Day 2: When in doubt, lie gratuitously

I slept on it, and woke up to an epiphany about how to make this first heist scene happen: just lie.

Eight days ago I had an idea for a pretty good setup: intercept a van full of trafficked women before they reach their destination. I have six characters to position, and an impossible amount of risks. It all sounded really cool in my head...until the "clever plan" part was supposed to happen, and I realized I had no idea what I was doing. I tried having the team flounder and throw shit at the wall to see what sticks...but who would want to read that? A super specialized heist team that doesn't know what they're doing?

Some of the best heists, thrillers, and dramas start with a completely asinine lie. If you have a character whose job is to manipulate, forge, and obfuscate...she can just make shit up! So instead of scrambling, I picked a lie for her to build a ruse around, and poof — all the other characters' roles fell into place.

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