# How much does realism matter in this case?



## ironpony (Dec 10, 2017)

I wrote a crime story but kept being told by people that it was implausible, saying that the main police character is stupid and asked why he would take the law into his own hands, instead of just doing actual police work to try to get the villains.  But you see cops do this in fiction all the time, if you just look at Dirty Harry or Jack Bauer.  

I don't see how I am breaking any rules, since it's been done before, but I was told that I should research actual cases for my story, to make it plausible and more convincing.  However in my research, I cannot find any actual real life Dirty Harrys' or Jack Bauers'

Usually if a cop takes the law into his/her own hands in real life, the entire case is ruined and they are fired for doing so, and lose.  I cannot find any true stories where a cop decides to disobey orders, and go kill all the bad guys and win the case that way, and is smart enough to have beaten their own system and shoved in the court's face, like in fiction.

Does anyone know of any true stories where the cop's actually have won that way?  Or are there not any true stories to go by and I shouldn't go by reality, and what other people say, since other stories have it happen?  What do you think?


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## Winston (Dec 10, 2017)

Things just ain't been the same since Miranda vs Arizona.  No bright lights and rubber hoses no more.    
If your story is set in pre 1950's America, no problem.  Also, there are many places in the world where a "loose cannon cop" can dish out justice any way they see fit.
*cough*  Duarte, Philippines *cough* 
No.  You can invent any story you like.  That's "fiction".  But I seriously doubt you will find any modern American case where a cop literally gets away with murder.


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## HorseDragon (Dec 10, 2017)

Is there any chance that we could see the story?


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## ironpony (Dec 10, 2017)

Sure.  I can post it when I got a better draft finished, there are just some gaps in the plot left to fill yet to get from one point to another.



Winston said:


> Things just ain't been the same since Miranda vs Arizona.  No bright lights and rubber hoses no more.
> If your story is set in pre 1950's America, no problem.  Also, there are many places in the world where a "loose cannon cop" can dish out justice any way they see fit.
> *cough*  Duarte, Philippines *cough*
> No.  You can invent any story you like.  That's "fiction".  But I seriously doubt you will find any modern American case where a cop literally gets away with murder.



Well it's a screenplay and I wanted to set it in a modern day America type setting, cause then it would be easier to shoot, with local actors, and local locations, as oppose to setting it in a place like The Phillipines or the 1950s.  Basically I want the protagonist to follow the old Western concept of "a man's got to do, what a man's got to do", but is that saying completely dead in modern times now, especially when you see it in other fiction like 24, or Dirty Harry?


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## nickpierce (Dec 10, 2017)

Write from your inspiration. Shape any implausibility to acceptance in the edits.
Kinda like how some politicians conduct business, ya know?


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## Jay Greenstein (Dec 10, 2017)

> I wrote a crime story but kept being told by people that it was implausible,


So who are these people? You ask question after question, over a period measured in years. You post your questions on _many_ sites. But not once in those years have I seen a word of your work posted anywhere. Yet you often talk about the people who tell you such things. Why are we, who are asked to help, over and over, not among those who have seen the results of all that advice?

Fair is fair. Having responded to 766 questions you've asked over the more than two years you've been on this site, without once commenting in any post but your own, shouldn't our members be the ones to say if the story they helped write is or isn't implausible?  Several times each week, week-after-week, you create a thread asking about some plot point, or an aspect of the law. This time, your question was 238 words long. Given a total of 766 individual threads started, with some questions longer and some shorter, i picked ten threads at random and took an average, which says about 313 introductory words per thread, exclusive of any remarks you might make within the thread.

An average of 313 words per thread introduction, for 766 threads, yields a total word count, in your own started threads, of 239,758 words devoted to nothing but asking questions about a writing novel that has to be less than 120,000 words to have a chance of being published—words no one on any site has seen. Surely you must have the first chapter complete, having worked on it for so long. Why not favor us with a word or three, so we know that our efforts are not in vain?


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## Annoying kid (Dec 10, 2017)

He claims to be an aspiring screenwriter for film, not a novelist.


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## ironpony (Dec 11, 2017)

Jay Greenstein said:


> So who are these people? You ask question after question, over a period measured in years. You post your questions on _many_ sites. But not once in those years have I seen a word of your work posted anywhere. Yet you often talk about the people who tell you such things. Why are we, who are asked to help, over and over, not among those who have seen the results of all that advice?
> 
> Fair is fair. Having responded to 766 questions you've asked over the more than two years you've been on this site, without once commenting in any post but your own, shouldn't our members be the ones to say if the story they helped write is or isn't implausible?  Several times each week, week-after-week, you create a thread asking about some plot point, or an aspect of the law. This time, your question was 238 words long. Given a total of 766 individual threads started, with some questions longer and some shorter, i picked ten threads at random and took an average, which says about 313 introductory words per thread, exclusive of any remarks you might make within the thread.
> 
> An average of 313 words per thread introduction, for 766 threads, yields a total word count, in your own started threads, of 239,758 words devoted to nothing but asking questions about a writing novel that has to be less than 120,000 words to have a chance of being published—words no one on any site has seen. Surely you must have the first chapter complete, having worked on it for so long. Why not favor us with a word or three, so we know that our efforts are not in vain?



Yeah it's just it will be hard to understand since I have to fill some holes in the plot before posting.  I got 81 pages so far, and typically screenplays do not go over 120 pages usually.  It will make more sense to post it once I fill the holes instead of getting lost.  Mainly I've just been asking people for feed back by showing them the outline of the plot, rather than the whole thing, since I still have some gaps to fill.


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## Annoying kid (Dec 11, 2017)

ironpony said:


> Yeah it's just it will be hard to understand since I have to fill some holes in the plot before posting.  I got 81 pages so far, and typically screenplays do not go over 120 pages usually.  It will make more sense to post it once I fill the holes instead of getting lost.  Mainly I've just been asking people for feed back by showing them the outline of the plot, rather than the whole thing, since I still have some gaps to fill.



_I wrote a crime story but kept being told by people that it was implausible,

_The plot had holes when you showed them, did it not?


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## Bloggsworth (Dec 11, 2017)

Realism matters not one jot (or indeed, tittle), but the illusion of reality is critical, otherwise the Harry Potters of this world could never exist, as readers would not be drawn into the narrative...


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 11, 2017)

I think it depends on the actual circumstances.

If the cop is cornered and it's shoot or be shot, shooting, even killing, the suspect will be accepted.

If the cop just doesn't like the guy, and shoots without provocation, it probably won't go over well with viewers.

The same with police work. If he's lazy, and just doesn't bother with procedure, warrents, etc, viewers probably won't be empathetic.

If, on the other hand, he needs to cut corners to save an innocent victim, viewers are more likely to accept it. 

Just my opinions, of course.


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## SueC (Dec 11, 2017)

I think this is where movies and literature part company. I posted a story here once about Ada, Oklahoma in the dust bowl, and someone (I can't remember who) was kind enough to point out that Ada did not experience the dust bowl as severely as other parts of that state. So, I thought to myself, this is fiction. Can't I make Ada the center of the worst dust storm activity if I want to? If I had called the town a fictitious name, maybe I could have. It seems that, once you employ any aspect of reality into your fiction work, you are somehow honor bound to make it as realistic as possible. The danger I see of being able to write about police who side step rules, who see any means as okay as long as the goal is reached, is that people start to think that real police behave that way! And like it or not, in this climate, you don't want to fuel that fire. If you want to create a fictional about police, who behave like the ones we see in movies, I think you have to have consequences. They get fired; they get written up. They are put before a review board - something. Anything but kudos for catching the bad guy. I don't know - sounds like a really hard job, kiddo. But I'd love to see what you have.


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## ironpony (Dec 13, 2017)

Oh okay thanks.  This is my view of it, but maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me that audiences have very different views of police in real life, than they do in fiction.  There are a lot of fictional movies, where one cop breaks all the rules, like Dirty Harry, or the 24 TV show, etc.

So it seems to me that cops in real life believe that their system is always right, and the rules must never be broken, and whatever the law says, goes, and a most civilian audiences believe this as well.

But in fiction, the cops believe that their system they work for is a bureaucratic sheeple, and must be circumvented in order to gain true justice, and audiences seem to like this philoshophy in fictional worlds, otherwise they would stop watching these movies, or reading these books, etc.

But somehow, I need to get readers out of their reality believes, and get them into the fictional world of Dirty Harry, Jack Bauer, that's been done before, without them being taken out of it.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 13, 2017)

Police in real life are people, just like in every other occupation. There are good people, who follow the rules, and bad people, who feel the rules don't apply to them. This is true of police, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, painters, and the list goes on.

In my opinion, the issue is more about empathy than believability. Will your audience empathize with and like the police officer. If he has good reasons for breaking rules, they probably will. If he's just a jerk, they are less likely.  I'm not sure what exactly was attractive for Dirty Harry. There must have been something.


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## Jay Greenstein (Dec 13, 2017)

> Yeah it's just it will be hard to understand since I have to fill some holes in the plot before posting.


Nonsense. In chapter one there is no real plot as yet, only the inciting incident— and oveth that hasn't taken place by the end of the chapter. So in the first three pages—which is what an acquiring editor would read, and which would demonstrate your approach to telling a story on the page—there can be no "plot holes."

And after two years if you haven't finished at least three pages of chapter one—which would be at most 750 words, you are never going to. 

Looking at this year's crop of posts, you showed one script excerpt,  and asked one about question on them. And for the rest, your questions pretty much universally "How do..., when will...can a cop..." In other words, research into scene events that occur later in the story.

You say you're in film school. But based on the responses, your script showed little evidence of that. So here's my point: If, after all that worry over fixing plot holes and how police operate, your writing skills and your approach to telling a story are flawed, it matters not at all how good the plot is. Why? Because if it's rejected on page one no one will ever see it.

I'm not attacking you, simply saying that plot is the easy part. Any decent writer can spark off plot ideas faster than you can write them down. It's writing well that's hard, and writing fiction well on the page is a subject that was neither taught nor mentioned during our school days because the purpose of public education is to turn out self-sufficient and productive adults who have the skills necessary learn and hold a job. It is _not_ to turn out knowledgeable and skilled fiction writers.

My personal view is that since the first thing any hopeful writer must do is learn the structure of both a scene and the approach to recording it—just  as the hopeful filmmaker must learn that profession's skills—our first task is to become knowledgeable in the tricks of the trade pf our profession. And quite frankly, if you're writing your story from within the viewpoint of your protagonist, the answer to a lot of the questions you ask should be obvious, which is why I'd like to know in if we need to help you with your writing skills first, so you don't waste time laying out scenes that cannot work on the page because they're based on methodology that can't work in our medium.

For example, are you aware of the differences between a scene on the screen and the page? They're very different, and that effect the flow of the story. So asking to see that you do understand, and can draw the reader in, is not an intrusive question, given that you have, not once given anyone here the benefit of your own knowledge and posted in any thread other then yours.

I certainly don't speak for the site, or anyone on it but myself, but for myself, I would like some assurance that I, and the nice people here, are not wasting our time responding to your questions. Some evidence that the help is being put to good use would be reassuring.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 13, 2017)

Jay Greenstein said:


> Nonsense. In chapter one there is no real plot as yet, only the inciting incident— and oveth that hasn't taken place by the end of the chapter. So in the first three pages—which is what an acquiring editor would read, and which would demonstrate your approach to telling a story on the page—there can be no "plot holes."
> 
> And after two years if you haven't finished at least three pages of chapter one—which would be at most 750 words, you are never going to.
> 
> ...



I can't see a year's worth of posts in ironpony's profile page. How can you? More importantly, will you provide the link to the screenplay excerpt? I would like to see it (again).

Also, if you've grown weary of answering the questions, why not ignore them? If you replying because you're interested or bored enough to respond, why complain?


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## ironpony (Dec 14, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I can't see a year's worth of posts in ironpony's profile page. How can you? More importantly, will you provide the link to the screenplay excerpt? I would like to see it (again).
> 
> Also, if you've grown weary of answering the questions, why not ignore them? If you replying because you're interested or bored enough to respond, why complain?



The script has been rewritten and changed so much since I last posted any excerpts.  Perhaps I should finish it first so it all makes sense, if that's best?  Or by excerpt do you just mean a single scene?


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 14, 2017)

ironpony said:


> The script has been rewritten and changed so much since I last posted any excerpts.  Perhaps I should finish it first so it all makes sense, if that's best?  Or by excerpt do you just mean a single scene?



I'm wondering what screenplay excerpt you posted that had Jay doubting the honesty of your claim that you're in film school.


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## ironpony (Dec 14, 2017)

Oh I'm not sure which one that would have been?


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 14, 2017)

ironpony said:


> Oh I'm not sure which one that would have been?



Me either. And apparently Jay is ignoring me.


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## Ralph Rotten (Dec 14, 2017)

Getting this thread back on track...

The thing about cops is that they are psychologically selected because they are in-the-box thinkers.  Sure, many cops are smart, some even genius, but police departments use tests like the MMPI to choose people who will tend to work within the framework of the legal system.  See, out of the box thinkers like me just get the department into trouble.  The law is not a negotiation, it is rigid and fixed, so police departments want people who color within the lines.

However, I have seen cops do things that were not in the book.  Example: DEA has been known to bankrupt kingpins that they could get at. When you are trying to convict a guy who owns a whole country, sometimes they have to use alternative tactics.  So you go after their resources, or chip away at the leadership, or just break his business to weaken him before his rivals.  While some of these things are not in the handbook, sometimes it's all they have.


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## Annoying kid (Dec 15, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I'm wondering what screenplay excerpt you posted that had Jay doubting the honesty of your claim that you're in film school.



I've seen ironpony's work before. As I recall, the dialogue and scenarios were flat and on the nose  to say the least. But that was awhile ago.

That in itself doesn't make me doubt he's in film school. People attend school at different levels of education and profiency. Fine.

What makes me doubt it, and think this is not being asked in good faith, is the fact that ironpony has posted very similar questions about cops over a period of 2 years, across at least a dozen other writing websites.

So one can be forgivenfor thinking he's ice skating uphill. Bonus points to anyone who gets that reference.


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## ironpony (Dec 15, 2017)

Okay thanks.  What can I do about my dialogue?  I was thinking of maybe hiring another writer after to jazz it up perhaps.  Is it not poetic or quotable enough?

As for the scenarios being flat, I was told before that my scenarios were too over the top, so for the past couple of years, I have been trying to write scenarios that were more subtle and low key, but perhaps they are too low key, and not elaborate enough maybe?


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 15, 2017)

Ralph Rotten said:


> Getting this thread back on track...
> 
> The thing about cops is that they are psychologically selected because they are in-the-box thinkers.  Sure, many cops are smart, some even genius, but police departments use tests like the MMPI to choose people who will tend to work within the framework of the legal system.  See, out of the box thinkers like me just get the department into trouble.  The law is not a negotiation, it is rigid and fixed, so police departments want people who color within the lines.
> 
> However, I have seen cops do things that were not in the book.  Example: DEA has been known to bankrupt kingpins that they could get at. When you are trying to convict a guy who owns a whole country, sometimes they have to use alternative tactics.  So you go after their resources, or chip away at the leadership, or just break his business to weaken him before his rivals.  While some of these things are not in the handbook, sometimes it's all they have.



And I thought they wanted people who could run and shoot.

I could tell my DEA story, but I don't want to ruffle any more feathers around here than I already have. 

Just like with doctors, lawyers and plumbers, there's all kinds of police, and DEA, officers.


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## Annoying kid (Dec 15, 2017)

ironpony said:


> Okay thanks.  What can I do about my dialogue?  I was thinking of maybe hiring another writer after to jazz it up perhaps.  Is it not poetic or quotable enough?
> 
> As for the scenarios being flat, I was told before that my scenarios were too over the top, so for the past couple of years, I have been trying to write scenarios that were more subtle and low key, but perhaps they are too low key, and not elaborate enough maybe?



Again, it was awhile ago. You'd need to post it again.


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## ironpony (Dec 15, 2017)

Okay well I tried posting as scene but every time I post on here, the formatting gets lost and it becomes very difficult to read.  Is their a way to get it posted on here, and retain format?  Well here's a scene.  What can I do to make the dialogue or scenario less flat?

INT. PUB -- DAY
Sheila plays pool with ILF members. They are out of their
masks and in regular dress for the place. A WAITRESS comes
over with a tray of drinks, as she hits a ball in the pocket.

WAITRESS
Here you go, hon.
She tries to hand a drink to Sheila. She doesn't accept.


SHEILA
I didn't order anything.

WAITRESS
It's just soda. It's from the
genetlemen over there.

The waitress points out Guy, across the room. Sheila sees
him comes over.

She turns away and heads for the bar, before Guy can speak --
He goes after her --

GUY
I just need to get your statement...  Please.


Sheila signals to the bartender, but she is busy -- Sheila
walks away, to the exit. He walks ahead of her.

SHEILA
Let me guess... They sent you because
they think that since you rescued me
that I feel like talking to you more?


GUY
Something like that. Look, I know
you don't want to relive what
happened, but you seem to be taking
it better now. It would really help
if you come in and give a statement.

SHEILA
(interrupts)
What do you expect me to do, go on
being traumatized and depressed? I
have nothing to say to you. I told
you people already, I'm not
testifying.

She tries to walk around him but he blocks her.

GUY
Alright, look, if you don't give me
statement, we can subpoena you to
(MORE)


GUY (CONT'D)
testify before a preliminary hearing.

The two ILF members observe in concern. ILF Member 1 comes
over to her.

ILF MEMBER 1
Why don't you leave her alone. Hasn't
she been through enough?

SHEILA
Alright, I'll give a statement.  Lead the way.

Guy ignores him and gestures for her to walk outside.  Sheila walks ahead of him, and he follows, unproud...


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## nickpierce (Dec 15, 2017)

ironpony said:


> Okay well I tried posting as scene but every time I post on here, the formatting gets lost and it becomes very difficult to read.  Is their a way to get it posted on here, and retain format?  Well here's a scene.  What can I do to make the dialogue or scenario less flat?
> 
> INT. PUB -- DAY
> Sheila plays pool with ILF members. They are out of their
> ...





Needs actors.


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## Annoying kid (Dec 15, 2017)

Ironpony, what's interesting about that scene in your opinion?


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 15, 2017)

It's a very brief scene, but it looks alright to me.

I wonder if the problem is difficulty with screenplay formats. Screenplays are very different from prose.

In thinking about this further, I think it might help to explain that when learning screenplay writing after prose story writing, there was a learning curve because of a tendency to include too much description.


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## Annoying kid (Dec 16, 2017)

The script lacks subtext. Underuses the actors. Tells instead of showing, and so comes off more like it's written for radio instead of the screen.


> WAITRESS
> Here you go, hon.
> She tries to hand a drink to Sheila. She doesn't accept.
> 
> ...



Waitresses don't hand people drinks and wait to be asked where it's from. They tell you who it's courtesy of when they hand it to you. Second, it doesn't make any difference if the soda part is there or not there. They're in the same room and she knows him. So she could have and probably would have just noticed him and made for the exit. There's no energy, no pep. Personally, I'd have her quietly notice him - he isn't even aware that she noticed him. And quietly give him the slip and make for the exit. Shocked that he lost her and looks around the bar and only just catches her before she leaves. I'd have some stakes to the scene. Have him be scared shes going to disappear on them for good instead of testifying or co-operating. 

That way just seems more exciting in a movie.



> SHEILA
> Let me guess... They sent you because
> they think that since you rescued me
> that I feel like talking to you more?



We don't need the obvious described to us. We know he wants her to talk from later in the scene, we know he rescued her earlier. You can let the audience put 2 and 2 together.


> GUY
> Something like that. Look, I know
> you don't want to relive what
> happened, but you seem to be taking
> ...




SHEILA
(interrupts)
What do you expect me to do, go on
being traumatized and depressed?

Guy - Er...No? I just said you look better...

You know what I mean? What she's saying isn't connected to what he's saying. Again there's no life. Is she angry that hes bringing up what she was traumatized over in order to get her to do something she doesn't want to? You could have something like:

Shelia - Here's my statement. When it comes to me, don't pretend you give a shit. 

That line would all be in the delivery by the actress. It does more than one thing. It gives the refusal to give a statement, but is more natural to the way people talk. Implies that she thinks she's just a statement to him and that its the only reason he's showing any concern at all. It's her telling him to cut the crap. 

When you write dialogue, try to have it serve multiple purposes. You have to. Because like me, you do not have the luxury of prose. 



> ILF MEMBER 1
> Why don't you leave her alone. Hasn't
> she been through enough?
> 
> ...




"Hasn't she been through enough" is again, stating things that are already implied. Seriously learn about subtext and you'll become a much better screenwriter. If the subpoena was the reason she changed her mind you really could have had this scene be:

- She notices him and makes for the exit. 
- He stops her and asks her to give a statement.
- She refuses.
- He says he can subpoena her. 
- She accepts. 

So it could easily be :

Guy : Shelia, we need your statement.

Shelia - No. 

Guy -  We can subpoena you.

Shelia - Alright fine.

/Endscene.

If you make it longer, it's gotta be for a reason. So what is that reason?


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## ironpony (Dec 16, 2017)

Okay thanks.  The exit is actually in his direction though, so she would have to walk past him to get to the exit if that's okay.  Or at least that's how the bar was set up when I wrote it.

Also, you say that by her saying

 "What do you expect me to do, go on
being traumatized and depressed? I
have nothing to say to you. I told
you people already, I'm not
testifying."

That I am over explaining to the audience, however, when I showed it to people before they said that they didn't get why she wouldn't want to testify, so I felt I had to include, since the reader wasn't putting 2 and 2 together before.





> You know what I mean? What she's saying isn't connected to what he's saying. Again there's no life. Is she angry that hes bringing up what she was traumatized over in order to get her to do something she doesn't want to? You could have something like:




No she is not angry about him bringing up that she was traumatized.  He didn't bring that up, did he?  She is angry at the fact that the police are making her testify or give statement about what happened.

As for the scene where the ILF member overstates what is already implied, the thing, is that what he is saying is implied to the audience, for sure, but Guy is still making her give a statement.  To the ILF member, Guy doesn't get it to him, so he is stating it to him, cause to him Guy is not getting the point.  Even if the audience gets it, Guy doesn't to him, to he still has to try to talk Guy into leaving her alone.  How can he do that, without it coming off as overstating the obvious to the reader?

Also you say the scene should be much shorter.  I originally wrote it as much shorter before, but I was told by readers, that Sheila is persuaded much too easily, and that it's much to fast, and I need to flesh it out.  I was told it was too fast before, and I need to flesh out for the reader.  So with that in mind, what can I do to make it not too short, but at the same time, not too drawn out, if that makes sense?  I wrote similar to this before:

GUY
We need you to make a statement

SHEILA
I told you before, I don't want to get involved

GUY
They will subpoena you, otherwise.

SHEILA
Okay fine, lead the way.

I was told before though, that this was too quick and too on the nose, by readers.  So not sure how short is too short, or how long is too long.  Plus before, the readers were asking the question of why of all the detectives on the case, that Guy was sent to question her, and not a female officer since normally they get female officers to talk to female victims and witnesses.  The reason why they ask Guy to is cause Guy rescued her before.  But the readers were not understanding this before, and kept asking the question why him, of all the detectives.

The readers also said that they didn't believe the cop would order her an alcoholic drink, if he is trying to get her to give a statement, cause it would be unprofessional of him to order her alcohol.  So the readers said that the fact that it's not alcohol has to be clarified to the audience.

So they were not putting 2 and 2 together.  How can I get them to do that, without a character addressing it in dialogue, since they need more to get it?  You say not to include the drink at all, right, but the thing, is that Guy is the type of character who would try to be nice to a witness to try to talk them into testifying, such as doing something nice for them and buying them a drink.  If he just gives her an ultimatum only, she might shut down, which doesn't help the case.  He wants to her open up.  So it really overdoing it, that he buys her a drink to get her to open up?

Even Columbo bought a witness a drink in one episode, to get the witness to open up, so is that overdoing it?

I'm going over the feedback the readers gave me and in order for the scene to make sense, they said these things have to be pointed out:

-- drink is non-alcoholic
-- why Guy was sent there of all the detectives on the case
-- Sheila needs to give a reason why she doesn't want to cooperate in the case

So how can I write if the readers say I need to explain these points?  What if I wrote it like this instead?

Sheila is playing pool with two ILF members and notices Guy at the other end, standing by the bar, near the exit, waiting.  She tries to head for the exit and a waitress comes up to her.

WAITRESS
Here you go, hon.  It's from the
genetlemen over there.

She tries to walk past him to towards the exit.  He walks over and cuts her off.

GUY
I just need to get your statement... Please.

SHEILA
Let me guess... They sent you because
they think that since you rescued me
that I feel like talking to you more?


GUY
Look, I know
you don't want to relive what
happened, but you seem to be taking
it better now.

SHEILA
(interrupts)
What do you expect me to do, go on
being traumatized and depressed?

She tries to walk around him but he blocks her.

GUY
Alright, look, if you don't give me
statement, they will subpoena you to
to.

The two ILF members observe in concern. ILF Member 1 comes
over to her.

ILF MEMBER 1
She's been through enough.

SHEILA
Alright, I'll give a statement. Lead the way.

Is this better?  Since readers were having a problem with the drink not being established as non-alcoholic though, what can I do to establish that in the dialogue then, since the readers  say they need that?  The other two points the readers say needed to be addressed are still addressed though, so it that okay?  Or how do I address their points, without overexplaining it?  What if I wrote it like this:

SHEILA
Aren't cops not suppose to alcohol for people giving statements?

GUY
It's just soda.

Maybe that doesn't work, but since readers had a problem with this, what can I do to clear it up?  Another thing one reader pointed out that I didn't address yet is that it doesn't make sense how Guy knew that Sheila was at the pub, and I need to explain that.  But that was just one reader who said that so wondering if I need to.  But do I?  There are lot of movies where detectives will show up in public places to catch people they have to talk to and it's never explained how the detective knew the person was there.  So does this really need to be addressed also, and is it a problem, like the one reader said?

You say that readers can fill in the blanks, which I like the idea of, but they are not and have all these questions that need to answered, they say.




Ralph Rotten said:


> Getting this thread back on track...
> 
> The thing about cops is that they are psychologically selected because they are in-the-box thinkers. Sure, many cops are smart, some even genius, but police departments use tests like the MMPI to choose people who will tend to work within the framework of the legal system. See, out of the box thinkers like me just get the department into trouble. The law is not a negotiation, it is rigid and fixed, so police departments want people who color within the lines.
> 
> However, I have seen cops do things that were not in the book. Example: DEA has been known to bankrupt kingpins that they could get at. When you are trying to convict a guy who owns a whole country, sometimes they have to use alternative tactics. So you go after their resources, or chip away at the leadership, or just break his business to weaken him before his rivals. While some of these things are not in the handbook, sometimes it's all they have.



I can see that for sure, but couldn't a cop change over the course of his job, from negative experiences?  Couldn't he start out as a proud law abiding boyscout, but then all the negative experiences, of violence and injustice, turn him into an outside the box rulebreaker, and break down his morality overtime?  Or do the tests they take, guarantee that they will never loose their honesty and morality on the job, even if they suffer bad experiences?


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 16, 2017)

ironpony said:


> ...but couldn't a cop change over the course of his job, from negative experiences?  Couldn't he start out as a proud law abiding boyscout, but then all the negative experiences, of violence and injustice, turn him into an outside the box rulebreaker, and break down his morality overtime?  Or do the tests they take, guarantee that they will never loose their honesty and morality on the job, even if they suffer bad experiences?



There are good cops and bad cops. No test can ensure there's not a bad apple in the bunch. Then there's the ones who turn bad because of life experiences.

Don't believe me? Search the net. Every year there's at least one headline of cops on power trips. A few years ago there was Sandra Bland, who ended up dead because she failed to use her turn signal before changing lanes. It was a domino thing, where one event led to another, but the cop, and Ms. Bland, kept escalting the situation. As a trained officer, the cop should have been able to stop the escalation.

Then there was another case where a twelve year old boy with a toy gun was shot to death by police. The officer fired as soon as he got out of the car. He didn't give the boy a chance.

So there are events that are handled poorly in real life, test or no test. 



As far as things being explained or the scene being exciting, remember that this is just one short scene in an hour or two screenplay. Not every scene has everything explained. Not every scene is exciting.

If you want feedback, get it for the whole thing. Only then will the feedback really fit with the entire piece. That's my opinion for books, too, which is why I talk about beta readers a lot. Feedback on only a portion of the whole may help, but it might just as easily be misguided due to lack of information that's given elsewhere.


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## Annoying kid (Dec 16, 2017)

I don't agree with Jack of all Trades. Every scene should be exciting in its own way. Certainly no scene should be boring.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 16, 2017)

...


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## ironpony (Dec 17, 2017)

Okay thanks.   Well I am not sure how to write it now.  One the one hand, you say that I overexplain too much and to leave all that out, but previous readers who read a lot more of the story, say I need to explain all these little things, like how the drink is not alcoholic, or the reader will become confused or get the wrong ideas about what's going on.  So not sure how much the average reader can actually put together now.


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## Annoying kid (Dec 17, 2017)

ironpony said:


> Okay thanks.   Well I am not sure how to write it now.  One the one hand, you say that I overexplain too much and to leave all that out, but previous readers who read a lot more of the story, say I need to explain all these little things, like how the drink is not alcoholic, or the reader will become confused or get the wrong ideas about what's going on.  So not sure how much the average reader can actually put together now.



It's boring. That's the bottom line. Ask yourself why someone might be bored by what you write.

If you're really in film school though why are you asking for help here? Don't you have tutors that can help you directly?


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## ironpony (Dec 17, 2017)

I graduated from film school now.

So the reason why people get caught up in thinking about things like whether or not the drink is alcoholic is cause it's boring then?  What can I do to to make it not boring?  You say she should try to go for the exit and he should chase her through a crowd of people, right?

But the problem with that is, is that I feel there are already enough chases in the story, and it may feel like their are too many, if I put more in.  Plus the crowd of people would cost more for budget.  But there are plenty of scenes in movies, where a detective will question a witness, and the detective does not have to chase the witness.  So how do they make a questioning scene like that, exciting, without a chase?


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## ironpony (Dec 21, 2017)

Okay thanks. What about when it comes to writing action scenes?  Like for example, there is a scene I wrote when the main character (a cop), drives a witness home, after the witness gave a statement at the police station.  The villains want to silence the witness, cause she knows too much.  So I thought it would be exciting, if the villains ambush the police car, on the way to her place, take out the tires, and try to shoot through the car to get the witness out to find out what she told the police, and how much they know.

The car would be bullet resistant against pistol bullets of course, and the cop would have to defend himself and the witness while staying inside, waiting for back up.  However, will readers say it's illogical and ask questions, like why didn't the villains just wait for the cop to drop off the witness at her place, when she would more likely then be alone?  Or will they just enjoy the ambush scene and hopefully not ask questions like that?


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## Jay Greenstein (Dec 21, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> Me either. And apparently Jay is ignoring me.


I wasn't ignoring you. I figured you could look at his started threads and search for the word screenplay as easily as I could.


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## Jack of all trades (Dec 22, 2017)

Jay Greenstein said:


> I wasn't ignoring you. I figured you could look at his started threads and search for the word screenplay as easily as I could.



As I said in the post where I asked for the link, I can't see more than just a few of ironpony's threads. Maybe I'm not doing what you did, or maybe it works differently because you're a paying member. Either way, it's moot now because ironpony provided a new example.


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## ironpony (Dec 23, 2017)

Well I could fill in the gaps I have in the plot and finish another draft, and post it.  When I ask for people's opinions, I will show them a synopsis, without writing out all the scenes in full dialogue.  I was told in my writing class, not to write out in full dialogue, until the plot outline is airtight, and there is no room for holes.  However, is this the wrong way to go about things, and I have to write out a draft in full dialogue, just so readers will understand it?


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## Jay Greenstein (Dec 24, 2017)

> , I can't see more than just a few of ironpony's threads.


Go to his profile and click on Started Threads (things like to ability to see what you've commented on for a given person, so easily, is part of what makes this sit so great). They're the one threads he he's posted in in his two years here. That was my point. He never comments/helps in anyone else's threads, and posts samples of his work. And while you would think someone attending, and now graduated from a film school might join the discussion in the Scripts folder, at least. But he hasn't, on any writer's site I've seen him on. That's why I've asked him—based on the writing in the single script he's posted excerpts from, and his constant talk about unknown people telling him things about the actual work, to show the first few pages of what we've been advising him on for two years. 

After all, if all we're doing is satisfying his curiosity on legal and police matters that he could research himself, people should know that when he opens the thread


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## Phil Istine (Dec 24, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> As I said in the post where I asked for the link, I can't see more than just a few of ironpony's threads. Maybe I'm not doing what you did, or maybe it works differently because you're a paying member. Either way, it's moot now because ironpony provided a new example.



If you go into the search box near the top of the page and type ironpony into the user name part, that reveals 122 threads started by him. I'm not sure where Jay found the others, but the 122  should be enough to give you a few sleepless nights.

I suppose there could be a good story here about a guy who learns how to become a master criminal by posting to writing forums to ask about police procedures.


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## ironpony (Dec 29, 2017)

Sorry, you're right I should take more time to post in other threads here, so I did that for a few.

I also could post the story on here to read.  It's just that there are plot gaps in it, and not sure how to fill the gaps for everyone to understand.  There are parts of the story, where I have a point A to start with, and a point C, of where I want it to go, but there are no point Bs in some parts, and trying to figure out how to get the point Bs in parts of it still.  Otherwise, there are a few gaps.


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## DaBlaRR (Dec 30, 2017)

Jay Greenstein said:


> So who are these people? You ask question after question, over a period measured in years. You post your questions on _many_ sites. But not once in those years have I seen a word of your work posted anywhere. Yet you often talk about the people who tell you such things. Why are we, who are asked to help, over and over, not among those who have seen the results of all that advice?
> 
> Fair is fair. Having responded to 766 questions you've asked over the more than two years you've been on this site, without once commenting in any post but your own, shouldn't our members be the ones to say if the story they helped write is or isn't implausible?  Several times each week, week-after-week, you create a thread asking about some plot point, or an aspect of the law. This time, your question was 238 words long. Given a total of 766 individual threads started, with some questions longer and some shorter, i picked ten threads at random and took an average, which says about 313 introductory words per thread, exclusive of any remarks you might make within the thread.
> 
> An average of 313 words per thread introduction, for 766 threads, yields a total word count, in your own started threads, of 239,758 words devoted to nothing but asking questions about a writing novel that has to be less than 120,000 words to have a chance of being published—words no one on any site has seen. Surely you must have the first chapter complete, having worked on it for so long. Why not favor us with a word or three, so we know that our efforts are not in vain?



Totally agree with Jay. You have spent more time asking questions on this forum, so people on these forums can write the story for you. I don't think you understand what fiction is. Fiction breaks rules. When I write, I write with the intention of breaking rules but at the same time keeping it realistic. The people you say tell you this and that, this and that, this and that, over and over, who apparently are the only ones that have ever seen your work . . . I don't even think exist and you are just making them up and ironically is your biggest fiction. You should just quit if you want multiple forums, of hundreds of members to write this "fake fiction" for you.


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## ironpony (Dec 30, 2017)

Okay thanks.  Sorry, I don't mean to have people write it for me.  I try to post questions like when I asked "which is better between these two scenarios", and I presented too scenarios that were already thought out.  So I don't mean to intend for people on here to write the story for me, I just pick a series of ways for the story to go, and want people to pick which way is best.  Cause then I would hopefully be pleasing the most readers, if I asked them what is the best execution, but I try to come up with all the executions myself, and not have anyone come up with one for me.

Also these readers do exist.  I've mostly been showing people my scene sequence, and describe what happens in all the scenes.  But readers get caught up on all these little things.  Like in the scene I showed before. They get caught up on these things, like why did the cop by her a drink that was alcohol, or why did he question her while she was at a pub compared to at her home, or why did the same cop who rescued her earlier, be the one to question her instead of sending another detective, etc.

Things like that, and it seems for every scene, I have to address a few different little details like that, so the reader is not distracted at all.  So the readers are real and these are there opinions.  I could write out the story in full, dialogue and all.  However, I've been reading books on fiction writing such as The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, and he even says it himself in the book, not to bother to write out the story in full with dialogue, until the entire scene sequence makes sense, and there are no loose ends, and it holds together 100%, from other people's feedback. And then after that, you should only start on dialogue and writing it out in full.  But is that the wrong way to go?


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## John Oberon (Dec 31, 2017)

Now hold on...the bad guys were always trying to kill Dirty Harry, and Harry fought back and killed them instead. That's not taking the law into your own hands. That's self defense. In fact, there was a Dirty Harry movie where officers DID take the law into their own hands and murdered people they thought escaped legal punishment. Harry found out about it and ended up killing the vigilante officers when they tried to kill him.

Last year, we had a terrorist on campus. He tried to run people over with his car, then he got out with a knife and started chasing people. A campus policeman told him to drop the knife. He refused and advanced on the policeman, and the policeman blew him away. He was not fired or reprimanded, but celebrated. So...as long as the bad guys are a threat to life and limb, all bets are off as to how an officer will respond, but typically deadly force is justified.


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## ironpony (Dec 31, 2017)

John Oberon said:


> Now hold on...the bad guys were always trying to kill Dirty Harry, and Harry fought back and killed them instead. That's not taking the law into your own hands. That's self defense. In fact, there was a Dirty Harry movie where officers DID take the law into their own hands and murdered people they thought escaped legal punishment. Harry found out about it and ended up killing the vigilante officers when they tried to kill him.
> 
> Last year, we had a terrorist on campus. He tried to run people over with his car, then he got out with a knife and started chasing people. A campus policeman told him to drop the knife. He refused and advanced on the policeman, and the policeman blew him away. He was not fired or reprimanded, but celebrated. So...as long as the bad guys are a threat to life and limb, all bets are off as to how an officer will respond, but typically deadly force is justified.



Well I was talking about more so when Dirty Harry does take the law into his own hands such as shooting the guy in the leg to get him talk like he did in the first one.  Or entering a building to search without a warrant.  He keeps sidestepping the red tape to get ahead, even though it would cause legal problems in the case.

Perhaps Jack Bauer is a better example though, cause he's broken the rules further and taken it to further levels compared to Dirty Harry.


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