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When your givens are a problem, change your givens. Your protagonist wants to get Ms. X out of the building alive. He may find her, but they both still have to get out alive. So: Is she wounded?...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T12:00:32Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19886 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T04:48:57Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/19886 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
When your givens are a problem, change your givens. Your protagonist wants to get Ms. X out of the building _alive_. He may find her, but they both still have to get _out_ alive. So: - Is she wounded? Did the bad guys shoot her or cut her up? Is she having seizures or does she urgently need medication? - Is the building full of the bad guys who are shooting at them and could kill either of them? - Did the bad guys chase the protagonist into the building and are busy trying to kill them? - Is the building rickety, old, or falling apart such that just exiting the building is a life-threatening exercise? - Is the building on fire? - Does it have to be a building? Could they be on a (sinking) boat, or a collapsing cave? - Is Ms. X a dedicated cop or other LEO who is insisting on taking down the bad guys herself, and will stay in the building shooting the bad guys herself rather than escaping? You see my point. Merely _finding_ Ms. X alive is not, in fact, the end of the conflict. That only ends when the two of them are safe and free of the bad guys. I might even venture that the conflict only ends when the bad guys are arrested or dead, or otherwise stopped from pursuing the protagonist and Ms. X.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2015-11-29T01:59:40Z (over 8 years ago)
Original score: 4