: Re: Weaving VERY IMPORTANT OPINIONS into a story without murdering it In Bad Webcomics Wiki, a place for reviews of bad webcomics, there's a common phrase: the "VERY IMPORTANT OPINIONS". The

@Gonzalez219

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One good way to write about Very Important Opinions is to begin in an idyllic world complying with the Very Important Opinions; but one that has been idyllic for so long that they have relaxed their vigilance, and an opportunist (psychopath, sociopath, sadist, etc) --- your villain --- realizes there is an opening to attack and destroy the idyllic world for his own self-benefit.

Begin without much explanation, but with showing the advantages this idyllic world has for various characters that aim to accomplish things. As the villain begins to assert himself (or herself) the heroes are thwarted, and the discussions they have about why they cannot do what they wanted, and why their former freedom was justified and how stupid it is for somebody to change it, are the opportunity to explain the elements of the Very Important Opinions without just engaging in long story-killing soliloquy or boring exposition.

The audience hates lectures; they are interested in the emotional fate of the heroes. Doing it this way, the heroes have something at stake, a freedom being denied them by your villain, one that is important to them and, if the audience can identify and bond with the heroes, will feel important to the audience, too.

You can have several such heroes for various aspects of the Very Important Opinions: Just tell the story primarily from the POV of the Villain fighting his war to destroy the idyllic world on many fronts, either for purely selfish reasons or because they truly believe they are doing the Right Thing.

This is an inversion of telling the story from the hero's POV, but it should not be hard to make the audience side with the people he is abusing, and make the Villain somebody the audience loves to hate.

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