Day 5 Assignments

[Brandon Clark]

Brandon’s Villain Has a Great Plan!

What I learned is…

Developing a general idea of the villain’s plan is probably the key ingredient to starting a good thriller, since ultimately all that he or she does will initiate a response from the hero. Also the villain must be cunning enough to thwart the hero when he or she begins to uncover their plan.

1. Goal – Sirok wants to be King of all realms.

2. Plan – Ascend the Heavens/ Acquire the dragon talisman/ control the Wings of Soria.

3. Cover up – use Blusage and the Chryslan monks to ignite the beacon towers so that he can see all realms. Also use power hungry mystics to open up portals which will unchain he and his demonic warlords. Provoke Blusage to use the Wings of Soria more and more.

4. Sequence – Sirok invents a league called the Demon Clan, a sort of gang between demons and dark sorcerers who wish to heighten their power. He gives a tremendous amount of power to one particular sorcerer, Xin Hatos, who hates the Chryslan order. (Xin was once a Chryslan who was burned by dark fire and expelled from the order). Sirok uses other demonic war generals to give power to other mystics who are rivals of each other to create a Mystic mafia. The mystics don’t know that the more they use the demon energy the more they open what are called Black Suns – portals which the demons can travel through to enter the mortal realms.

When Sirok gains entry to the mortal realms he seeks out divine/dragon talismans which will enable him to rise to the heavens and legitimate his claim to the throne.

He discovers that one of these talismans, and potentially the greatest of them, are the Wings of Soria, a set of mystical blades which are unlocked by Blusage, the Chryslan outcast. These weapons are linked to Blusage’s own physical body so Sirok cannot take them outright. Instead he seeks to use Blusage as his servant to ascend the throne of heaven.

Blusage refuses and Sirok has his warlords haunt Blusage, to get him to use the blades to see how they work. The more Blusage uses them Sirok employs mystics to discover spells which will give him mastery over them. His ultimate goal is to provoke Blusage to battle with him with them (while knowing he does not fully know how to use or control the blades) and eventually sieze them from him, in essence to possess his soul.

[Randy Hines]

ASSIGNMENT 5

To create your Villain’s plan, answer these four questions:

What is the end goal? The end goal is multi-tiered in my story. Peter Arteaga’s goal is to remove a loose end, Mosko. He planned this before the story starts in which Mosko’s wife, Irina is killed but Mosko escapes. Peter “hires” Mac Grant, our hero, to deal with him instead. Mosko’s end goal is simply to die and go be with his beloved Irina. And, last, Mosko’s little girl, Rosario, becomes the ultimate villain of the story as she embraces rituals that cement her as a cult figure but, in her mind, achieve her only goal, the resurrection of her mother. <div>

How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way? See above where Peter enlists the assistance of Mac Grant, who has an affinity for religious/cult/ritualistic matters due to his experience in a previous life – experience that weighs heavily and is the reason he was disciplined by the DEA.

How can they cover it up? Peter is too smart to make a direct assault on Mosko especially after the initial attempt failed. And now, Mosko has an ersatz army of cultists following his every move, providing protection – Peter can’t get to him. But Mac Grant can.

Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible. This is achieved by Peter’s initial direct assault, his leveraging Mac’s skills and at the end, his final gambit to take Mosko out now that he traced Mac’s whereabouts on the Texas border and he leads a strike team to do just that…but is beheaded in an ambush.

Then answer the question “What I learned is…?”

It’s possible to navigate/create scenarios from villainy that setup your story, move it forward and, through an intriguing sequence of events, bring the story to a satisfying close.

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[P.G. Sundling]

What I learned: This was a useful exercise to remind me of the overall villain’s plans. As you can tell from below, the novel has a pretty intricate plot.

To create your Villain’s plan, answer these four questions:

What is the end goal?

Kombinat: They want to take over Russia in a coup and bring former Soviet states back into the Russian sphere of influence.

Yu Gong Yi Shan: In the beginning, his goals are to serve China. As his mind becomes god-like his goals are beyond human understanding. All humans can discern is that if the AI is not stopped in minutes, not hours, there will be no tomorrow for mankind.

Chinese President Liu Yong: For China to become the dominant power and seize full control of the South China Sea.

How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way?

Kombinat: Perform the coup while the Russian president and much of his military are doing war games with China. Planned to thwart the American military with a kill switch. They will pretend to open Russia to the west but use intercept technology that will show altered versions of the news with their propaganda to turn former Soviet countries against the west. A new invisible curtain will replace the old iron curtain.

Yu Gong Yi Shan: The AI’s plan is too complex to completely understand. It uses an insane amount of seemingly random factors to launch much of America’s land-based nuclear arsenal to start a nuclear war. Parts of the plan include Chinese hackers, an American AI, social media, cancel culture, fear of a Chinese invasion, and unwittingly the heroes themselves. That is only one component of its larger plan.

Chinese President Liu Yong: The land bridge to Taiwan will be created with only civilian contractors so that Taiwan and its allies would have to shoot civilians if they want to stop it. Espionage will be used to steal plans for a missile defense system. A space treaty will happen to not cover China’s next space technology.

How can they cover it up?

Kombinat: They will wage a propaganda war one person at a time. They will open Russia to alternative Media, but using intercept technology, even American media will sing their praises within the invisible curtain.

Yu Gong Yi Shan: Coincidences and luck that happen throughout the book are really symptoms of its cover-up. The AI tries to murder all other sentient AI to make sure they don’t interfere. It will shoot down the plane normally known as Air Force One and take down Berlin and parts of New Zealand with enhanced EMPs to thwart opponents.

Chinese President Liu Yong: Hides the dirt being used to create the land bridge with an underground railroad. Nuclear and conventional warheads use the same launchers. An underground network of tunnels.

Sequence it to make it as intriguing as possible.

The AI battle that Yu Gong Yi Shan wages sets off a global cyberwar.

None of the Above will save the world with a nap. He will let the entity in his head possess him. The finale will take place at a mysterious location near Chornobyl. When None of the Above realizes what’s truly going on, many of the events of the book will be seen in a new light.

Fernando and MJ will use the American military to protect against counterattacks when the nukes launch.

Then answer the question “What I learned is…?” and put that at the top of your work.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  P.G. Sundling.

[Sue Swenson]

Sue Swenson’s Villain Has a Great Plan!

What I learned is that this process really helps to approach the task of writing a compelling thriller. I found these steps really helpful to generate ideas, to think through a plot, to imagine a story and to better define both the Villain and the heroine as well as red herring and victim characters.

To create your Villain’s plan, answer these four questions:

1. What is the end goal?

The villain is hiding the murder of a colleague. The end goal is to keep that a secret. The colleague is missing.

2. How can the Villain accomplish that in a devious way?

A. He spreads misinformation and shares this false information with the police and his wife, the missing colleague’s wife and the other members of the department regarding where the missing colleague went.

B. The villain deletes texts and e-mails that would link him to the dead colleague regarding what might have happened to him.

C. He hires someone and plants him in the remote viewing group.

D. He scares Carla in different ways to distract her and frighten her away from the search.

E. He gets into Carla’s head and uses the information against her.

3. How can the Villain’s plan and their actions be covered up?

A. He has an alibi for his absence from the university during the time the murdered colleague disappears.

B. The Villain stays close to Carla to keep on top of her activities and progress.

C. He sends a couple of fake FBI or State Police detectives. They interrogate Carla. She tells them about her remote viewing group. The fake FBI tells her to only confide in them. Don’t tell anybody else. She does. She finds out more information about a location. She shares this info with the fake FBI agents. They all visit this location. They try to kill her.

D. The Villain plants a spy in the remote viewing group.

E. The Villain sets someone up as a red herring.

F. Carla escapes the fake FBI agents after she leads them to the site of the body of her dead colleague. She is on the run. She contacts the professor for help since she still thinks he is the ally. He tells to lay low and he will come get her.

G. The Villain gets into Carla’s head and brings out her secret, flaw or a vulnerability that he can use against her.

Note: Have a hard bitten, hard-ass female colleague who’s not welcoming of Carla into the department. This individual is a red herring who turns out to be a quiet ally.

Sequence it to make it as
intriguing as possible.

Villain lures the victim, his professional colleague, to a remote location. He finds out some secret that his colleague learned. Villain murders him. Disposes of his body.

The villain takes and destroys the victim’s phone. He deletes texts and e-mails that would link him to the dead colleague regarding what might have happened to him.

He spreads misinformation and shares this false information with the police and his wife, the missing colleague’s wife and the other members of the department regarding where the missing colleague went.

He scares Carla in different ways to distract and frighten her away from the search. He sends a couple of fake FBI or State Police detectives. They interrogate Carla. She tells them about her remote viewing group. The fake FBI tells her to only confide in them. Don’t tell anybody else. She does.

They report this info to the Villain who stays close to Carla to keep on top of her activities and progress. He promotes her into his department, gives her a new title and responsibilities.

The Villain gets into Carla’s head and brings out her secret, flaw or a vulnerability that he can use against her. He uses this information against her later on.

Have a hard bitten, hard-ass female colleague who’s not welcoming of Carla into the department. This individual is a red herring who turns out to be a quiet ally.

The Villain plants a spy in the remote viewing group.

The Villain uses this spy to set someone up as a red herring. This could be the female colleague. They could become partners in solving this mystery.

Carla finds out more information about a location. She shares this info with the fake FBI agents. They all visit this location. They try to kill her.

Carla escapes the fake FBI agents after she leads them to the site of the body of her dead colleague. She is on the run. She contacts the professor for help since she still thinks he is an ally. He tells her to lay low and he will come get her.

[Sandeep Gupta]

i came back to redo exercise 5, and saw your answer. wish i had paid attention before, but apparently i had to work it out myself. still, thanks, borrowing some hints from here.

[Sandeep Gupta]

Day 5, Rolled Stone Villain’s Great Plan

Lesson: Perhaps Day 4 scared the lights out of me. It will take work to create something that matches the coherent complexity of those two plus the audience maturity that must be 30 years later today. In that light, what I limned on day 2, can’t happen fast by winging and needs to be woven, lest it spaghetti or smörgåsbord. Regardless, seems like we got a way coming up here, now that I can begin to see how thrillers work.

____

Villain’s Goal

1. Keep the international embezzlement and illegal espionage circle hidden

Plan

1. Prevent the protagonist from surfacing in the 1st world.

2. Contain, use, or eliminate the protagonist to hide how he was being used.

Cover-up

1. Import packaged as a radical political activist to work in a think tank.

2. Contain him when his politics turns out to be a wild card.

3. Ascribe disruptive agenda and rebrand him a spy.

4. Redefine as a double agent when that fails.

5. Use a medical cartel to contain him.

6. Stamp him as enemy of the state, potential exposure risk, call for treadstone.

Sequence

Cover-up 1–6, at this point, some items, esp., 5 may be spread in earlier steps.

____

Leaving this first attempt here Clearly I am slow, albeit this is useful context, so goal — As the world is getting ready for a quantum leap in technology and governance, a clique of well connected bureaucrats, academics, doctors and politicians are determined to restore / maintain the old order they miss because of the stupid internet, and at the threshold, is the protagonist. A walking spanner in their established ways of archaic rube-goldbergs and arcana, but has none of the smarts of the high achievers, or savvy or clue of those who’ve decided that not only an ersatz foreign policy of deceit, obfuscation, and compromise are the cost of doing business in the third world, it is actually needed for keeping upstarts in line.

So the devious plan is to subdue, violently violate, threaten him and those dear to him, isolate, use, and destroy this threat, much of which is their own creation for covering reverse espionage, extortion, and embezzlement.

And the cover up is almost successfully accomplished by packaging the protagonist with a creative stretch and representations of truths fused with outright lies as he is bought and sold across rogue NOC rings each with a different agenda.

Much of this is accomplished by a sequence of shill ops, recruitments, containments, and private agenda of each ring of this circus that configures, reconfigures or hands-off the protagonist to the next buyer. Is all this with help from a sorority of operatives,.or inspite them? That’s part of the fun, if I can pull it off as amusing as it is in my head. I don’t know what more to say of the sequence, which for me, would mean I decide on the plot at this point before I’ve looked at days six–eight at least.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  Sandeep Gupta. Reason: I didn't get it in the first attempt. Hopefully I've begun to get it now. It's hard for me to create a story from a very boring reality. Surprised me how emotionally difficult it is