Does this plot need reworking?

Ugh. You got stuck writing a synopsis. Help is on the way.
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Preacher
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Does this plot need reworking?

Post by Preacher » August 23rd, 2010, 10:21 am

Here is my story in a short a space as i can write it, it has been suggested i have plot holes. I want to see what you guys think. Some details included will obviously be backstory. The story is called DIE AGAIN and it starts simply, with the murder of an assistant D.A. called Wallace McCoy in his home.

Some back story - Roland Sullivan is a County Freeholder who is involved in a human trafficking ring, among other things like drugs and guns and son on. His assistant is a former Russian mob muscle type called Roman Evanski. McCoy's wife Rachel met Sullivan at a political function and the two began an affair. Rachel choosing Roland because he had ambitions her husband didn't and so on. at a point before the story begins, Rachel alerts Roland Sullivan that her husband has come into some evidence that could be dangerous to him and his illegal activities. Roland then calls the big, big boss, a state Senator called Philip Byrd. Byrd orders a hit on McCoy to keep him silent. Unfortunately for the bad guys, McCoy anticipated his life in danger and mailed the evidence to a retired crime reporter who would know what to do with it when the time came. The evidence was incomplete but would point in the right direction, the trail eventually ending at SUllivan and Byrd, that is why the hit was ordered.

Ok, so McCoy is killed in his home and Detective Ethan Moon gets the case. The same day Moon is called, an attack is made on a safe house harboring a Russian informant who is ready to turn evidence. He is in the house to be kept safe until he can be deposed and so forth. Ethan Moon was the one who turned the informant, it was something he had been working on with the Feds.

Now, the bad guys need the package with the evidence to keep it away from the cops or feds. The evidence happened to be mailed to Frank Moon, Ethan's father and a retired crime reporter with a great reputation. Ethan doesn't know this yet so he keeps investigating.

A trail of other evidence pops up and Moon follows it, and then he finds the evidence package at his father's house. The package has an unsigned log sheet from an ambulance company and it is dated the date that Jake Moon, Ethan's brither, supposedly died. Apparently he was taken to the hospital and no one knows after that. The other piece of evidence is a name which Moon tracks down and finds out that the kid supposedly froze to death in a park. Not true, turns out he was strangled in the same manner as the D.A. The kid wa part of the trafficking ring and turns out a playtoy for Roland Sullivan, who has bizarre sexual tastes. Basically Sullivan would have his man procure male toys for him and then they would be killed, strangled and dumped.

The other part of the trail leads to a new addiction and mental health treatment center where Moon finds the videotape that shows his brother Jake is alive and was the victim of this therapy that used drugs and sensory deprivation and his own deep-seated rage to mold him into the fixer for Sullivan. BACKSTORY HERE -this is where the questions have come in mostly. Jake was selected for this program and was set up to be a dirty cop. An IA investigation would have ruined his career and he was approached with a way out - his death was faked and while he was durgged to appear dead he was put into this therapy program and made into a killer, then set out on orders from sENATOR bYRD TO CLEAN UP THE MESSES THAT Sullivan was making. The question that comes up is why was JAke selected and why would someone with a cop for a brother be selected and why such a program instead of just hiring an assassin to do the job and so on.

Now Ethan sees the killer is his brother and as he gets more evidence and a hit is ordered on Ethan. The brothers fight and Ethan barely survives. He finds out that Jake has a son who is being held as additional leverage and Ethan agrees to help Jake get his son back.

So, what do you guys think? Am i in need of changes here? WHat can i do?

Emily J
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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by Emily J » August 23rd, 2010, 2:10 pm

I think the fact that 3 Moons end up involved in the same case through 3 separate reasons stretches credulity. Jake the killer, Frank the reporter sent evidence, Ethan the detective assigned to the case. I think you would have a hard time making that believable.

However, if you can devise a reason WHY all the Moons are involved, that it was machinations not just happenstance I think it would make more sense. What is it about the family that pulls father and sons into a murder/conspiracy?

Likewise, if you could explain a reason WHY Jake was selected for the program I think it would make more sense. Byrd has a vendetta against the family? Something by way of an explanation would help things along I think.

But just a thought!

Down the well
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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by Down the well » August 23rd, 2010, 2:22 pm

Oops, looks like Emily and I posted at the same time. :)

Here's my two cents:

I think there could be some credibility issues with all the coincidences.

McCoy's wife just happens to be having an affair with Roland. The DA McCoy just happens to get ahold of evidence that could damage Roland. Then McCoy is killed, but before he dies he just happens to mail the evidence to the father of the detective assigned to investigate his murder. AND then it turns out the cop, Ethan Moon, has a brother who is also involved with Roland?

It's kind of an incestuous plot in some ways. I'm not dissing your story, it's intriguing and sounds like something I would read, but I think some of your characters have a little too much in common. I read somewhere, and I can't remember who said it, but you are allowed one coincidence in your plot. Anything else feels too contrived. Even one coincidence is contrived for some.

Anyway you can break up some of the relationships so they aren't so convenient for your plot? Does Jake have to be Moon's brother? Does the evidence have to be mailed to Moon's father? Things like that. But like I said, it sounds like a good John Grishamesque type of story. Good luck. :)

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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by Preacher » August 23rd, 2010, 2:37 pm

Simplicity. That is the answer. Thank you both, i have too much going on and see there are some things that may not be necessary and some things that can maybe be changed.

First, the wife does not have to have the affair, that is easy to cut out of the picture.
Second, the molded assassin does not have to be the brother, it can be someone else. I just need to go back and create that person. The reason why the assassin is created is easy, the baddie is afraid a hired gun might change his mind, might make a mistake, might ask for more money. He feels too many factors are beyond his control. So what does he do? He makes his own, using the drug therapy and sensory deprivation and the person's deep-seated rage. The person was basically made into a Manchurian type deal, a sleeper assassin activated at certain times to do certain jobs. Maybe a by-product of this is that among the other crimes the baddie is involved in, he hires out his sleeper and gets into contract killings as part of the deal. Now, it makes me think the assassin who is made is a patient in some treatment facility or something like that.

The DA found some evidence of these activities, and thus was targeted for termination by the baddie. He found evidence of other killings with the same M.O. and it set him on a path to finding the trail to the top. That is why he was killed. He mailed off the evidence as a fail-safe and back-up in case something happened to him. But, he didn't send it to Moon's father like i said. He sent it to another crime reporter, one who was well respected but is retired.

I think the evidence can then have been mailed to a different crime reporter, not Moon's father. I wonder if that solves some of the problems? Feels like it does. Now i have a detective on track of what turns out to be a guy who's killed a lot of people and doesn't even know he's done it. Moon can find the killer, have the big fight and maybe find a way to break through the therapy and then track it to the head baddie. This feels better, just writing it out this way.

Down the well
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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by Down the well » August 23rd, 2010, 4:21 pm

Preacher wrote:This feels better, just writing it out this way.
I do this a lot. I like complicated plots too, so quite often I have to stop and write everything down in a synopsis-like document to get organized and check my logic. It's a good way of looking for holes and dropped subplots.

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Here's an angle, maybe, let's see

Post by Preacher » August 24th, 2010, 12:51 pm

It had been said using Ethan's brother as the killer is a bit coincidental and very hard to explain. Why Jake? Why use him when his brother is a detective, yadda, yadda, yadda. I agreed, it was a problem. Maybe, just maybe, i gave up on it too quickly. Most people thought the human drama was better and the story would work better with the brother. Still, then, a stumbling block remains.

HOW DO I EXPLAIN JAKE AS THE MOLDED KILLER?

So i am asking if any of you guys might have a suggestion as to how i can keep the brother. First thing i know is that the extra keverage will be removed. No nephew held hostage, nothing like that. The program will remain the same -a use of drugs and sensory deprivation and the brother's deep-seated hate to turn him Manchurian, basically making him a sleeper. I even toyed with the idea of changing the title to SLEEPER.

The reason for this program as opposed to a hired gun? Well, the baddie doesn't trust hit men for pay. He has no control and they can ask for more money and such. So he created his own. A killer without knowledge of what he does. The baddie, into trafficking, and guns, and other things now has a contract killer on his hands who he also makes money from. I think that answers those problems.

BUT STILL, WHY JAKE MOON?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I think i can maybe take away the faked death, unless it becomes a case where he was thought to be dead, maybe even pronounced dead, and then was taken to the facility where he was initiated into the program. Maybe JAke was a hero cop and then had an accident, was pronounced dead, but not really did.

Whadda ya guys think?

sammyig
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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by sammyig » August 24th, 2010, 3:33 pm

For his brother to have been a molded killer, your protagonist would either not know about his brother beforehand or haven't see his brother in a very long time. Maybe his brother was kidnapped when he was very young- and he never found him- until he finds him as the killer. No matter what, in order to mold someone into anything it means almost completely changing them. So they would not have contact with anyone but those trying to mold them for a very long time- or very limited contact like e-mail etc.

If you are thinking of something like a military person who is trained to kill, that would be a different animal, but if you are thinking of his brother being molded into a very successful hitman...

A good example of that is Dekker's novel Adam.

You might want to do some research on brainwashing, etc.

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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by Preacher » August 24th, 2010, 3:48 pm

Military, interesting. The skill set would already be in place if the character were a military man. The brothers not being together is not all that hard to figure out. If the brother who is not the detective was in the military and, say, on mission doing ops in Afghanistan or something like that he would be away. But then i could have him brought back to the states because of an injury or some mental trauma that kept him unable to perform. He comes home to the states where he is checked into a mental health facility. It could be there that the process was done. The brainwashing is easy to accomplish as per some research i did. Turning him into a sleeper wouldn't be all that difficult. Or as a soldier he was presumed dead in combat and, of course, he really was not. His "body" was brought back to the States where he was put through this program and then molded into the sleeper.

An interesting motivation for the bad guy could be the fact that the bad guy's son was working in the same special-ops group as Ethan's brother and he blames Ethan's brother for what happened to his own son. WHen he lears the soldier is alive through his military connections he sees an interesting irony in turning this man into an assassin and hiding him right under the nose of his own brother while using his newly created killer to eliminate things in his way. The ultimate confrontation being the brother versus brother that ends up happening later.

I think either of those scenarios would work nicely also. The brother hunting brother still remains, with one brother not really in control as he is a patient of the facility and then "activated" when missions become necessary. Heck, there could even be scenes where Ethan, the detective, even visits his brother in the facility and does not even realize what is happening until later on.

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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by JadePhoenix » September 1st, 2010, 12:45 pm

This may be totally out of left field so feel free to disregard. :) Anyway, I've noticed I get a lot of ideas from reading works that are in the same genre as mine or that deal with themes I'm working on in my book. Often I'll read it and I'll go off on my own thing and figure out a way to fix a plot problem I'd been having. SO, I read your thread about how you're wanting to figure out how the one brother became a hitman and the other brother didn't know, etc., and yesterday I was looking around at the bookstore and happened to read the back of "Chimera" by Rob Thurman. The main story is about a guy in the Mafia who discovers his brother, kidnapped ten years before, has been brainwashed into a hitman. The main plot is apparently the brother trying to save him (haven't read it, that's just what the back says). It's different from your plot of course but I thought perhaps it might help spark some ideas if you were still looking, as well as let you see how someone else dealt with a similar theme concerning brothers and one being a hitman and the other one not knowing and brainwashing and all that. Again, sorry if it's out of left field, I know not everyone gets inspiration the same way, but I thought I'd point it out just in case! :)

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oldhousejunkie
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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by oldhousejunkie » September 1st, 2010, 2:09 pm

I jumped past all of the comments because I had a semi-brilliant idea that I wanted to get down.

When I was reading what you could and could not take out... Keep the affair, I thought that tied everyone together nicely. Does the DA find out about the affair and threaten Roland with the evidence?

Keep Ethan's dad as the crime reporter, BUT make Ethan and his dad estranged because of the brother dying (for real, this time). Maybe as a kid he died because Ethan wasn't watching him and the dad blames Ethan. Orchestrate a reunion and that is when Ethan finds the evidence. If I read correctly, Roland likes young male boys...maybe Ethan;s motive for solving everything is because he wants to prevent Roland from killing again, and the boys are generally the age Ethan's brother was when he died.

So definitely make the assasin someone different. And what about the senator (I might have missed this)? What's his connection to all of this?

Just some thoughts....take them or leave them. :-)

Preacher
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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by Preacher » September 1st, 2010, 4:47 pm

Two things to address here: first, i will definitely check out the book CHIMERA and see what it is all about. However, hearing that there are similar plot elements makes me want to take the brother out as a genetically enhanced abd brainwashed killer. So i can rethink most of that stuff.

As for the suggestions in the immediate post: Dropping the brother is still an issue i am pouring over. There are so many different ways to go and i can not seem to get a handle on how to handle it. Making Ethan and dad estranged over the death of his brother at a young age is an interesting point that could work in a story which means the brother is not the killer. That means i mstill need one. Roland is not the killer. His mess is being cleaned up by the killer which, ultimately, makes Sullivan the bad guy and the killer the link to get to Sullivan. The killer by definition then is inconsequential to the story. He is really just another piece of evidence.

There is a need to also eliminate the killer as being someone being genetically advanced, which leaves the issue as to who the killer can be. There was a television show called Daybreak where the killer ended up being somebody who was already in prison and connections were made to allow him to be able to be out to do these killings and such. That is a good idea but i do not want to steal it. I need another angle.

I end up left with a Political office holder running a human trafficking ring and uses some of those young males to be trafficked as toys for his own pleasure. To work with that i need some more stuff to add into it. I am just not sure exactly what those things can be. It almost requires a total tossing away of what i already have or something very close to it.

I considered the idea of keeping brother and brother and having it that their father was killed at a young age. Ethan became a cop and Jake went the opposite way. Maybe the father's murder goes unsolved and the brothers estrange. Whoever is murdered to start the story might be someone with a connection or information that can help find out who killed the father and Ethan gets the case and finds that threadn and it leads to his brother. Maybe the ultimate choice is between finding out exactly who killed their father or stoppingn his brother. Something like that.

Whadda ya think?

JadePhoenix
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Re: Does this plot need reworking?

Post by JadePhoenix » September 1st, 2010, 9:21 pm

I don't think the brother in Chimera is genetically enhanced, just brainwashed so you could still do it and put your own twist on it. Also, both brothers are in the criminal element (one Mafia, one hitman) so yours would be different with one being a detective and one being the hitman. :)

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