WRITING CULTS - Terrible Writing Advice

foreign [Music] welcome initiate welcome have you heard the good news terrible writing advice is doing a video on riding Cults there are many hurtful stereotypes and I'm going to cover them all prepare yourself initiate now let me just perform this dark sacrifice and we can get started Colts are a common villain in many works as well as a favorite antagonist of dungeon Masters and other connoisseurs of tabletop role-playing games now a writer shouldn't be afraid of riding a cult I assure you that my riding advice will all be very reasonable and positive why this video is all about improving herself giving you a higher purpose and finding a place where you truly belong I bid you welcome to our ranks acolyte now that you have completed your initiation now as an acolyte to riding Cults there are new responsibilities a writer needs to take up for the good of everyone of course don't worry these are very simple see a writer adding a cult to their work has to design the cult now I'm not going to bore everyone over definitions or play word games about what is or is an occult feel free to argue about that in the comments instead I'm going to cover a few of the more common types of Cults found in fiction Cults can take a wide variety of forms from a hooded religious Secret order to a multi-level marketing scheme many are offshoots of a mainstream religion just with a very odd interpretation of said religion and very wildly in size from small groups to immense World spanning organizations in terms of adapting this to fiction the possibilities are vast and full of creative potential potential that we are going to throw away and stick to the classic chanting hooded dudes with gnarly daggers and dark temples this stock appearance is mandated acolyte you understand right it's not unreasonable to have the cult mandate a uniform even if that uniform is the most stock kind This Hood makes them look equal parts mysterious and Sinister even if it does restrict their peripheral vision it makes them look like every other cult in fiction ever and the number of real Cults that use hooded robes is actually kind of low if we do get to see their faces then they have a mysterious runic tattoos and are probably some combination of sickly pale oozing with dark magic and or mute it with tentacles which must make their recruitment drives a bit awkward women cultists are contractually obligated to show off their cleavage remember that these cultists wear their hoods and robes all the time not just during their ornate ceremonies can't they at least hire some PR Specialists to redesign their uniforms are like the hoods bought in bulk or something don't ask questions like that acolyte free your mind from such Petty distractions why don't we instead Focus those thoughts on expanding the cult we are always looking for new members now we have our token scantily clad woman cultist of which we will have exactly one the rest is just hooded dudes for as far as the eyes can see and our soul woman cultists will never be killed by the heroes unless she was an Eldritch Abomination all along if she gets killed at all it's the Disney clip for her say hi to Gaston for me children are nowhere to be found in the cult except on the sacrificial altar see it has to be hooded dudes because we can't have our heroes Slaughter women and children cultists hooded dudes are fair game though the Heroes and or player characters are free to slaughter them all without a second thought they are just generic bad guys and not like human beings remember that people are either victims or villains never both see I'm nothing like those evil cultists who only see the world in black and white much like how no time should be spent on considering the humanity of the cultist a rider should also completely skip out on showing how the cult controls its members like how Cults isolate their members by demonizing family members outside the cult moving them to a remote compound employing massive amounts of gaslighting separating parents from their children and then turning them against each other humiliating cultists seemingly at random employing thugs to keep the other cultists in line convincing the cultists to turn over all of their finances to the cult instilling in US versus the mentality telling the cultists that the rest of the world is out to get them conditioning members to have irrational fears about leaving the cult the everlooming threat of becoming an um person to everyone in the call and thus lose all of the relationships built up there and even repeated use of slogans and phrases to discourage free thought wait this sounds like another video I did the love triangle almost forgot the love triangle what was I thinking about uh uh now don't worry acolyte you won't need to be distracted by sinful thoughts when instead all you will need is the righteous favor to win over new initiates how does our cult spread and bring in new members uh I have no idea the cult just kind of comes out of nowhere and lands in the setting without any kind of foreshadowing or Preamble other than a hearsay story from the barkeep NPC or a notice board missive it's not like the player characters or Heroes could encounter the Colts Recruiters in town and come into immediate conflict with them or have another character request that they save an indoctrinated loved one that has been inducted into the cult's ranks no the cult is always highly isolated secretive and mysterious highly isolated multi-generational Cults tend to run into problems after their third generation because the children raised in the cult are usually given an indoctrination rather than an education thus limiting their employment opportunities and by extension the cult's income because control is more important to a good number of Cults than anything else as a result a lot of Cults need a constant influx of new members along with their money in fact some Cults are basically built entirely around money rather than ending the world but I hardly see how bottomless avarice would make for a good villainous motive addressing how the call brings in new members and manages its money is an easy way to present story hooks as well to expand the World building details of the cult or I can instead just have the cult borrow the Dark Lord's post-scarcity off-screen matter generator that he uses to equip his hordes with the dark Gods provide after all what about the cult's beliefs something something child sacrifice dark Gods Ascension into the world they worship evil like literally now even real life Cults generally believe they are the good guys in fact many believe they are the world's only good guys why some Cults don't even worship a deity and instead adhere to more of a philosophy many have no real long-term objective at all other than to exert control over its members as much as possible while squandering the cult's finances on rolex's and expensive cars not fictional Cults they don't need to feel like they are made up of people just looking for meaning and a place to belong they openly worship the evil entity that wants to end the world and render existence into nothing because what else are they going to do on a breezy Sunday afternoon Mota live dogma and philosophy do they at least have a snazzy sales pitch of course not real life Cults don't rely on slick branding to cover up their ugly Dogma exploitative practices and illegal activity the cult starts evil and ends evil that way evil people will self-sort into the cult and thus free the rider from any moral complexity when the heroes in the call with a pile of corpses on the floor no need to contrast the cult's benign exterior with its Dark Inner workings like everything else in the story The Cult should also be hammered down into a single Dimension and if called out a rider could always claim that the cult is mysterious mystery is an excellent substitute for substance what about the cult's outer workings I've danced around this issue and it's important that the writer do so as well that might drag out the cult story arc if the heroes discover the cult was in cahoots with the government the entire time and running an all-access local black site resort with an all you can endure torture Buffet have the cult be a heretical religion that spun off from an already established religion in the setting that might turn things into to a complex multi-factional conflict that keeps the heroes on their toes rather than the light filler Adventure I wanted also I would have to flesh out the religion that the cult spun off from too and I don't have the dedication for that not even a lazy copy paste of the Catholic church that's as difficult as building a cult around a personality the hardest thing about riding a highly charismatic and persuasive Cult of Personality built around a character is that I would have to actually write a character and as I have stated before I have the Charisma of a moldy sock and about as Charming so writing charismatic characters is a non-starter for me instead I'll make the cult leader insane with no clue as to how he managed to amass a following hey he used dark magic or psychic powers to mind control people and for some reason decided the cult was the way to go and not just put himself in charge of the entire country remember the things that the cult leader does are insane not calculated ways the cult leader expresses their power the cult leader will monologue about how it's too late to stop the coming of the dark God or the end of the world or something don't buy father showing them interacting with their fellow cultists doing really weird things while the cultists just go along with it or have the cult leader engage in stunning levels of hypocrisy that no one questions is this to intentionally show off their power over the cultists while keeping them isolated do they wake up their cultists in the middle of the night and subject them to Long rambling drug-fueled rants nope they are just crazy not drunk off the power they hold over people Riders should avoid showing the cult leader use their Charisma and charm to lure reasonable people into a situation where they have to put up with the cult leaders every statistic whim or faced repercussions from the rest of the cult could a rider also have their cult leader indulge in the trappings of wealth and collect luxury items treasure expensive watches and cars private jets and even a fleet of cruise ships of course not I don't want to redo the loot tables plus I don't want the player characters to get that much wealth too quickly and unbalance the game remember that the cult leader is simply evil and insane and will not be able to keep up a convincing front for like five seconds also don't contrast the cult Leader's initial rise with their current descended State because it's not like cult leaders get really unhinged and become extremely dangerous when the cult is about to fall apart and they are going to lose power now that you have met the leader acolyte it's time for you to enter the inner circle now that you know the cult's secret we can deal with those pesky Heroes how will the heroes deal with the cult well obviously they will carefully plan gather intelligence and nah they'll just storm in guns of Blazing like a bunch of cowboys and hope it all wacoes out fine um I mean works out fine when the heroes storm in I'm sure the women and children will just get out of the way and not act like they are in a cult we can't have that that might Force the heroes into a compromising position and ruin the power fantasy we can't have the heroes be forced to infiltrate the cult on a rescue mission a direct attack would be more fun even if it would put bystanders at risk nor can we have the heroes find a way to take out the cult leadership through a clever Ambush because it requires too much plot to set up what if the heroes have to pretend in to join the cult in order to save a loved one who's been indoctrinated nope that would force the heroes into a tense psychological battle with the cult leader and that wouldn't work because the only notes I have on the co-leader is his name is um hang on a second cult leader it's a working title what if the cult isn't dangerous to anyone but themselves and the only way to avoid tragedy is to talk them down all these Solutions are a no-go because they undermine the whole reason of adding a cult to my story in the first place and that's because I just wanted a bunch of disposable bad guys who look creepy and can be killed without a lot of thought or fuss well also someone has to summon the Elder to Abominations we are not here to tell the cultist story we are here so the heroes can Slaughter nameless cultists The cultist Story begins and ends with a small bump in the hero's XP bar Cults are evil because only evil people join them not because they turn good otherwise unassuming people into cultists the cultist stories don't deserve to be told even as a cautionary tale denying the cultist personhood is fine because it's not like that's what Cults do and it's not like I'm missing out on good storytelling by doing so the heroes don't need fleshed out antagonist or more than a cursory glance at the plight of those trapped in the cult they need pinatas that drop random adventuring gear when broke villains are easy to deal with Heroes merely need to apply their weapon of choice and problem solved swords guns lasers and missiles can't heal victims though so better that null cult to survive rather than dealing with the messy reality of surviving a cult because most former cultists never fully recover from the trauma but must instead learn to manage it besides all those cultists are just crazy anyways not normal people who got hooked in during a moment of vulnerability I would never get drawn into a cult and I'm sure that assumption will keep me safe all the way to the sacrificial altar this is the inner what's it could use a hotel a big red one I mean assuming you own all the properties what are those things and what is that scribble on them those are TWA videos most of which do not have their ads enabled why not seems like a waste that would be because of JP's inner Integrity your rival hardly he was the inner that founded The Knights of Artistic integrity and the one who sealed the intergate which I intend to unseal but first I need to recover something foreign s back not so fast greed uh your vile plot ends now sorry I threw up a little after saying that nice Gauntlet by the way very thematically on point thank you Diane now that we no more talking no more monologues no more excuses to slide into another sponsor I am going to crush you here and now this is my expanded universe to conquer but what about this video sponsor campfire they were gracious enough to support us I don't care this isn't about money anymore this is my perk campfire is a tool that aids Riders dungeon Masters and storytellers to help them write and World build their stories and now they have a mobile version silence you're just some weird thing that doesn't belong here flesh out Maps monsters entire cultures magic systems and more link these entries together to form a web of interconnected articles and then share them with other users to create shared collaborative universes use its word processor to write an entire novel on your phone the campfire mobile app is free with no ads limits or in-app purchases write better stories Faster by going to bit.ly TWA underscore mobile link is in the description below ah you were a nice warm-up there DL at least for a silly joke like everything else JP makes I was the first I ushered in this expanded universe this place is mine I don't care you are a little side experiment this is just an ad and you were just a gimmick like all those CGI animal mascots and commercials these tiresome skits need to end to make way for some real monetization like this oh no he just monetized every video with the entire TWA expanded universe [Music] foreign

Channel: Terrible Writing Advice

Views: 285,976

Keywords: Terrible Writing Advice, writing, Bad advice, Novel, Novel writing, Writing a book, book, J.P. Beaubien, J.P.Beaubien, Terrible, JPBeaubien, JP Beaubien, Writing cults, cults, cult, writing a cult, ttrpg cult, table top villains

Id: nyL8FH3Su4M

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 10 2022