The collected musings of Ryan Elder

I don't know about your specific story—this is for you to figure out—but I would say you need to make the existence of these videos obvious to the reader ...but their purpose in resolving the conflict should not be obvious at all. That's where the tricky twist should come in. See if you can make the existence of the videos SEEM to serve some other purpose for your story. And then ...wow. Deliver a twist or connection that surprises us.

As a writer, you need to figure out how to do this yourself, without our input. (So don't ask! )

Don't rush the process. Think about it for a good long while and try out every angle you can think of. Sooner or later, if the problem has been cooking away in your subconscious mind, you'll get that 'eureka' moment, and you'll know what to do.

 

Okay thanks. Basically the reader knows about one of the videos, since the villains had a reason to use one earlier in the story, and the MC found out about that one. The MC knows how the videos can resolve the conflict. I wrote it so far so that he discusses his plan with an ally character, that he wants help from, so the reader will understand the plan. I could however, have not show a scene where the MC explains the plan to an ally. That way the reader will not know the plan and it will come as a surprise.

However, if I withhold the MC's intentions from the reader, the reader might not know in the end, whether it was the MC's intended plan all along, of it the MC just got lucky by a fluke, since I withheld the information, that says otherwise.

I could write it like how episodes of Columbo are written, where you do not know, what Columbo's plan is, and then after he executes it and entraps the villain, he then explains to the villain what he just did, almost every time.

However, this comes off as possibly cheesy for me, to have to have the MC explain to the villain he tricked him, rather than just have the MC trick him, and then let the villain be shocked and appalled, without having to give him a run down on how he got him after, if that makes sense?

As for how the MC discovers the collection of videos, well there are three ways this can happen.

1. The MC can sneak into the villain's lawyer's files and find the record of the privileged conversations between the villain the lawyer, and find out that the villain told the lawyer about the videos. But I was told by some that lawyers do not record privileged conversations, so it depends on if the reader will believe that.

2. The MC can tap the villain's phone and overhear a conversation between him and his right hand man about how the villain's computer was hacked earlier, but the villain tells his right hand man that he deleted all the videos from online, but he still has hidden back ups. The villain cannot say where of course in this particular conversation, cause that would make things too easy for the MC.

3. During a shootout/stand off, one of the shot baddies tells the MC that the main villain was using one of the videos of him committing crimes as leverage, and he tells the MC that if the villain has a video of him as leverage, the villain could very well have a videos on all the members. Or the MC can think of this himself without the dying man telling him.

Does any of these three options sound the best?

 

The third sounds best to me. Maybe with the whole "I let you live if you tell me angle"

 

@Ryan Elder

I sincerely meant that. Don't try to get us involved in making actual decisions about your story. You need to do that yourself. Don't use us as a crutch. Think about the issue until YOU have come up with a solution that works. Don't ask us if it works. Make it work.

 

Okay thanks. It's more of the guy just confessing out of guilt, cause he wants the MC to nail them, after his death. The character dies right after anyway, for other parts of the plot to come into place. However, if the dying man tells the MC about a video on him, that is being used as leverage, he wouldn't know about the other videos. So the other videos existing, would then all be theory if I go with option 3. Is it still better if it's all theory then?

 

Yeah basically the MC's way of doing things is, uncover the truth first, and then figure out what can be done legally second. Cause without knowing the truth first, the MC cannot build a case legally at all. And the only way to find out what really happened, and who the real players are, the MC has to find out from the one source, who may actually know the truth, which is the lawyer and his notes in the case.

 

I didn't read this whole thread, I don't want to see a moving target.
Short answer-

Right here sets him up to be caught being corrupt.

Right here he became corrupt, in what you were writing. I did not read past that point. No need. Question answered.

 

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/i-told-lawyer-i-m-planning-telling-lie-the-stand-what-happen.html

 

Sorry for the confusion. There is another corrupt cop working for the villains, the MC is a different corrupt cop.

 

Well, there you have it.

 

I know. One reasonable question about deus ex machina, and now we're back to the "write my story for me" thread, er, cable at this point.