@Ryan Elder - You are still approaching the plot from the wrong angle. You have put the cart before the horse and are only later on trying to describe how an end-result can be reached. This is why you are struggling, you know what you want - but not how to arrive at the situation in a compelling way. You have plotted out the story, but the "details" of how to arrive at the result is constantly getting in the way of your writing. If one branch of thought does not work, then look for a new way to explain it. Do not lock yourself into a single set of circumstances. That is boxing yourself in and it makes writing very unpleasant.
Inks I don't know that I fully agree with you on this. How often has a power failure occurred and you realize that the opportunity to commit crime during the failure is greatly enhanced so some ideas pop into your (author) head. We don't know just how Ryan is working in the power failure into his plot but it might be a very critical element so he was looking for some help for his antagonist. Another thought for Ryan might be the use of GFCI breakers which are extremely sensitive to power flow. I have had some old power tools that would trip a GFCI breaker even though they seem to work just fine otherwise. If all you need is for a particular room or section of the house to go dark then the antagonist might plug in a device known to trip a GFCI breaker that serves that section of lighting, who turns on the device could be anyone. Many cheap two way switches, such as for stairway lighting, can cause a small short to ground when operated which would trip a GFCI, even on the power off action. Having a GFCI breaker on your particular circuit would take some planning along with the faulty device.
Is not the villain trying to cut the power to his own house and keep it off for at least half a day? If it was as simple as popping a breaker, then by all means that is easy as pie. We cannot run the microwave and anything else on one circuit - like say the Keurig machine or a toaster - without popping it. However, Ryan mentioned this and it was specifically denied as a possible option. Whatever the need is, the villain is under surveillance so it needs to be something that does not seem to be directly caused by his own work. That kind of limits the options.
Well the thing about turning off the breaker, is that it can be turned back on easily, so it would have to be something that cannot be fixed at least for a half a day.
Okay thanks. However, how is it that I have put the cart before the horse in this situation. Mainly the villain needs there to be no power to his house. How is that putting the car before the horse exactly? The power outage is the horse, and the cart is still yet to come.
The boots on the ground idea a no-goer then @Ryan Elder? It wasn't a cut and paste, t'was but the odd tac I took to write in snapshot story form and resolve your issue.
Considering that he's writing a screenplay, and didn't ask anyone to collaborate, I would say, no. That's a no-go.
Often times a GFCI breaker is found in an outlet that feeds downstream power points, the particular outlet could be hard to find such as behind a bookcase. I would not say it is simple since the villain would either have to install the outlet with knowledge of what circuits it fed or be lucky enough to have the GFCI outlet already in place. BTW I have had this happen, the GFCI outlet was in the garage at the front of the house, but subsequent circuits were fully across the home in a back porch area and also fed the lights to that section - poorly planned situation but not my doing. Took us quite awhile to find the culprit since the breaker in the breaker panel was not tripped. Just a stab in the dark for Ryan's problem.
The boots on the ground idea may work, I would just have to confirm it . Whatever idea I go with the though, the villain is improvising, since he needs it done right away, so he doesn't have time to go out and formulate a long plan or anything like that.
