The collected musings of Ryan Elder

The cops find them, a shootout occurs, it results in the gang getting away and realizing what's going on.

 

I guess I could do it that way. The way the cops find them is they create their own sting operation to trick them into all meeting up in the same place, and giving them a reason to do it. This is how I wrote it so that the gang has a reason to have a plan of action against the cops. But if I write it so that the cops go after the gang, and then they escape, and then cops have to try again, I then have to write two sting operations, with the second one, being so much better than the first, since they will be hard to fool twice, after escaping a death trap the first time.

So I feel it may overcomplicate the story to have to create two sting operations, and having to have the gang be fooled twice therefore. But maybe it could work.

 

I'm not sure if this would work in the style of your novel but what if one of the cops is actually a traitor who is working with the villains? They could be holding his family hostage or maybe paying him large sums of money to help them. Sorry if this is not what you're looking for but I think it would be a really good plot twist.

 

Scripts are simple. Not simplistic, because nuance can make them very complicated, but they need to be as refined and simple as possible.

For example, in the main plot of The Matrix, after he's pulled out by Morpheus, how many times does Neo go back in to the Matrix?

Twice - Once to see The Oracle, and a second time to rescue Morpheus. The rest are training simulations. That's it. Twice. And both become extended battle/chase sequences.

If you really deconstruct most films, not much actually happens, plot wise. That's why normally it's short stories, not novels, that are properly adapted for film. Novels need a lot cut out of the story.

 

Okay thanks. Well there was already a cop working for the gang earlier in the story. I don't know if the gang would kidnap another cop's family after the original traitor is killed, because the cops are already investigating the original mole's death, and the gang would not want to draw attention to themselves, by kidnapping the family of another cop per say. There is one person who can alert the villains who is being held hostage and forced to help the rogue cops that are after the gang. He has to alert the gang without the rogue cops knowing though. But I don't want him to say too much, cause this will give the gang the upper hand. So maybe he only says a little too alert them.

Or maybe, one of the gang members is called into the station for questioning on the cop's death from before, and he goes in voluntarily to be interviewed to show that he has nothing to hide. The rogue cops maybe try to torture him into giving up the other members, since they do not know who all the members of the gang are. The honest cops catch the rogue cops torturing him, and this gives the gang member the opportunity to walk out of the station, go back to the gang and warn them.

However, I am not sure how seriously the gang will take the threat. Even though one of their own was tortured, they might not take it as a death threat, in order to prompt them into action. And would the rogue cops actually torture a gang member in a police station, where they can be caught?

 

I think as the author you have to rig the dice. If the rules of the situation don't allow a certain thing to happen you have to go around them. If there's not enough evidence to perform a search, have a gang member drunkenly brag to the wrong person, or the MC force a mistake out of them in some way. Let the criminals implicate themselves rather than try to find what can't be found.
At the end of the day this is your story and you are for all intents and purposes God in a world you've created. Your job is to tell a story and not get bogged down in intricate detail that most of your readership won't understand or know the difference anyway. In the end, just write it, then examine it later to see if it works. Get opinions of people you trust on whether it seems plausible and entertaining and edit from there.

 

Okay thanks. I kind of like the one idea I had where the MC tricks the villain into going to get evidence that can be used against him, and it turns out that the villain has the evidence, buried underground. Cause by doing it that way, the police can seize the evidence without having to get a warrant that could not be obtained. But does that come off as too convenient for the reader? Like the one the way the MC tricks the villain into going to get the evidence, the villain just so happens to be keeping it underground, and luck falls into the MC's lap so easily, even though his plan was normally flawed otherwise, and shouldn't have worked?

 

I had a relative who was a rogue cop until he finally retired. We're all kind of shocked that he never got busted, because he would talk about it when he drank. He was a strange dude. None of us think he ever should have been given a badge and a gun. He developed a reputation on the streets as a cop who wouldn't think twice about taking out the night stick and beating someone. One time he was going to be included in an episode of Cops, but he threw someone off a roof during a chase and the show quietly kept him out of the filming. He was also famous early in his career for regularly walking into the worst, most crime-ridden, racially tense bar in the city, alone, in full uniform, just to start a knock-down, drag-out brawl with the gang members that called that place their hang out. He loved it. More than once the gang tried to ambush him. One ambush made the national news, but he wasn't in the car. He walked around for years with a recording of the ambush from inside the car, playing it for anyone that would listen, saying "that was supposed to me." Two cops died, two are now on permanent disability. Total nutcase.

I could definitely see a gang member putting two and two together: this cop (these cops) are throwing people off roofs and getting away with it, coming into our bar thumping our skulls with night sticks and getting away with it, something must be going on, this is an organized effort by these few cops and no one is doing anything about it. It's totally, completely plausible.

 

Yep for sure. That is very interesting to hear...

Well my group of rogue cops could blackmail someone into helping them find the gang, and then that person, while left unsupervised, cause the rogue cops had to leave, can secretly warn the gang that they are coming. But the rogue cops know this and they were counting on him warning the gang, cause this will get the gang altogether in one place... which is what the rogue cops want so they can take care of the majority of the gang in one swoop. So perhaps the rogue cops can tip off the gang on purpose, and make it look unintentional, just to scare the gang into all getting together in one place for the cops' convenience.

The only thing, the gang is now all together, mobilized, and prepared for an attack. So that is a disadvantage as well. Does that sound logical?

 

Convenient? Possibly but one of my favourite examples of a convenient storyline was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones, despite all his efforts, failed to stop the nazis acquiring the lost ark of the covenant. The only thing that stopped them was their own stupidity in opening it. A convenient victory for Indiana Jones, that was nominated for 9 academy awards, winning 4 of them.

 

That's true. However, in my story, the MC has a plan with a flaw in it, and the flaw is miraculously overcome, even though he couldn't see it happening. Indiana Jones doesn't have a complicated plan where he has to predict the villains behavior and count on tricking them, he is just trying again and again and gets lucky.

So it makes more sense for him cause he doesn't have a flawed plan, or at least that is how I see it.

 

SPOILER ALERT!
So, along the lines of something like Taken 3, where the police are involved but the MC goes it alone to fine and deal out retribution to the killers of his ex-wife, without knowing that all along, it was a set up of the ex-wife's new husband to accomplish two things:
1. to get rid of the wife because he knew she'd fallen out of love with him and back in love with her ex-husband
2. to get rid of the gangsters on his back who he'd swindled because he knew something that close to home would force an ex-covert operative to seek his own payback rather than going to the police.

 

Okay thanks. You got a good point. Well in order for my MC's plan to work, he has to be following the villain around and watching him without the villain noticing. But the villain knows that the police are after him and is currently trying to avoid them. So how can the MC follow the villain, when the villain is on the lookout for such a thing naturally?

The villain goes out into the middle of nowhere, in an empty field, to bury some evidence, that he wants to keep, but he doesn't want anyone to find. He is keeping it buried so the police cannot find it, should they find a way to legally search his property.

But I want the MC cop to see him bury the evidence, and then knows that it's there, so he can dig it up and use it against the villain. So how is the MC suppose to follow the villain, and see him bury it, when the villain is on the lookout for cops, and trying to make sure, no one sees him bury it? Is this possible for my MC's plan?

 

Does the bad guy know the cop/vigilante?

If not, can the cop/vigilante somehow join the bad guy? either by joining his gang or going sort of undercover as a supplier of something the bad guy needs, become a "trusted" friend to the bad guy??

If he does, can the cop/vigilante wear some kind of disguise so that he can infiltrate the bad guy's gang/inner circle?

Either way, his actions could lead to the police following the cop even more as he tries to explain missed shifts and the growth of a beard etc etc?? (just tossing out ideas there)

 

In answer to the original question (can his plans go wrong?) Yes, any of your characters plans can go wrong because essentially, the character making the plan is the only person who knows what the plan is, and he/she cannot know (in their world) how other characters will react to his/her plan. Only you, as the author, know that, so it's up to you yo explore each avenue of what 'could' happen.

 

Yes the villain knows the MC at this point since the MC tried to bust him and testify against him before, but failed for not enough evidence.

 

In my story, the villain goes free for lack of evidence, and the main character cop, becomes obsessed with the case, and nailing the villain, as well as the other villains, who he does not know.

So eventually he steals the keycard of the lawyer who defended the client and got him off. He uses the keycard to break into the law firm building and look in the lawyer's files on the case. He reads about what the client told the lawyer, of what really happened, in the lawyers reference notes, and finds out that there is a corrupt cop working with the villains, that was assisting them in the case. A mole pretty much.

Now the MC cannot use this as evidence at all, since he broke in to have a look at it illegally. He is just obsessed with finding the truth, and couldn't have found a potentially better place to look so far. He just wants to know the truth, so he can then formulate some sort of plan to get evidence that he could make admissible later hopefully. So he is just using the lawyer's case file and notes, as a guide only.

But I was told by a couple of lawyers that I asked on how this would all work, that it's a plot hole, cause logically a lawyer would not make any reference notes, of one of the cop's in the case, being a mole working for the gang.

However, this was a protected conversation between the attorney and the client, so if it's protected, why would a lawyer be worried about writing it down? I thought that protected conversation meant protected, period.

And that if someone else read that a cop was corrupt in there, the information was legally immune from being used, since it was a protected conversation. But I was told that this is not legally correct and therefore plot wise, a lawyer would have no reason to keep this conversation written down, especially of there was a secret mole cop in it.

So if this doesn't work plot wise, I was wondering how can the MC find out who the corrupt cop is? The only ones who know it is are the corrupt cop (which the MC doesn't really suspect at all, or has no evidence to suspect), and the defendant, and the defendant's lawyer, should the defendant decide to tell the lawyer, so the lawyer might be able to use that information to build a possible better defense.

So, how can the MC find out who the corrupt cop is, when only two people besides the corrupt know, and the MC does not want to coerce them into talking or anything cause that means too much trouble?

 

"So how can the MC find out who the corrupt cop is, when only two people besides the corrupt know,"
This leads me to believe that your MC needs to overhear a conversation between the lawyer and the client in some form or other. They probably wouldn't be talking about it unnecessarily so maybe he somehow overhears the moment when the client tells his lawyer. I don't know what would set him in such a path to be eavesdropping on the two, is he so convinced that there is more going on that he would be willing to jeopardize his career by bugging the defendant or following him and conducting off the clock surveillance?

As far as the lawyer goes I would listen to your lawyer pals, my only knowledge in the area personally is from far too many binge watched episodes of law and order SVU... That being said it makes sense to me a legal pad with incriminating evidence wouldn't be lying on the top of the lawyers things... However if the lawyer was using a tape recorder for all of his conversations with his client maybe he hadn't gone back through and deleted it yet? Or maybe you could have the MC find less obviously incriminating evidence against the corrupt cop but rather some oddities that warrant further investigation so that he later confirms his suspicion?

Hope some of that helps, the first option might be hard to work in but a good tense eavesdropping/ surveillance scene with the MC almost getting caught in the act is pretty fun for readers. And even if you did decide to have them finding notes in the office I wouldn't have noticed that as a plot hole personally, only lawyers would.

 

I might be able to have an eavesdropping scene, but I want the MC to find out after the case is considered 'closed', so the defendant and the lawyer, would not be communicated at this point. I would have actually thought that a scene where the MC has to steal the lawyer's keycard, and then break into the building, with the lawyer reporting the theft, and then the police having to investigate it, and the MC covering it up, would actually be more fun, than almost being caught eavesdropping.

But after talking with a lawyer, apparently I misunderstood the protected conversation law between attorney and client. When an attorney says that the conversation is protected, what that means is that that attorney is not allowed to divulge it. But if someone else were to get a hold of the attorney's notes and divulge them, than it's legal, and the notes can be used as evidence it seems.

I thought that a protected conversation meant that the notes are protected to, with a legal stamp put over it, saying this conversation is protected and cannot be used to incriminate a client, by law. But it's not protected by law, just by the attorney not being able to reveal it, to the law.

So it depends on how much I can stretch it, and still have the story be believable. Will readers believe that a conversation is protected by law as in immunity from being used for incrimination even if the conversation is discovered by a third party? When in reality, it is only protected from the attorney not being allowed to reveal it only?

 

Interesting so you're trying to figure out if the MC can use the evidence he uncovers with the lawyers keycard in court against the cop? Like is the MC actually using the evidence to go through the proper channels to take down this dirty cop?
I think readers will believe something as you long as you are stating it with confidence and in a detailed manner, that being said even if the the police officer MC might not want to go through proper channels because it would incriminate himself in the process, "How exactly did you get the evidence implicating dirty Cop?", "Uh... I found it...".
Also seems like it might be more fun for the reader if he isn't going through the courts to root out the dirty cop but rather is taking things into his own hands (which sort of raises morality questions: is it okay to break the law to take down a cop who is breaking the law?).

 

The MC cop is not going through proper channels since he stole a keycard and used it to break into the law firm to read the attorney's case notes. The MC cop at this point, just wants to find out the truth. Once he finds out who the corrupt cop is, and what is actually going on behind the curtain, he will then try to come up with hopefully a plan to put a stop to it. But at this point, is he breaking the law to find out the truth only at first, and just use the truth as a guide, since he cannot use any evidence that he uncovers from breaking and entering.

I don't know if I can have the MC overhear a conversation after the case is considered closed though. Because all I want the MC to find out is, who the corrupt cop is. If he overhears conversations after, then he will find out other things that I do not want him to find out. So I would need a reason as to why he only hears part of the conversation, and not the rest maybe.

 

I have revised my story and written out some more drafts, making a lot of changes, hopefully for the better.

But now I feel I have arrived at more than one possible ending, and I am not sure which to choose as the best, since each can produce different emotions with the characters and the plot. So as a writer, if you are stuck between two or more endings, how do you know which is the best one to pick?

I know writers say to sometimes pick the ending early on, and then build into it, but after revising it a lot, I find other endings optional as well, late in the process. So how do you decide on an ending or which is the best? Do you go by emotional character revelations, or are plot driven revelations more important sometimes? What do you think?

 

After I went back and revised my first novel, I ended up rewriting the ending. I think the story was better for it. So much can change depending on the degree of revision. I think you have to be open to where you are taking the story now as the writer. And I don't think there is anything wrong with writing out more than one ending. I've done it before, and if you do that, I think you will know which one best fits your story.

 

Okay thanks. Well one of the endings is more suspenseful and dramatic for the hero's character development, and one is more suspenseful and dramatic for the villains development and fall. But I can't have both, since the actions of the characters contradict each other, and only one outcome is possible. So that makes it tough.