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Lesson 13
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PETER FELIZ: MISDIRECTS WHEN APPROPRIATE
What I learned today: perhaps I am heavy handing the misdirects. Don’t care yet will trim later
A. Clue Misdirection. Cuichi’s email requests Lucky to visit him at “The Hermosillo Hilton” Not the hotel but the jail
B. Character Misdirection..
1. At the Hermosillo Jail an Imposter is brought out instead of Cuichi Valenzuela
2. The beach house owner is NOT Cuichi Valenzuela but the real villain
3. Cuichi uses 2 aliases: In Cumaripa he’s “Maria-Jose Jesus Juarez; in the Hermosillo jail he’s ALMALIBRE61
4. Prison bus driver is really Cuichi’s getaway driver
C. Dialogue Misdirection. The real villain refers to his lover as “my son” or “my boy” (mi hito)
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Subject line: Jim Thompson Misdirects…When Appropriate!
“What I learned is…?
While I’d added misdirects from the beginning, they still need work, particularly in the ‘presenting the cover-up as reality.’ I need to work on moving the reveal later in Act ll or even Act lll. While I have moved a good deal of the storyline down, there is more work to be done. Also, I do not have much in the way of subplots. I think there is the possibility of one with the planning that Scott does over 15 years to put everything together, the leasing of the land parcels for the fake cell towers for instance or the capture of Everett and Mahmud as well as others may be an area. However, I don’t want the subplots to take away from the Mystery or Intrigue.
ASSIGNMENT
1. Check these three to see how effectively you used misdirection
The Red Herring character. <div>
Everett Dixon
Mahmud Bishara
The Villain’s plan.
From the outset, the Villain’s plan has been one of misdirection
The Villain’s plan is to get the FBI and DHS to focus on Violent Extremest Organizations (domestic and foreign) rather than on the possibility of a lone attacker.
The lone terrorist will be considered absurd by the professionals within the FBI and DHS as well as by the Intelligence Community.
The cover-up for each mystery present as “Reality.”
Providing evidence of a Native American group with a grievance.
Providing evidence of a coalition of Domestic and Foreign VEOs.
The scale of the attacks could only be accomplished by an organization.
2. Look through your Thriller Map for a few opportunities to add in misdirection.
Clue Misdirection. </div><div>
Misdirect: Video of the perpetrator looks like Everett Dixon.
Character Misdirection.
Everett Dixon is vaporized in the Sioux Falls safe house.
Not identified as having been frozen until later.
Scott is too old to be the perpetrator.
Dialogue Misdirection – still working on this but I believe this can be added in the meetings between the different LEAs and the major characters.
3. Decide on the ones that work and add them to the Thriller Map.
ACT I
Opening Image (0% – 1%)
Life Threatening Event 1 – Three police cars have a suspect trapped inside the house of a judge. The suspect fires on the police cars disabling them all. As the police get ready to breach the house, the Fargo courthouse explodes along with several downtown businesses in Fargo, ND.
Mystery 1 – Who is the person shooting the police?
Mystery 2 – Why have the buildings exploded?
Villain’s Plan 1 – The real reason for the attacks in ND and the killing of lawyers is more complicated.
Setup (1% – 10%)
Villain’s Plan 2 – Make the ND attacks the worse terrorist event in US history to have multiple Federal and State law enforcement agencies interact. — Initial Misdirection.
Life Threatening Event 2 – The courthouse and many other buildings are contaminated with Mustard gas/powder. In addition, the power structure for the city has been taken down with the substations contaminated with Mustard. This has resulted in hundreds of injuries of first responders and power company workers.
Villain’s Plan 2 – Distraction of the Federal LEAs through ruthless attacks and use of Mustard to injure and kill, increase pressure for a quick solution. — compound the original misdirection with a ruthlessness only seen by the FBI in Violent Extremest Organizations (VEO).
Primary Mystery 1 – Why has a terrorist organization attacked cities in North Dakota? — first crack in the misdirection.
END RESULT: An American Indian protest group experiencing multiple arrests with long prison sentences for minor infractions has partnered with ISIS and other foreign terrorist groups to attack what they have termed the ‘injustice’ system.
CLUES:
Overt: Meeting of the CIRG including FBI, DHS, ATF (EOD team), US Marshal Service, and Fargo PD with the FBI Assistant Director asking why Fargo, ND rather than a much larger and more strategic target. This attack, including the sophistication of using a WMD against first responders, does not make sense. </div><div>
Covert: Video from Fargo shows a large man escaping from the police to a ‘safe house’ then changing vehicles at a garage and moving to another house. Pictures of a Lakota Indian, Everett Dixon, resemble the person show in the night time video from Fargo.
Overt: A manifesto is delivered by USPS to newspapers, political podcasters, and other media claiming responsibility for the attacks in North Dakota on the systemic injustice done to Native American by the State of North Dakota and the Interior Departments BIA.
Overt: The Sioux Falls ‘safe house’ was purchased by Everett Dixon. He is also the owner of the SCUBA diving business located at the residence.
Life-Threatening Event 3 – Fargo PD Detectives Jeff Peters and Jorge Robertson get video of the perpetrators escape from the uniformed officers. Using the video, they find a house where the perp may be located. When the detectives investigate with SWAT backup, they discover what appear to be improvised explosive devices protecting the property and back off for the explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) team.
Life-Threatening Event 4 – Before the Fargo PD EOD team arrives, planes carrying the Critical Incident Response Group (CIRG) from the FBI and including members of DHS, ATF, US Marshall Service, and DoD investigators (includes members of Delta’s WMD squadron). This also brings Special Agent Jennifer Andrews, part the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) advanced force who will prepare the ‘environment’ for the HRT squadron.
Mystery 3 – Why did the attackers use Mustard in their attacks? How did they manufacture Mustard?
Mystery 4 – How did the terrorists place the Mustard in containers camouflaged as power transformers?
Primary Mystery 2 – How did the terrorists place Mustard powder in hundreds of camouflaged power transformers around Fargo, Bismarck, and Grand Rapids? — second crack in the misdirection, a VEO taking more than a decade to plan an attack is not normal.
RESULT: The terrorist began placing the fake power transformers over more than the last 10 years. They have also placed explosives inside the courthouses at least five years ago with some done during a Federal Justice Department remodeling project. The law offices, courthouses, and even the home of the lawyers killed were under sophisticated surveillance with wireless Internet access, sending data and video up to cloud-based accounts.
CLUES:
Overt: some garages discovered in Fargo, Bismarck, and Grand Rapids have fake power company trucks, including ‘Cherry pickers’ for placing or replacing transformers
Covert: Mustard powder is a simple chemical agent to create. </div><div>Overt: The Sioux Falls ‘safe house’ has the facilities to create the Mustard powder in quantity and to place it into containers using the mixed gas SCUBA filling system.
Overt: The ATF investigators determine many of the courthouses and other building destroyed were from military explosives, including RDX and PETN which are used in aerial bombs and artillery shells. They also found the use of C4 explosives used by the US Army and USMC.
Overt: Outside of the judge’s house, the Fargo PD finds video surveillance on all the external doors and inside the house, the FBI electronic forensic team discovers all the ‘smart’ devices in the house being used for surveillance with data uploaded to cloud accounts.
Catalyst (10%)
Life-Threatening Event 5 – The perp’s house in Fargo has IEDs which will spread Mustard over more than a city block and the EUDs are sophisticated with anti-tamper devices which make the EOD teams extremely risky.
Mystery 7 – The perp’s house in Fargo is destroyed through explosives and seeded with Mustard but using Site Sensitive Exploitation (SSE) procedures developed by the DoD SOF, the HRT finds evidence of a ‘safe house’ in Sioux Falls, SD where the Mustard was manufactured. Included in this SSE are indications of a terrorist group made up of Native Americans, ISIS, and possibly other groups working to tear down the US government. — continued original misdirection.
Reveal — The first Fargo safe house has indications of additional houses, apartments, and garages in Fargo, Bismarck, and Grand Rapids, ND. Therefore, this is a huge. complex operation requiring large funds and sophistication. This must be the work of either a domestic or foreign terrorist group.
Villain’s Plan 3 – Further distraction through attacks on Bismarck and Grand Rapids.
Mystery 5 – With the collection of data on the attacks, the Bismarck and Grand Rapids attacks have no surveillance video showing a perp, only the Fargo attacks show a perp. — another crack in the misdirection and clue to this being something other than a VEO.
Debate (10% – 20%)
Life-Threatening Event 8 – Frank Walters and Robert Williams receive direct pressure from the ND representatives and senators to find the terrorist group. They see Jennifer’s focus on a possible single perp as a threat and threaten dismissal or disgrace to Jennifer if she does not stop.
Villain’s Plan 4 – Start of the attacks on the Midwest power infrastructure to increase pressure.
Life-Threatening Event 9 – Jennifer travels to Sioux Falls as part of the reconnaissance advanced team to place surveillance on the house with a focus on what the HRT will need to know for their assault. As part of the assault, she is slightly injured, but two members are killed and five members are hospitalized.
Mystery 8 – Who is the Lakota, Everett Dixon, whose remains are found in the Sioux Falls safe house?
Mystery 9 – The SSE found in Sioux Falls leads the CIRG/JTTF to a safe house in the Midwest.
Villain’s Plan 5 – The safe house in Sioux Falls includes a chemical lab in the basement and SCUBA diving air generators to fill and mix gases.
Reveal – There is a Sioux Falls, SD safe house location containing the Mustard powder manufacturing and some mixed gas facility. Discovery and surveillance show at least one individual in the house.
Reveal – Everett Dixon, a member of the Lakota tribe, owns the house and a SCUBA diving business, including filling air tanks. Dixon is a former member of the US Army Special Forces as a weapons sergeant and is a current member of a native American protest group. The take down of the house does not go well for the HRT due to booby traps and IEDs which kill and injure several operators. Everett Dixon is ‘vaporized’ in an explosion as the HRT takes the house. Jennifer Andrews is among the injured.
Direction: Terrorist group successfully attacks inside the US.
Twist: This may be a single individual out for revenge, using the killing of hundreds and maiming thousands to mask his vengeance.
Misdirection — by the end of Act 1, the audience should be convinced the attacks are due to a VEO, probably foreign to some domestic ties. But there should also be a grain of doubt.
ACT II
Break into Act II (20%)
As Jeff and Jorge refine the Fargo homicide data, they find several deaths outside of the city of civilians who are not lawyers or judges. Why were they killed?
MYSTERY 3: Why is the extended family group killed and is there a relationship between them and the 14 non-lawyer civilians killed around Fargo?
RESULT: The real focus of the Fargo, ND attacks were the family group, former jury members, and lawyers on the criminal trial and suit against Grace Miller.
CLUES:
Overt: Jorge and Jeff discuss this with Jennifer, the extended family group sued Grace Miller over the death and undue influence on an aunt. The jury included the 14 people killed.
Overt: The family’s lawyer, Miller’s lawyer, and Judge were among the first people killed in Fargo. </div><div>Overt: All the firm’s lawyers for both the family and Miller were killed.
Overt: All the Federal, ND State, County, and City Judges were killed as well as almost all of the clerks and administrative personnel.
Reveal – After going through the hundreds of killed and thousands injured in Fargo, Jeff and Jorge discover a small number of civilians belong to the same extended family and most resided outside the primary Fargo attacks. M.I.S. – the attack across multiple cities is huge and uses WDM (Mustard powder) to expand the scope. Confusion and cover-up by the total number of people killed and injured. Letters delivered to media sites indicate a campaign against courts by Native Americans. Increasing political and media pressure to identify, arrest, or kill the terrorist group leaders. Multiple Native American leaders state there are no terrorist activity by any of the tribes.
Mystery 6 – The civilians killed are all part of the same family group Why were they killed?
Life-Threatening Event 6 – Jeff and Jorge take their findings about the odd group of civilian deaths to the FBI Assistant Director in charge of the CIRG and the Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF), Frank Walters but Director Walters does not agree and still believes these are anomalies.
Life-Threatening Event 7 – Jennifer hears about the anomalous civilian deaths, she seeks out Jeff and Jorge to find out more. When her HRT supervisory agent, Robert Williams, hears of this, he orders her to stop this line of inquiry and focus on developing the ‘battlespace’ for the HRT follow-on forces. Jennifer does her job but also works with Jeff and Jorge, including allowing access to multiple Federal databases.
Trust: Andrews is encouraged to present directly to the Assistant Director in charge of the investigation. Walters. He agrees that the evidence appears to indicate something different than a standard foreign or domestic terror group.
Distrust: Walters receives pressure from the US Senators and three Representatives from ND that he finds the terrorist group.
Distrust: Williams places pressure on Andrews to put aside the singleton theory and put emphasizes her AFO duties.
Trust: Williams has known Andrews for years from being her commanding officer in the Army to encouraging her to apply to the FBI and then sponsoring her for selection into the FBI’s HRT, finally letting her create an Advanced Force Operations (AFO) cell within the HRT.
Distrust: Andrews presents the findings from the Fargo PD detectives. Williams seems to agree but when discourages Walters from agreeing.
Direction: single perpetrator out for revenge.
Twist: The SSE recovered from the safe houses prove to the FBI, DHS, and ATF. This is a larger terrorist group.
B story (22%)
Misdirection — Scott’s surveillance identifies some level of focus on the killings of the family group, their legal team, and the jury, so he increases the level by attacking the power infrastructure and additional courthouses and lawyers throughout the Midwest, South, and Southeastern US.
Villain’s Plan 6 – The use of fake cell towers leased by ‘Midsouth Mobility, LLD’ which is owned through multiple shell companies that eventually lead to an account in Lichtenstein.
Villain’s Plan 7 – The use of stolen military weapons for the attacks using the cell towers.
Life-Threatening Event 10 – Prior to the assault on the Sioux Falls house, attacks begin on the power infrastructure in the Midwest by using cell towers with high powered military weapons, 50-caliber machine-guns, 81mm mortars, and recoilless rifles. These take out the critical substations with very high and extremely high power transformers.
Direction: Military weapons indicate a sophisticated terrorist group.
Twist: Retrieved serial numbers of sites show all weapons were from DoD Armory robberies but more than ten years ago.
Reveal – The fake cell towers used in the power system infrastructure attacks were leasing land paid for by Midsouth Mobility, LLC. This company is a shell within a shell, but eventually FBI accountants trace funds back to banks in Lichtenstein. The FBI and Interpol go after the funding in these accounts.
Reveal – The weapons used in the infrastructure attacks were stolen from US military armories but the thefts were more than 10 years ago and were ‘commando-like’ raids.
Mystery 6 – The civilians killed were members of a jury pool more than 15 years ago. Why were they killed? Does this have to do with a trial more than 15 years ago?
Reveal – Fourteen civilians killed in the Fargo attacks had been part of a jury more than 15 years ago. The number killed in the attack slows down the discovery process. The trial was for Grace Miller, who died 15 years ago. The extended family killed was related to Grace and won a verdict against her. Grace’s husband, Scott, is still alive but is 71 years old, working as a computer network security engineer. One of her daughters is a US Army CID warrant officer. Her son is a US Army Special Forces engineering sergeant who would be an expert with explosives including IEDs. — Misdirection – a focus on Scott’s children who are active military and have the right qualifications.
Direction: FBI Assistant Director in charge of the investigation sees merit in the revenge motive.
Twist: The increased scope and scale of the attacks make a singleton perpetrator impossible.
Trust: Andrews out of the hospital brings further evidence to Walters that the perpetrator must have extensive US military and special operations experience
Fun and Games (20% – 50%)
Villain’s Plan 8 – The use of cloud, advanced automation techniques, and artificial intelligence to pace the attacks and surveilance of locations. The use of AI allows only the necessary surveillance to alert Scott.
Mystery 10 – How can the terrorist strike dozens of power sites simultaneously?
Life-Threatening Event 11 – Jennifer is sent to examine a ‘false’ cell phone tower with a small team of HRT operatives. When they arrive, they are under surveillance and when they arrive, the team and their vehicles are taken under fire by a 50 caliber machine-gun.
Mystery 11 – Do all the false cell towers have terrorist surveillance?
Reveal – Scott is an engineer and expert in cloud computing, security, advanced encryption techniques, automation, and artificial intelligence. He has multiple patents and copyrights.
Life-Threatening Event 12 – Jeff and Jorge bring more evidence to Jennifer that the attack on ND is simple revenge and not a more sophisticated terrorist group. Convinced, she goes directly to Frank Walters who listens, but the pressure from executive and legislature branches who need these escalating attacks to be part of ISIS and not a single man bent on revenge. He threatens her with immediate dismissal and being black listing to prevent her from ever working in law enforcement.
Trust: Andrews believes the evidence and information the Fargo PD detectives have gathered.
Direction: Federal law enforcement focuses on identifying the terrorist group through SSE and taking down the identified safe houses.
Twist: The body parts recovered of Dixon in Sioux Falls have ice crystals, he had been frozen before the HRT took down the house and the IED nearly vaporized him.
Mystery 12 – Who is Scott Miller?
Reveal – Scott worked as a reserve Police Officer and Deputy Sheriff for about 15 years.
Villain’s Plan 9 – Scott uses general aviation assets through multiple IDs for untracked movement around the country. He hires an actor ‘look alike’ for the ND attack timeframe. He kills the actor to remove the link.
Mystery 13 – Scott Miller has an alibi for the time of the attack in ND, he is working in Atlanta.
Midpoint (50%)
MYSTERY 4: Could a single individual manage the scope of these attacks?
END RESULT: Given the scope of the attacks, one person with the correct set of skills and total ruthlessness could accomplish the attacks, but acquiring the funding would probably require at least a small group. — Misdirection — Scott is too old to accomplish these attacks and has an alibi.
CLUES:
Covert: Would a person kill hundreds and injure thousands of people, including children, in order to obfuscate the killing of a select few? </div><div>
Overt: Scott Miller is 71 years old. Could he be fit enough to escape the police during the Fargo attacks?
Overt: Scott does not look like the person in the Fargo videos.
Overt: Scott has an alibi for the time of the Fargo attacks.
Covert: An actor was killed the weekend after the Fargo attacks who has a resemblance to Scott.
Overt: Scott was a reserve police office and attended courses at the NC State Police Academy on forensics, investigative techniques, and homicide investigations.
Overt: Scott was a reserve Deputy Sheriff who served on the county SWAT as a trainer, assaulter, sniper, and EOD technician.
Covert: During his time in law enforcement, a vigilante attacked more than a dozen drug houses, killing all the residents and stealing the cash but not the drugs.
Overt: Scott is an expert at computer automation and has created artificial intelligence programs to run network management for Internet service providers.
Overt: Scott retired from the US Army before starting his computer consulting business as a Chief Warrant Officer with service in two special mission units (SMU).
Covert: Scott’s military personnel file is heavily redacted, preventing the FBI and DHS from understanding what he did at the SMUs. However, they did find that he spoke several foreign languages fluently, qualified in weapons, engineering, and communications in Special Forces. He also qualified as an SF Combat Dive Supervisor, which would include skills in using mixed gas and closed circuit diving, as well as numerous other skills.
Covert: Under the redacted portion of his personnel file, Scott worked closely with the US Secret Service, FBI, DHS, and NSA.
Covert: Scott has many close friends who are combat veterans of SF and SOF. These people might be available for mercenary work.
Life-Threatening Event 13 – Jeff, Jorge, and Jennifer begin investigating Scott Miller, but other than a generic US Army record in SOF and retirement as a CW4, they have very few details. They do find that he is a highly successful computer network engineer over the last 20 years. As they dig, Jorge is killed with Jeff and Jennifer, both wounded – but Scott has an alibi for the time of their attack.
Reveal – Scott retired from the US Army after 30 years as a Special Operations warrant officer with more than 20 years in Special Mission Units. Their daughter and son both are overseas during the Fargo attacks. Scott was working in Atlanta and stayed there the weekend of the attacks. Scott’s personnel file has more redacted portions than open.
Direction: The search by Jeff, Jorge, and Jennifer has been dangerous but impersonal.
Twist: They are under surveillance and considered a threat by the perp.
Villain’s Plan 10 – Scott created the initial war chest through attacks on drug houses in the Southeast region. He identified the houses through his county Deputy Sheriff’s access.
Villain’s Plan 11 – Scott increases the war chest by attacks on armored cars carrying diamonds and large amounts of cash from gambling.
Mystery 14 – If Scott Miller is the perp, how has he gotten the funding and weapons for an operation of this scope?
Mystery 15 – Could this all have been planned and put into place over the last 15 years without anyone realizing it? — Possible misdirection through dialogue, the FBI does not want to admit to not putting together the clues from the large armored car robberies or the long period of time Scott may have take to put all of this together.
Bad Guys Close In (50% – 70%)
Distrust: Walters has Andrews suspended for failure to follow orders and insubordination.
Life-Threatening Event 14 – Jennifer is placed on suspension while in the hospital. She takes her findings to the DoD and Delta operatives on the CIDG/JTTF.
Mystery 15 – DoD agents find Scott’s ‘201 file’ heavily redacted and of not much more use than what Jennifer has already discovered.
Mystery 16 – The Delta operatives discover more since Scott had been in 1st SFOD-D for 12 years before going to the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) for another 10 years.
Reveal — The Delta operatives reach out to the ISA to get ‘read on’ to projects and activities. The query reaches up the ranks until the commanders of the units talking.
All is Lost (75%)
Trust: Andrews is encouraged to present directly to the Assistant Director in charge of the investigation. Walters. He agrees that the evidence appears to indicate something different from a standard foreign or domestic terror group.
Distrust: Walters receives pressure from the US Senators and three Representatives from ND that he finds the terrorist group.
Distrust: Williams places pressure on Andrews to put aside the singleton theory and get back to her AFO duties.
Distrust: Williams and Walters under political pressure to find a foreign terrorist group which the US can attack, work to disgrace Andrews within the FBI.
Life-Threatening Event 15 – Frank Walters finds out that Jennifer has given the DoD and SOF operatives sensitive FBI information, he lets her know that her career at the FBI is now at an end.
Villain’s Plan 16 – Increase the number of attacks and pressure on law enforcement agencies.
Mystery 17 – With Scott under surveillance, the attacks in the Midwest, South, and Southeast continue and even increase in their pace and scope. More than a quarter of the nation is having brown outs or even blackouts. More than 100 courthouses have been blown up to the point of being razed. How can Scott continue doing this with the level of surveillance on him? — Misdirection — the scope is beyond what any one man could accomplish.
Villain’s Plan 17 – Distraction by getting the FBI and DHS focus on other safe houses he’s allowed them to discover. — Misdirection — additional members of VEOs to focus the investigations.
Mystery 18 – The other safe houses discovered have a mixture of Native Americans, Arabs, Black, and Hispanics with indications of their complicity in the terrorist attacks.
Direction: Discovery of the terrorist network of safe houses.
Twist: The body parts recovered have ice crystals like Dixon. All were frozen before the explosive dismemberment.
Mystery 19 – Even as the safe houses are rolled up, the attacks on the infrastructure continue and even increase.
Dark Night of the Soul (75% – 80%)
Mystery 20 – The commanders of Delta and the Activity place the full resources of multiple teams on Scott to figure out if he is the perp of the worst terrorist attack in US history. Scott was a plank owner for the AFO G Squadron and an expert in singleton intelligence operations, which he perfected at the Activity. If he is the perp, they will have him killed.
Life-Threatening Event 20 – Jennifer is confronted by operators from Delta’s F Squadron warning her off, hinting that they will take care of their own.
Life-Threatening Event 21 – When Jennifer does not drop it, she is abducted a block from Scott’s home, taken to an unknown location with a black hood over her head and hands cuffed behind her back.
ACT III
Break into Act III (80%)
Mystery 21 – Does the DoD or Delta have evidence that Scott is the perp?
Life-Threatening Event 22 – Released, Jennifer manages to get through surveillance to confront Scott at his home and question him.
Finale (80% – 99%)
Life-Threatening Event 23 – Jennifer is picked back up when she leaves Scott’s house. Rather than threatening her, a DIA operative offers her an opportunity to switch from the FBI over to either the DIA or NSA with an increase in pay grade and the solving of this case.
Mystery 22 – While Scott appears to be safe, he prepares to leave for South America. Why does he leave and why are the attacks continuing?
Villain’s Plan 18 – Finish and escape to live another day.
Mystery 23 – Scott leaves for Brazil.
Final Image (99% – 100%)
Scott is assassinated in Ireland (or Sao Paulo, Brazil?) by an IC contractor who once worked for Scott at the Intelligence Support Activity while Jennifer watches from a concealed position.
Direction: Jennifer has dedicated 10 years to the FBI and plans on it as a career.
Twist: She resigns from the FBI, hired at the DIA, then volunteers for the Activity.
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LESLIE A. AGUILLARD MISDIRECTS WHEN APPROPRIATE
What I learned: Am still attempting to distinguish the names of these techniques from one another: clue / misdirection / mystery / suspense are sometimes overlapping, but I’m trying to have an action or question and then make sure to answer that question. Am trying to limit characters and have made more use of the Random Woman than I originally thought which adds to the mystery. As these layers or techniques become part of my thinking, I am trying to put the suspense/jeopardy into every moment with only a few moments of relief so far.
A. Clue misdirections: whether the pub at beginning is a gay bar or not; are the hero and friend more than friends? Hero seems acting out understandably to his friend’s death until drugging and the kidnap; behavior changes when trapped by the villain (chased by dogs then saved fromthem) and Hero becomes efficient killer to save himself. Big mystery reveal at the end: is the hero really a former agent who faked “her” death and changed sex?
At the Villain’s estate: his violent parties and circumstances are unjudged by the staff and henchmen who are all just paid to do their jobs and they do them with disturbing indifference, as if they also are above the law.
B. Character misdirections: The Random Woman at first may not be noticed but keeps showing up. In the background at the Pub in the beginning, running into men barred from the pub, seems to be following the Hero; not sure if she’s friend or foe when she says she’ll help the villain’s men but then doesn’t. May still be unclear if she’s CIA or just a PI at the end.
With the hero, he is at first just a guy caught by tragic accident and then becomes victimized for no discernable (to him) reason, and then fights back effectively revealing he is much more than he appeared.
Villain Misdirections: Villain thinks he is above the law and can kill people and get away with it; thinks he’s more famous than he is as hero never heard of him; Villain’s aide is conflicted often with Villain’s plans as it seems being made up as it goes along. Villain does not try to save his Aide much to Aide’s dismay.
C. Dialogue Misdirections: Have not done much yet with dialogue. To avoid exposition however, it seems asking a question and answering with another question is a good strategy. To argue or confront is more interesting than a polite exchange.
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