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Q&A I'm unable to figure out the logical solution to a problem; how do I keep writing?

but the story involves an enemy who can perfectly anticipate your moves. This happened more than once on Leverage (a totally fun Robin Hood heist-of-the-week show; I highly recommend it). The ...

posted 9y ago by Lauren Ipsum‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T12:00:32Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19859
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T04:48:40Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19859
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T04:48:40Z (about 5 years ago)
> but the story involves an enemy who can perfectly anticipate your moves.

This happened more than once on _Leverage_ (a totally fun Robin Hood heist-of-the-week show; I highly recommend it). The Leverage crew is made of five bad guys who have gone good and run cons to benefit people. Unfortunately, after a while, each person's reputation becomes known, and others can predict their moves.

The episode which might help you is ["The Last Dam Job."](http://leverage.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Dam_Job) Nate, the mastermind, hires five other people to do the jobs of his crew. The idea is that the crew has a mastermind, a grifter, a hacker, a hitter, and a thief, but the replacement crew has entirely different patterns and methods than the standard crew, and the bad guys can't anticipate what they don't know.

If your antagonist can predict your protagonist, have your protagonist present as a decoy, while someone _else_ is running the actual operation in the background.

For a simpler example, in _Lord of the Rings,_ Sauron knew who Aragorn was and what he was capable of, and could anticipate and counter the army of Men and allies who battled him at the Black Gate. He _didn't_ know about hobbits, and nobody suspected that any individual hobbit was capable of such strength and sacrifice. The hobbits were the real key to defeating him.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2015-11-25T13:14:54Z (about 9 years ago)
Original score: 2