last thing I want is to waste time on
being responsible for all of that awesome power. That gets in the way of the fantasy part of
the power fantasy. It’s the same issue with having a character
train to earn their powers. Uh oh. We just stumbled into a training arc! Silly Terrible Writing Advice. This isn’t an anime video. In the good old US of A stories, we just hand
our super powers over to the main character for free! Using a training arc to establish the limitations
and rules of their power? Explore characterization through the hardship
of their training regimen? Nah. Just have the character ace the training with
ease, turning a prime opportunity to explore new conflicts, establish a rules system for
their powers, and challenge characters with creative problem solving into yet another
way for the story to gratify the main character and by extension me! I just want easy victories and nothing else. The story’s tension will get one shot murdered
just like the main antagonist in the final chapter. Yes for the audience it will be as unsatisfying
as unlocking a video game achievement for beating the tutorial, but for me I’m far
too high on the power fantasy to notice. Endless victory is the most desirable outcome
for a heavy power fantasy character no matter how much conflict it resolves in a way that
denies future conflict. Don’t bother strategically using heavy power
fantasy as the key aspect of the story’s central premise. That would never work. Nor would showing the pitfalls of unchecked
power and ambition. Even worse, contextualizing the power fantasy
through a mythological lens. Such justifications are not needed just like
those pesky themes and any characterization beyond a character using their power. Power fantasy is all about balance, specifically
tipping the balance overwhelmingly in power fantasy's favor. If a story is like a cake, then power fantasy
could be thought of as the icing, and the best cakes are basically all icing and no
cake. Just indulge in writing power fantasy like
one indulges in binge eating sweats. One can never have too much of a good thing
and power fantasy should always be regarded as a good thing and not as a tool that the
writer can use in certain situations. It’s important to remember that power fantasy
cannot be used to explore the relationships and dynamics of power and how humans wield
it as well as how that relates to the human condition. The story must either have endless power fantasy
or deeper themes combined with more nuanced characterization, never both. All stories must be either brainless action
romps or joyless grim exercises in pseudo-intellectual snobbery that disdains all forms of escapism. I mean why would people want to escape reality
right now? But, hey, don’t worry too much about it. You know what they say. Absolute power fantasy sells absolutely. GENERAL: Oh great. The hipster knights return. I can’t stand people like you. The only bleeding heart I want to see is the
broken entrails of my enemies. Those make excellent grease for tank treads
by the way. KNIGHT COMMANDER: Uh. No. I just want you to stop selling out and taking
sponsorships. GENERAL: You can have my bloated defense spending
when you pry it from my cold dead chainsaw hand. Soldier, I order you to open fire and destroy
this man. At long last I will finally have a real battle! SOLDIER: Sorry, general. Ammunition budget was the first to go. GENERAL: Okay. Fine! Call in an airstrike! SOLDIER: The Senate Appropriation Committee
appropriated the Air Force budget. GENERAL: Armor column, advance! SOLDIER: Fuel funds got slashed in favor of
healthcare subsidies. GENERAL: Order an orbital bombardment from
our battleships! SOLDIER: Stuck in drydock. Farmer bailouts. GENERAL: Farming bailouts? Farmers don’t do anything essential! Whatever. Throw a rock at him or something! SOLDIER: Yes, sir! I think I can... no wait. Rock funding is gone so Congress can have
a new jacuzzi wing in the Senate building. GENERAL: No! I won’t accept this! I was promised a Sponsorship War! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Killkillkillkilkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk KNIGHT COMMANDER: Is he okay? SOLDIER: Looks like the IT department got
downsized too. GENERAL: Care Bear Stare! What was I saying? It doesn’t matter because this time we have
a secret weapon. This video’s sponsor, Campfire! Campfire is a writing software tool used for
help writers keep organized with timelines for visualizing the plot’s flow as well
as character detail pages for backstories, relationships, and even entire character arcs. However, we’ve been using Campfire’s new
and comprehensive world building pack to fill out extensive intelligence profiles on our
many rivals in the TWA expanded universe from their language, cultures, ecosystems, and
even magic systems. Campfire Pro is free to use until the end
of April, but is normally a one-time purchase of $49.99. The Worldbuilding Pack is 40% off at only
$14.99 until the end of April 2020. Subscription free. TWA fans can go to bit.ly/CampfireProTWA2
or click in the link in the description below. Wait. Where do Sir Socialist go? SOLDIER: He took the Sponsor and left. GENERAL: And you didn’t try to stop him? SOLDIER: No animation budget.
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of course he isnt talking about Rey the Perfect One, he must be talking about that overpowered Love Triangle Man who gets his powers by standing still (or moving (or breathing....))
I remember watching this guys Mary sue writing video and the entire comment section was people making fun of rey.
The bit with the THEMES and eighth grade book reports can't be a coincidence here.