1. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    How can this character manipulate this other character?

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Ryan Elder, Oct 26, 2016.

    Basically for my story, which is a thriller set in modern times, a gang of villains are recruiting a new member, and they give him a 'blood in', which is a term used for when a gang tests a new recruit, by having him/her spill the blood of another person, or at least see if they will do it.

    The gang in my story, wants to make sure that the new recruit is not be an undercover cop. So they put him through the blood in, but they do not want to put the man in a situation where he has to harm a real hostage. The reason is, is because if he is an undercover cop, and there could be other cops nearby, they would be up on kidnapping related charges, if they had a real hostage for the new recruit to harm.

    So the gang decides to use one of it's own members, posing as a hostage, for the new recruit to pull the trigger on. But the gun will not be loaded. It will be loaded with a dummy round, that won't fire, in case the new recruit is an undercover cop. That way, if he is, and he tries to bust the gang, the hostage, will not testify against them, if she is rescued.

    During the blood in test though, a real cop is patrolling the streets, and he gets a glimpse of two of the gang members search the new recruit for weapons and a wire. He sees that the new recruits are hiding their faces with sunglasses and hats, as well, to hide their faces from the new recruit.

    After seeing that the new recruit is clean, the gang takes him to the place where they are holding one of their own members, who is posing as a hostage for the new recruit.

    The cop follows them, sneaks around to see what is going on, and spots the blood in, in progress. He stops it and manages to arrest one of the gang members, and rescue the fake hostage, thinking she is real. The other gang members as well as the new recruit, escape as the cop rescues her and arrests the one.

    Now the fake hostage and the one gang member who was caught, now have to come up with some sort of alibi to get out of the situation. They have to come up with a lie to make it appear to the court that they are two innocent people and that no crime happened. They can say that they were roleplaying, and that no one was actually going to shoot anyone, and it was all acting among themselves.

    Now the woman character here, has been kidnapping, sexually assaulting, and raping men in the story, and she sets her sights on the cop as her next target, and desires him that way.

    So in her position as to how her and the cop met, what could she do to manipulate him getting into a situation to becoming her next victim? What could she use as her position as a fake hostage that he rescued, to make him come to her, and lure him into a trap, so to speak? I am not sure how to approach this and was wondering if anyone had any ideas?

    Thank you very much for any input. I really appreciate it.
     
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  2. ShannonH

    ShannonH Senior Member Contest Winner 2023

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    [​IMG]
     
  3. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    No , Just no , stop it already ... this question has been answered several times already , consult one of your previous threads (in particular "how can i stop readers becoming fixated on minor characters" and "how can i write this seduction scenario" - though there are probably others among the 187 threads you've started about this story

    ryan.png
     
  4. Carly Berg

    Carly Berg Active Member

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    Just one possibility, maybe she follows him when he goes to a bar after work, approaches him after he's had a few drinks and flirts with him. She brings up the role play game she claimed she was playing and tells him she wants to play the same game with him, but this time she will play the "bad guy." A few drinks later and they go to his place, where she binds him with his own handcuffs as part of the "game," and then... Like that?
     
  5. Solar

    Solar Banned Contributor

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    hahaha
     
  6. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    Sorry, you're right. Some of the suggestions before are not meshing well, with the rest of the story or have holes in them, so I thought maybe I could get some more opinions on it possibly. I have rewritten a lot of and have the second and third acts finished ,and just touching up on those in the rewrites. The second and third act, are a lot better now, and I came up with some pretty good changes, combined with some of the previous suggestions on here. Thanks.

    I was told to post an excerpt before. Do you think once I polish it up, I should post the second and third act, and then maybe it will become more clear on what to do for the first act, on how to build into the rest?
     
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  7. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I doubt it.
     
  8. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Bangs head on wall in frustration , ouch that hurt,

    The point is not to take every suggestion and mesh it into the story , the point is to use the suggested ideas and explanations to inform your own writing ... also if a significant number of suggestions don't mesh with the rest of the story it could be that its the rest of the story that needs changing

    For example have you sorted out what the female gang leaders motivation for rape is yet ?

    On your second point , if you intend to publish / sell this (airborne bacon not withstanding) don't post too much of it online.
     
  9. Solar

    Solar Banned Contributor

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    - It's a bloody mesh!

    - He's just meshing with us.

    - We're not your literary meshiahs.
     
  10. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Ryan, START JUST ONE THREAD. Call it something general, like "Questions about my novel." If people want to answer you, they can answer you there. If people want to ignore you, they can much more easily ignore you there.

    Bullying people into answering you by starting thread after thread after thread after thread after threadafter thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread after thread...

    ...is bad. Just stop it.
     
  11. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Dear Ryan,

    Why in the world are you looking to have others write your story for you? Stop. Take you fingers away from the keyboard. You need to read the rest of what I say before you jump to an answer. I'm not here to remonstrate you because you aren't breaking any rules. I'm here to give some words of advice that I know no one wants to hear and as soon as the first three words are read, people take my advice off in a direction that isn't intended. Just hear me out, to the end. Please. You are never going to get anywhere with your book if you are writing it by committee. I mean, think about it: the idea of a committee dealing with an issue is the go-to cliché for an issue that never gets resolved because committees traditionally cannot ever agree on anything. It's used all the time in comedy sketches to talk about the human propensity to faff around and get nothing done, all the while looking like we're doing something.

    You may have read my take on the critique process. How the most valuable part of critiquing is giving critique, not getting it. I know in my heart of hearts that it's the truth because it's obvious and intuitive. Do I want to hear what people have to say about my story? Sure, of course I do. But that doesn't teach me to write. It's giving me a fish, not teaching me to fish. The same holds true with what you're doing here in the forum. You have started untold threads that vary one from the next in only the minutest of detail. This story you're writing is not going to end up being your story. It's going to end up being writingforum.org's story because we will have written it for you. Regardless of your impetus for this, it's not good. If you're unsure of what you're doing, this is not the way to get confident. If you're actually looking to have us write the novel for you as some sort of online social experiment, it needs to end. We never volunteered to be a study group and I won't let the forum be used that way. I won't.

    You've been a good sport about the backlash you've gotten concerning this. You've kept your temper and your cool. But it's getting to be a bit much. I'm going to start telling members to put you on ignore, something I don't like doing. So please, write your story, participate in the forum, but don't expect the forum to write your story for you. That's not going to happen.

    Sincerely,
    The Management


    ETA: As for the rest of the members, you know where the ignore button is. It really is as simple as that.
     
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  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    It occurs to me that the reason that I have trouble ignoring these threads isn't all the other issues, like the implausible plot or the refusal to hear any of the answers. My problem is that I see the whole story as treating rape as a understandable and expected result of ordinary frustrations. That seems to be a core idea in almost every fictional work that Ryan has ever proposed. It's the tree; everything else is the decoration. And it's really a struggle for me to let that go unchallenged.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2016
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  13. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I do and I will , but it worth noting that I came into Ryan's threads originally looking to help him , as I approach every thread I contribute too, however it has proven very hard to help someone who doesn't listen to any contrary advice he's given, doesn't look into any resource that's recommended and misconstrues everything he is told.

    I will now take your advice/instruction and leave Ryan's threads for good, but I hate having to use the ignore function as it feels like an admission of failure.
     
  14. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    The problem with using the "ignore" button is that the front page still gets filled with posts from "ignored user". It also doesn't address the problem of new members (which I was when I got sucked into this vortex) not knowing what they're getting into, thus continuing to feed into Ryan's little game.

    That having been said, see you never, Mr. Elder.
     
  15. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    Sorry I didn't mean for the story to be portrayed that way. I have only dealt with the subject of rape in the one fictional work, not any others. It's the villains who feel that way in the story, bu that's not the story's theme or message. The story is very anti-rape, as the rapists get loose in the end, with the victims coming out on top so to speak. So I intended it to be a very anti-rape story, as the whole theme of the story is against the villains' goals.
     
  16. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Ryan, I know my problem with most of your threads is that you're asking other people to solve your story problems for you. I agree with @Wreybies that you are always polite and keep your cool. But that doesn't change what you're doing. As soon as you come to a place where you need to make some kind of choice about your plot, your character ...anything...you ask us.

    How can one character manipulate another? That's for you to figure out.

    After your story is finished, then if you have doubts, put a chapter in the Workshop for critique and we'll let you know if it works for us. But don't ask us beforehand what we think your characters should do. We ask ourselves these questions about our own characters all the time, and then make a decision. You need to do the same.

    It's not us being mean. It's us trying to get you to write your own story. If you need to do research in order to figure out what is believable ...do research. The online world is open to you.

    Flip a coin, if you really can't decide. But that decision must be yours. And so must the questions leading up to the decision. It's your story, from start to finish. If you're not ready to make a decision, take as much time as you need to think about it, play around with it, figure out different ways your various decisions could go. But don't dump the problem on us. That's really not fair, either to you or to us.

    Good luck. I'm sure you can do this on your own. And think how great it will feel, to know you DID IT! Without help. No better feeling in a writer's world.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2016
  17. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    It's possible that at some level you honestly believe that the premise of your story (the ludicrous idea that someone can become a psychopathic murdering rapist "because" they didn't get sex on demand, and for no other reason) doesn't strive to make rape look logical and inevitable. That doesn't change the facts.
     
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  18. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    Well I could still change the motivation of the villains, as to why they are doing it. I have been concentrating so much on writing the forensic/legal technical parts of the story and getting those rights, that I guess I could concentrate on the villains reasons for doing it more and change that still.

    Basically I have done a lot of research and have asked cops and lawyers a lot of questions but they all disagree with each other and all interpret the law differently. When it disagreement, they referred to law books, and law articles. But the articles themselves are so open to interpretation, that there is no absolution, which is what is causing the disagreement and different interpretations.
     
  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    You say you could change it, but you never do. Your plot always centers on someone who commits rape "because" they don't get sex on demand. Always.
     
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  20. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    I don't remember a lot of the details, I haven't looked at your threads in a long time, but I think what @ChickenFreak is getting at – though please correct me ChickenFreak if it isn't – is that it's OK for a rapist character to think that s/he is entitled to commit rape because s/he can't "get action" consensually, but as with any villainous motivation, you have to make it clear in the rest of the narrative that the villain is wrong that their justifications are valid. Have you done this with your villains?

    The villain protagonist of the story in my signature is a vigilante serial killer. Her motivation is one that many people in the real world would think makes her a hero for only torturing Bad Guys™ to death and no innocents – just as I'm sure that many people in the real world wouldn't see a problem with your villains' "desperation-rape" – but I still showed how the rest of my characters recognized that there was something wrong with her for going to a level of bloodthirsty sociopathic violence that nobody in their right mind would go to. Have you done this with your villains?

    I'm an asexual/aromantic virgin, but even if I was straight/gay/bi/..., I still wouldn't be a rapist. Beating someone with a baseball bat is not a sports crime, burning someone in hydrofluoric acid is not a science crime, and rape is not a sex crime. These are violent crimes, and a lack of sexual opportunity doesn't inspire a person to commit violence for the sake of sexual gratification unless you're already dealing with an unusually violent person. The operative words here being "unusually" and "violent." Have you done this with your villains?
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2016
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  21. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    Well the reason why I haven't changed her motivation yet, is because I have been concentrating on improving other areas, of the story, where people said there were problems with the legal technicality parts of the plot. But I could change her motivation. I haven't found a motivation for her raping that people on here liked though, with the suggestions from before. So I will have to come up with a motivation for rape that is more acceptable to the reader then.

    I haven't gotten completely into her background yet, since I am not sure what her background should be to her motivations.

    Basically the original reason why she resorts to rape, is because after being rejected by men for so long she feels persecuted unfairly, and she wants to avenge her persecution by sending a message, and she feels that doing that will get the message across. But if that motive is not good enough, I can come up with others. I have been concentrating on other characters and other parts of the plot and concentrating on fixing those at the moment, other than the villain's reason for why she is doing what she is doing.

    A couple of readers suggested to me that I should portray her as a mystery character like the way The Joker was portrayed in The Dark Knight, and not have her motivations be explained. Just have her be evil for the mysterious sake of being evil, and not have an actual specific background explanation. Do you think I should do that way, and just have that type of villain that is mysteriously evil, but with not background story? A lot of James Bond villains are like that as well, where they want to take over the world, but you don't really know what in their backgrounds made them that way, like Dr. No for example. Would that be a better approach, like a couple have suggested?

    As for the legal research, I could come up with a way to get from Point A to point C, but haven't found any scenario where this happened in real life. Not that it couldn't happen, I just haven't found a case similar enough to mine, to know what would or could legally happen. I guess I could just make things up for the same of drama, and try the suspension of disbelief intent, if that's better.
     
    Last edited: Oct 29, 2016
  22. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    The thing about Dr. No is that the narrative didn't agree with him. It's OK for your villain to think that her motivation is "I can't get any action consensually, so I'm going to take it by violence," just show that she's wrong in some way.

    The Great Course I'm taking on Creative Writing calls it "double consciousness" when you show the character's POV in such a way as to counter it through the author's POV. The instructor uses Huck Finn as an example:

    When he asks himself why he should care about stories about dead people, the audience is supposed to interpret his reaction to a Biblical story of Moses as being a character quirk rather than an objective observation about the world. Can you do a villainous example of the same thing?
     
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  23. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    Oh ya, for sure, I do not want the narrative to agree with her. In the end the main character rape victim succeeds in winning against her, but is that not enough?
     
  24. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The fact that you cling to the utterly nonsensical idea that not getting sex on demand is capable of turning a person into a psychopathic rapist and murderer, with NO OTHER REASON for that person turning into an inhuman monster, means that, no, of course it's not enough.
     
  25. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    Well then I can change her motivation to rape. That's an easy fix. Right now I am concentrating on the more difficult parts of the plot, such as the legal technicality parts, which is the parts that have been keeping me from finishing the majority of the unfinished sections.

    Mainly the part I was having the most trouble with, was that people were saying the case would not make it to a preliminary hearing in court, and would be thrown out before. The reason why thought a preliminary hearing would be best for the plot is that since they are public, all the key characters have a reason to be in the room, including the villains.

    If I change it to a non-public setting, and have all the characters discover the case in smaller, more private rooms, the key characters dot not have a reason to all be in the same place, at the same time. That's the trickiest part of the story is all having them in the same room, for the drama to work.
     

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