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I was thinking of having the third act of my story (a battle between the police and villains), happen like in a western, accept it's not a western a lot has changed in modern times. Basically in my story the cops are angry at the gang because the gang got away with murdering an officer, and the cops do not have enough proof, but at the same time, they want to put the gang out of commission.
Now the kind of ending I want would go like this, like in this clip from Open Range at 1:55 minutes in.
Now if you have that in modern times with the cops one side, approaching the gang from the other at a place they arranged to find the gang, would that work? Or do people have modern times have such a different mentality, that you cannot use a western influenced ending like that?
The reason why the cops go after the gang in this type of aggressive manor is because the gang is too smart for the police to catch by legal means. They keep covering their tracks and outsmarting them so after a couple murders of officers they get away with, a few cops band together and go kill them since that is the only way to put them out of commission. But what do I have to do, to get a few officers to loose that much hope and feel they have to throw their lives away, and go to jail in order for the preservation of justice? It's trickier to write in modern times.
Yeah but I feel it's harder to win over with readers in modern times. In real life, whenever a cop is caught on video for example, walking up to some ALLEGED gangsters, who do not even have their guns out, and the cop pulls out his pistol and shoots them close range right in the head, when the gangsters aren't even doing anything, it's the cop who is considered to be the bad guy, and understandably so.
So how would a writer change that mindset in the reader when it comes to a modern day setting?
Well, it sounds like your cops have decided to be criminals to catch/stop worse criminals. I wouldn't sugar-coat it or try to paint it as noble. Justify the action; justify how difficult the decision is for the cops involved; don't go easy on the consequences.
Pretty much ignore the current public debate and dramas - they will only weigh your story down and pin it to very particular era.
Okay thanks. When you say don't go easy on the consequences though, I kind of have a sequel in mind, if the first one is successful, but still wanted to keep the option open. So therefore, the main cop can't go to jail for a sequel in mind, but he could be fired and become a private eye or something, but is such a consequence too light?
No it's handled by a group, but I haven't decided how many yet. When you said maybe the partner can't handle it, I was wondering if there was a particular reason why he couldn't or something. The main character doesn't have a main partner throughout the story and it would just be a group.
Cops going bad is a used and reasonable plot point. It makes sense that some could be so angered by a gang member getting away with killing one of their own that they go for vigilante justice. Not in the middle of town though like a classic western... more like they lure them out by the docks at night or whatever.
These days, there definitely will have to be consequences for the cops, though. I think it could work well.
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