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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48247
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Misinformation is an important element of my story as is pretty much kicks the plot in motion:

_Gyvaris, a young dragon, steals a sheep from a large flock since he's really hungry and just couldn't find a single deer, though he was sure there were more than enough for him in the forest._

_A shepherd witnesses the event and rumor soon starts to spread about a fearsome monster that ravages the countryside. People blame missing livestock on the dragon. The breaking point comes when a child goes missing in the forest where Gyv was often seen._

_The king orders his best knight to track down and kill the dragon. Gyvaris was chilling out on his perch and occasionally going on leisure flights while all this was going down. He only realizes something is amiss when a crossbow bolt buries into his neck..._

This gives a good motivation for humans to want to kill Gyv and a good reason for Gyv to view humans as dangerous and evil invaders, without making either of them unreasonably bad.

Yet it still tastes artificial. **The entire plot requires us to believe that people believed a single creature, they never knew or heard of before, just started doing horrible things, without evidence.**

As the writer and as my self-insert in the story, I get to influence how events unfold and occasionally give my pawns a little nudge.

**How can I use these tools to give events like the one in the bold text the illusion of being logical and "unavoidable"?**

Original score: 2