How can I get readers to not become fixated on minor characters?

Well in my story, the police at the time are not aware that the victim is on the gang's side, and they assume that the house is not owned by someone hostile. Basically the woman hostage, cannot say the kidnapping was all right when the police arrive, cause she doesn't know which one of the gang was arrested yet. So she doesn't even know who she has to exonerate. She cannot name the other gang members who got away either, cause they do not want her giving the police her names. So she has to keep quiet. Plus as soon as she finds out which one was arrested and which got away, she doesn't want to make up a story as to how she knows the one and exonerated him, but at the same time, cannot tell the police, the other's names.

Because if the police catch her in a lie, when she goes into how she knows one and not the others, her words can be used against her as evidence. Where as if she remains completely silent and does not cooperate, they cannot use her own words against her as evidence, and cannot get her into any trouble since it's her right not to talk. That is what her lawyer would advise her to do, is not to talk if keep it silent so her own words cannot be used against her. I was told that by a lawyer as well, that that is what they would advise such a client to do in that case.

So the police assume she is a victim cause she is too scared to talk, and they do not know she was part of the gang. So in that case, it's not fruit of the poisonous tree cause they do not know the house is owned by someone hostile. By hostile, do you mean someone who is part of the gang?

 

Sorry, but I don't understand. You quoted me but you didn't put anything else in your post.

 

The problem with this whole scenario is this whole scenario. From beginning to end, the idea of a "staged blood-in" doesn't work. Requiring that the wildly implausible staged blood-in be wildly implausibly witnessed by a police officer and then is dealt with with a wildly implausible prosecution just makes it worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

My other post: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/how-can-i-get-readers-to-not-become-fixated-on-minor-characters.148283/page-3#post-1489538

Do you think that Fred was wise in creating a psychopathic cook who murders his therapist and buries said therapist in a community garden, JUST to get a chocolate cake into his story? Do you think that Fred's entire problem is really the question of whether a decaying body will affect the growth of a tomato? Could Fred's problem perhaps, just possibly, come earlier in his plotting?

 

Well, yes. There is really nothing in the entire plot, from beginning to end, from major to minor plot points, that is not wildly implausible. But apparently I can't stop pointing out the implausibilities.

 

I see your points. The police are more desperate to nail them, cause the gang is suspected to be the same gang who is responsible for a series of kidnappings and murders previously in the story. And their masks and costumes, look exactly the same as the ones that are used in the gang's hostage videos that the made, and broadcasted online for the world to see, previously in the story. So they have the same costumes. And the ones that got away, committed felonies in the process, such as having a getaway car, that could not be traced to them which they destroyed the evidence of, in their escape.

So the police believe that these are the same guys and they want to try to indict the one who is arrested and pressure him into cutting a deal and giving up the others. The reason why the one who is arrested does not say it was all a game, is because the police are going to ask him who the others are. He does not want to give up the others' names for the police to chew on. So he would have to take remain silent, which is lawyer advises him to.

If the fake victim that is rescued by police, her lawyer would also tell her to remain silent, so the police do not keep pressuring her into giving up the names of the others who got away.

The reason why the blood in had a fake hostage, is because when executing a blood in, the gang just wanted to see if the new recruit could pull the trigger. They did not feel the need to use a real hostage at that point, so they just got one of their own to pose as one to fool the new recruit, just to see if he was capable.

Plus the point of blood ins is to weed out possible undercover cops as well. By using a fake hostage, if the new recruit was a cop and he tried to do something to save the hostage, the hostage being a real one, means that if she escaped, she could testify. If an undercover cop saved a fake hostage then she likely wouldn't.

However, since the prosecutor is wanting to pressure the arrested gang member into testifying he still keeps pursuing the case, wanting to use the cop's testimony. He also arrests the victim with a material witness warrant in order to get her to testify at a hearing to find out what really happened and what he knows, so he knows what he has for a case, and may or may not be able to use her testimony.

This causes the gang to panic and go after her, to find out what she really told the police.

As for the cop finding out about the blood in and spotting it, he is being over-zealous, I suppose I could have the defendant complain about it being fruit of the poisonous tree. However, since the house was owned by the woman, the woman would have to complain with him since it's her house. That's what the police told me. So if the defendant does say that there was no kidnapping and nothing happened, again the police are going want to ask him the names of the others. So wouldn't just have to remain silent on the advice of his lawyer anyway?

But let's say the blood in does not make enough sense. In my story, in order to go the direction I want it to go, basically I want the victim of a kidnapping, to turn out to be on the villain's side. A kidnapping which the police discovered, not knowing who any of the kidnappers are, which means it would probably have to be discovered by accident.

Is there a better way to write the story so it produces those two pay offs, other than the blood in scenario?

As for the lawyers and police I talked to, they say fruit of the poisonous tree, only counts if the property is owned by the victim, and therefore, the defense complaining about this would not legally do any good, since the defendant was in the victim's property.

The court would have to get the victim to agree with the defendant in this case. I could write it so she does if that's better?

There is one major point though, that hasn't been touched on yet. You say the she could just tell the police that no kidnapping happened and they misunderstood, right? However, if she talks the police are going to ask her, who her friend were that resisted and ran away. She doesn't want to give up their names. So if her following the advice of her lawyer, and keeping quiet is illogical, like pointed out, what is she suppose to say when the police ask her for their names?

 

Alright, you say that the point of the blood in is to commit a crime. But why does a crime have to be committed into test someone. If the person thinks he is committing a crime, and he is going through with it, why isn't that enough? Why does an actual crime have to be committed? What's the benefit?

I know it's fiction, but in the movie In the Line of Fire for example, a gang of crooks test out a newer guy (Clint Eastwood), by having him shoot a hostage. It turns out that the gun had no live bullet in it.

The TV show 24 did the same thing. So in those situations of testing out newer guys, they criminal organizations did not feel that the new guy had to actually commit a crime to test them. Why is that? Why do they have to actually commit the crime to test them?

Also the cop does not enter the woman's property without probable cause. He hears screaming and panicking, goes to look by the front door, and look a little closer, to where it is coming from. He hears that it's coming from behind the wall. He sees a crack in one of the logs, since it's a log cabin. He looks inside the crack and sees a screaming and panicking woman with a gun pointed at her, and she is tied up and blindfolded. I was told by police that this gives probable cause and entering can be done in this scenario.

Also since it is her property, legally any probable cause complaint would have to come from her. You didn't touch on how she would have to complain at all.

 

Sorry I don't mean to argue too much but I want to touch on some root points which were not touched on that could help, I think. Well I changed so that in my story, the gang leader has other collateral on the gang members, other than the crimes they committed during the blood ins. I wrote it now, so that the leader has tapes of them committing other crimes, after the blood ins, and not the blood ins themselves now. The blood in themselves, I think should be just tests to see if the new recruits can be trusted. So after they discover they can be, then they have them commit real crimes and record them as leverage.

Okay let's forget about everything else and just concentrate on on the opening blood in itself. The point of a blood in is weed out undercover cops as well, right? At least that is what I was told. Let's say the gang actually tries to get the new recruit to kill a real hostage, and the new recruit actually was an undercover cop. If he was an undercover cop and he couldn't shoot the hostage, the gang is not just going to say, "Thanks for trying. See you later", and let him go. If they do this, the undercover cop, will just come back with back up, hoping to save the hostage.

So the gang would have no choice but to kill the undercover cop, if he refused to kill the hostage. Let's say the gang kills him then. Other cops are going to wonder how that cop disappeared, and they are going to be looking at the gang member suspects, who the undercover cop integrated with, in order to become a member and get in. So those suspects are now going to be heavily surveyed and investigated by the police if the undercover cop was last known to be with them.

The gang does not want all this heat on them. So killing a new recruit for not doing the job is not in the gang's best interest, cause he could be an undercover cop, and killing him means more heat. So this is why the gang does a fake blood in test. That way, if the undercover cop is an undercover, the gang can deny that any kidnapping or blood in took place.

Does this make sense as to why a gang would not want to kill a new recruit if he knows too much, on the count that he could be an undercover, and therefore, not want the first initial test to be a hostage?

 

But I was told on here before that the gang would not be stupid enough to do a blood in on the street cause there are too many witnesses. I was told that they would do it indoors. So what changed now? Why not use a kidnapped hostage, if it keeps the blood in from being off the street?

The gang wants to recruit new members. One has a friend, who he thinks might be good, but he has only known the friend for a few months. They always want to take precautions.

The purpose of this scene is to get things started in the MC wanting revenge for his rape. Basically the woman who was pretending to be a fake hostage, doesn't say it was all fake at first, cause she doesn't know how much the cops know and she knows she has to exonerate one of the members who was arrested. But she doesn't know who was arrested yet. So therefore, she has to wait and find out more from the police and from the gang first, as to what story to tell. Her lawyer and the gang leader just tell her to keep quiet hoping the prosecutor will not take it court without her testimony.

During this time, the MC who rescued her investigates the case and gets closer to her, to try to get her to talk about what happened, and try to get her to testify against the suspect, and keep him arrested, so they don't have to let him go. She sets her sights on the MC as her next rape target. So she pretends that to act like the innocent kidnap victim who is in danger in order to get him closer to her. She fakes a break in at her house, saying that the gang who kidnapped her must have done it. The police tell her that they cannot protect her at this time, especially since she won't cooperate as a witness, and cannot afford to give her around the clock protection.

So she goes to the MC saying she in danger and doesn't know where else to go since she is a loner with no friends or family that can help at the moment. The MC then watches her after believing the break in threat on her house to be real, and she then takes him hostage, and rapes him then.

Plus the blood in has other pay offs as well. The new recruit builds into the ending with one of his crimes being recorded and this helps find the other recordings as well. So the opening blood in, has more than one pay off that I intended.

 

Don't you love how you say something like this, then get sucked straight back into the madness?

 

Anymore, I just pull up a chair and laugh at the exchange. Honestly, I don't even read his replies. I just read yours and chickenfreak's.

 

Incompetence.

 

Yeah. @Ryan Elder, I really think that a minimum level of courtesy on your part would require you to STOP creating a new thread for every single issue, and just have these discussions on one and only one thread.

Because these discussions are maddening. A person could ignore you, but the discussions include posts by other people that they're not ignoring, so that Ignore doesn't work. If you confine the discussions to one and only one thread, then people could just ignore that thread. The people who want to discuss--and for a reason that I can't begin to comprehend, that too often includes me--would probably provide you with plenty of interaction on that thread.

 

No, because the "opening blood in" is one of the most impossibly implausible things.

 

Well does the story have to have grounding in reality? I was told before that it's okay to have a plot with outlandish events as long as you keep the story entertaining, and create suspension of disbelief.

As far as having a series of events happen before the revenge, if I have the rape happen earlier on in the story, what is going to happen for the rest of the story? The MC getting revenge on the woman is not going to take that long. Why would it take a whole story to get revenge? Then it's just a drawn out revenge sequence, that lasts a longer amount of time than it needs too. The revenge wouldn't take the whole story. Why does the majority story, have to be an act of revenge after?

Plus if I have the rape happen early on, the reader doesn't have enough time to get as emotionally invested in the main character, compared to developing him more, before the tragic event happens to him.

 

Ryan, this thread is coming up to the point where we all give up and stop responding. That usually inspires you to open a few more threads and start the whole cycle over. Please don't do that.