The collected musings of Ryan Elder

For my story, the MC is a cop, who becomes obsessed with catching the villains after the villains victimize too many people, including the MC himself.

The MC has a suspect, who got off for lack of evidence, and the police do not have enough evidence to get legal authorization to investigate further. The suspect is also laying low after. He knows the police are onto him now, and does not want to make contact with the rest of the gang, which could expose who the rest are, which the police do not know.

So obsessed with finding out the truth, and who is behind everything, the MC gets into the suspect's lawyer's records and case file, to find out who hired the lawyer. The MC believes that the suspect was not wealthy enough to afford the team of lawyers, himself, so he gets into the main lawyers records illegally.

He does this by either blackmailing an ex computer hacker crook, he knows on parole, or he steals a key card and uses it to illegally enter the law firm and get the file.

After finding out who paid the lawyer, a much wealthier and more connected man, the MC believes this to be the villain behind everything most likely.

So the MC tails him around on his own time for days. One day, the new suspect he is tailing shoots another character to death, or kills him some other way. The MC cannot stop it in time, but he knows now that should he choose to go after the villain and arrest him, that legally it will be fruit of the poisonous tree, and the MC witnessing the murder, would not be admissible in court.

I researched this while writing a story by talking to a lawyer, and he said that a cop cannot a witness to a crime, if he was as a result of breaking the suspect's fourth amendment rights, in the case himself. In this case, the cop, broke into private records to obtain the name of the person, he was following, which is breaking the fourth amendment a cop, and therefore, his testimony cannot be used.

So the cop has three choices:

1. He can choose to go after the villain and attempt to arrest him, even though his testimony will not be allowed. He will have to hope that the court can find enough physical evidence that the suspect committed a crime, and rely on the physical evidence alone, without his testimony.

2. He knows that if he arrests the villain it will do no good and get him taken off the case, if the police find out that he violated the villains'fourth amendment rights, so he can say screw it, and let the villain go, and hope that the police find other physical evidence at the crime scene to catch him later.

3. He can attempt to shoot the villain to death himself, and try to make it look like justifiable homicide, since he cannot make an arrest that will stick cause of what he has done.

It's kind of like how in the movie Seven:

SPOILER

The two main cops, broke the suspect's fourth amendment rights, in order to find out his identity and where he lived. They then go knock on his door to talk to him and the villain opens fire on the cops and runs away. The two cops choose to go after him but even if they caught the villain, they would not be able to be witnesses against him in court later, and would have to rely on the physical evidence.

In my MC's case what would he do? Would he attempt to shoot back if the villain resisted arrest and ran away, just after shooting a man to death?

If so, the MC would have to wipe out him being there at the crime scene. For my story, the MC does not want to be a permanently tainted witness, cause then he will not be able to legally participate in the case for the rest of the story, and will not be able to catch the villain at all, in a way that will stand up in court.

So then the story would be over, if the MC were to report what happened. So the MC can either lie, and say he was at the scene for entirely different reasons. But lies are really easy to get caught in and it's going to result in questions after questions, checking out the story several times, etc.

Or the MC can erase that he was there physically and not tell the police, but instead plant evidence and frame the suspect. But this means that the MC would have to wipe out the physical evidence, of him shooting at the villain to stop him from getting away. He would have to go find the fired bullets and get rid of them, or at least hope that the police do not check his gun, ever. But of course since the police already know he holds a grudge against the villain, they may ask him to have his gun checked as a formality, if they believe this killer to be of the same group that they know the MC has a grudge against.

What do you think? Would he wipe out the physical evidence of him being there, so he can frame the suspect instead? And if so, is that possible to do before any other back up arrives, if anyone heard the shots fired?

 

@Ryan Elder, you've got 169 threads started on this same story.

It's your story, only you can tell what your character would do. You can't focus-group every single line, word, and punctuation mark in a story, at some point you need to sit down and put your stamp on it.

Every story, even the ones in the history books, has something in it that someone has regarded as implausible, inaccurate, or downright ridiculous.

Unplug your internet for a bit (many great writers have dedicated computers that aren't connected), sit down, and write what you want to write without checking to see what percentage of the people who read your posts agree or not, you're never going to get anywhere otherwise.

 

And you're sure that him faking a kidnapping to make it look like self-defense instead of premeditated wouldn't work?

 

You mean fake his own kidnapping?

 

It wouldn't have to be long and involved, he could just call for backup after killing the villain and claim "I was kidnapped"

 

Oh okay. I have the ending written out in an outline, but I am not yet sure how to get there. I wrote it so that the MC finds evidence on the villain, and then he sets up a trap for other police to find the evidence, but also for the villains to all arrive there too. Therefore the police can catch the villains there with evidence, and he joins in when a battle ensues and acts like he was just called for back up.

But I was told by someone else who read it that this is redundant, and he might as well just get the villains trapped in the same place, all at the same time and kill them all. But the only way I can think of to get all the villains all in the same place at the same time, was to get them to all meet up to stop the police from getting evidence. That is the villains reason for all being in the same place at the same time.

So if that is the reason that the MC can come up with to make it happen, should he just rely on the evidence to be found by the police anyway, and faking a kidnapping is not necessary?

 

Oh that could absolutely work too

 

For my story, it's about a man who is raped by a serial rapist woman who is on the loose, doing it to others as well.

I want for the man, the MC, to have his gf find out that another woman raped him but I thought she would react the wrong way, and have the wrong feelings about it, thereby ruining the MC's relationship, thereby causing him to want revenge even more. Perhaps the relationship gets repaired later in the story, but I haven't decided that yet.

I was thinking of ways she could find out he was raped. My first way was to have him be taken hostage, tied to the bed, and raped at his house. Then she would come in see him there, but think the sex was consensual, and that he was cheating on her with some rough bondage type looking situation. She would then storm out mad, not realizing he was kidnapped and being raped.

This would cause him to be furious with her, and put more conflict within him. However, I was told by a couple of readers, that this comes off as a cliche or a trope, cause there have been countless stories, where a woman will walk in on a man and another woman, and mistaken it for something that it is not.

It is true, that has been done many times, and I even called out that cliched while watching a movie with a friend once, so maybe I have to put to acknowledge the cliche myself now, so to speak. Should she find out a different way, later, where he would tell her, or maybe the rapist would tell her?

Or would she not react in a way, that would cause conflict, if she loves him, and would care if she found out, or saw such a thing. What do you think?

 

Here's what you do:

He was cheating on her before, but he stopped. She knew, but they worked through it. Now she comes in, and she sees the signs again, and has more than enough reason to not believe him. Sure hes angry at her, but hes even more angry at himself for giving her a reason to not believe him.

 

Oh okay. You think that he really needs this prior history for this to work then?

 

This is just one way of thousands to make this work.

You could have the guy start sweet talking his rapist, in an attempt to get her to let him loose, and his GF hear him. He could even be a recovering sex addict, whatever you want to move the story forward.

 

Okay thanks. I think a lot of it will have to do with how the gf finds out though. Is her walking in a cliched that should be avoided? Cause if so, that can determine their background. Or should I come up with the character background first, before the pay off?

 

If the girlfriend walks it, she'd have to leave very, very quickly to misunderstand what's going on. Unless he's gagged in some way. If he saw her (or anyone) during the rape, wouldn't he yell for help? There's also the fact that a woman would pretty much has to be on top in order to rape a man. If it didn't look like rape to someone walking in, it would look like rough sex with the woman taking the dominant role. Is this something the girlfriend wouldn't think twice about seeing, or would it strike her as odd (even if she realizes it an hour later or something).

 

Well I wrote it so that he was too speechless and traumatized to ask for help. But I was told that it makes the innocent gf look stupid for mistaking such a thing. So if that's true, I could have her find out after, like him telling her or something, and her not walking in.

Or maybe she can just come home and hear the rapist orgasming while he is gagged and mistakens his noises for consensual rough sex noises, and then leave, and then she can confront him on it later.

 

Of the two options you just gave, I see the second as more plausable and workable. This avoids the issue of the reader expecting him to/wishing he would call out to her. If she hears what she thinks is consensual sex, but he never knows she was there, you are covered.

I am personally drawn to the idea of having the rapist tell the girlfriend (seems very villain-y) , but I haven't read your characters. I suppose it depends on whether you have more interest in another level of twisted pleasure for your villain, or are looking for the emotional journey it would take for him to bring himself to tell her what really happened (bringing it up himself). If he really is so traumatized he can't talk about it, I see all the right doors opening to kill all your birds, so to speak:
Man raped -> Girlfriend overhears what she assumes is a betrayal -> Rapist deepens her victimization of this man by gloating of the rape to Girlfriend, perhaps thinking she is tearing them apart, when really she is opening Girlfriend's eyes -> Girlfriend asks Victim about what Rapist has told her, thus opening the door for them to communicate about it (I don't see this as a plot killer, or a premature climax, if done right. Just because Girlfriend knows, doesn't mean this fixes anything, or diminishes his need for revenge. Maybe she doesn't know how to react without pity, and he can't stand that... and so the rift between them deepens? Just spitballing.)

Over all, I am hooked on this plot, just from the few things I read in your threads. Would love to read it.

 

Oh okay thanks. Well the MC is not necessarily too ashamed to tell her what happened. But he is not wanting to tell the police. The MC is a cop as well, who is on the trail of a serial rapist/killer, type villain, not knowing who it is though. As he gets closer in the investigation, he becomes the rapist's next victim.

And the rapist has taken precautions to get away with the crime, such as eliminating the DNA evidence, and all that, or at least making it look like it wasn't rape. Haven't fully planned out how she gets away with it yet per say. But once she has taken steps to eliminate the evidence, the cop can do two things:

1. He can tell his superiors that he was raped, and therefore he knows who the rapist is that they have been tracking after. However, if he does this, he does not know for sure, if the police will be able to charge her with raping him, since she has gotten rid of a lot of the evidence, and the other victims do not have much evidence to go on as well. Would a cop's word against her be enough to charge her with rape?

2. If the cop reports her crime against him, then he will be taken off the case, and re-assigned. He will have no control over what happens. So I thought he could not report it and still stay on the case, and get revenge on her somehow, by planting evidence or framing her, perhaps even killing her and making it look like self defense while investigating, etc. This gives the cop more control, over a more possible final outcome, but maybe reporting the rape to begin with gets more guaranteed results, instead of the cop having to stay on the case, but having to do illegal things to reach the goal.

What do you think? I asked the same question to some others and they said they felt that the character would be illogical and counter-productive for not reporting it.

 

1. A cop's word good enough to charge her? Possible. Good enough to convict? Iffy. I see the defense going to all sorts of lengths to discredit the cop, and unless you have written him as positively squeaky clean (how one dementional is that ), I see reasonable doubt all over the place. If she does her work well enough, the evidence might even look like he raped her, and add that to the stigma attached to a woman-on-man rape (convincing a jury it happened, to a cop no less-a person they would much rather believe is invincible), I see the possibility of her walking. Yes, it logically follows that he would tell the other cops who it was, and possibly even how it knows it was her (in the interest of not being illogical and counter-productive), HOWEVER

2. Unless he reports this only to his uber-loyal partner who agrees to keep it on the DL until they have nabbed her (or...a superior with a similar relationship to him) then realistically, yes, he would be taken off the case. So unless you see him working to bring her down outside of the law (which, to be fair, may actually free him up to a few senarios he wouldn't have while on the case), I would arrange it so that he only tells someone who will help him without ratting him out up the ladder. This keeps him from being counter-productive, and allows him to still work on the case. (Maybe they have better evidence against her on another victim anyway- an epiphany reached because of something she did while raping him, remembered later, and suddenly he sees how to bring her down.)

Also, it comes to mind that a lot depends on how he handles himself during the rape. Is he 1) trying everything he can to get away, but fails, and resolves to endure the rape as bad sex while concentrating on the details in order to catch her later? A very copish thing to do, and I would guess, much more plausible for a sexually active adult male police detective than someone of another description. Or 2) So seriously creeped out by this wench that he is really messed up by the encounter, resulting in guilt, shame, the works (running deeper than professional embarrassment). If your answer is 2, then I would say is it very plausible he would react in an illogical, and possibly counter-productive manner, if only because his emotions dictate it.

 

Another option is that she could drug him.

 

Okay thanks. I thought about her drugging him but if she wants to get away with the crime, she would be throwing him a bone, by drugging him cause he can just get tested for drugs after the rape, in order to help support his accusation against her. So would drugging him be throwing him too much of a bone, if she is to lie and say it was consensual sex, or lie and say he raped her?

The way I have it written is that after she hides a lot of the evidence, she then goes to the police first, and tells the police that the MC threatened, saying he was going to frame her for being the serial rapist, he was chasing unless she ends up helping him on the case, for another reason. So then later when he comes to rebut her accusation, the cops do not know who to believe. Does that work?

As for the two options on how the cop would react afterward, I would say mine is more like #1, but I could make it the #2 one as well, if that's better. Perhaps it could start out as #1, but then become #2 after she accuses him of threatening to frame her.

If he is taken off the case though, and has to get her outside the law, I still want him to be part of the action. Like if he is to frame her, for revenge as an example, he would need access to the case still for how I wrote it. Basically I wrote it so that he frames her and gets other police to come after her, but I don't want him to sit at home, hoping that it all goes well. I want him to be part of the action too. The police can call for back up to go get her, and he can pretend to be responding as back up. But if he has been removed from the case, because he was raped, then him pretending to be back up, happening to be close by, in the right place, at the right time, looks suspicious too his plan if he was taken off.

I was told by a cop that this could be a huge legal conflict of interest problem, with suspicion alone. So if that is the truth, then should he still make the decision to say she raped him, and be taken off?

As for the MC's girlfriend I still cannot decide if she should overhear things and get the wrong impression, or if she should find out from the rapist, or if she he should tell her himself.

 

How smart is she supposed to be? If she's smart, then yes, it would be throwing her a bone. But lots of rapists drug their victims, and they tend to not think about the testing part.

 

a skywriter

 

But since the MC is a cop, the idea of him getting test would occur to him, wouldn't it?

 

I feel like drugging him is a bit cliche, and it does seem sloppy on her part. I wouldn't got that route, for all of the reasons you mentioned.

As to how he handles himself during and afterwards, I would say that depends on him. If you want him to come across as tough, self-aware and in control, even when he isnt, then option 1. If you want him to feel like deeply violated victim, the option 2. Some blend of the two, of course, would be very readable, and more realistic, i.e.

If you are really seeing him staying in the action, the I would keep it simple. Find a believable way to create a realationship with a cop character he can tell, but who will agree not to tell the people who would take him off the case. (Brother or former partner is his cheif? Current partner will help, but won't tell?) This is doable, so long as they connect the dots with the evidence in order to nail her coffin in the end. If they can get her on the other rapes, the law would never have to know that HE was raped, and this would solve your conflict of interest issue.

As for the girlfriend, I would definatley have the rapist tell her what happened. Any form of walking in on the act is going to feel a tad cliche, to some extent. And, depending on your male charater, maybe he should tell her. One or the other.

 

Yep that is what I was thinking, get her on something else. If the gf walking in comes off as too much of a cliche than I won't use it. Thanks.

As for how the MC gets her, I have two options so far:

1. I already wrote it so that he tells another cop, and that cop starts to go out of his way to poke his nose further to see what he can find. The cop gets killed when getting too close, but there is no proof to link her to his murder either.

So the MC decides to plant evidence and frame her for the murder, even though she got away with it. He also frames her in a way that makes her look real bad, and this causes other cops who are friends of the dead cops to come after her out of revenge, to plant more evidence on her to get a warrant for an arrest. But when those same cops come to arrest her, they decide to kill her out of revenge and make it look like self defense, in case the planted evidence does not hold up. If she survives the attempted killing by any chance, than they can still use the planted evidence. But the planted evidence, is there to give the cops a reason to arrest her, so they can kill her and make it look like they legally had a reason to be there.

2. The cop who decides to poke his nose on his own, as a means to find justice for the MC's rape, does not get killed and lives, but he decides to work with the MC and either fake his death, or fake that the villain kidnapped him, and is holding him somewhere as a means to get the other cops to come and find him. Or he can fake his death for the other cops to avenge him, and that is his and the MC's plan. But would other cops avenge an officers death, if they make it look like he was killed by the villain, but there was no body, even if the evidence they plant to make it look like she killed him was still strong? Then when the cops avenge the fallen officer, and kill the villain, the fallen officer pretends to be kidnapped by her, and pretends to have escaped, but not before the other cops kill her, which would be part of his and the MC's plan.

I guess that's technically three options, but which one do you think is the best way to go for the MC? Should the other cop die, or live and work with the MC?

 

I like the idea of him living, and working with the MC. I also like the idea of faking a kidnapping... seems plausible and original. Faking a death and planting evidence with no body would be a stretch. Not that you couldn't do it, but it would be touchy. Your premise of the woman-on-man rape is very original and enticing! I feel like a fake kidnapping with a web of lies and teamwork to entrap her would be a nice follow-up, and ultimately a nice arch- to the rape. There are SO many cop dramas out there, with cops dying, avenging eachother, etc.

One thing that occurs to me is a secondary mini-arch of the friendship between your MC and your other helper-cop. If they actually didn't get along at first-pick your controversy here- but then the other cop finds out by accident that the MC was raped, and then they have to come together as allies, and eventually friends, to solve the case...