Have you ever wanted to write a heist story or one about a fraudster who pulls off a big con? Learn two things a great heist or con premise needs, and how to turn a collection of oddball characters into a page-turning heist or con plot.

November’s author is Dan. He’s writing a heist/con novel which he describes like this:

Office Space meets Ocean’s 11.

Chad, the CEO of mega-tech-social-media company Connecting, has suffered everything—data leaks, privacy scandals, media scrutiny, FBI inquiries, employee churn, a wife threatening to leave him—much to his own fault. To regain some goodwill, he goes to Las Vegas to announce a huge global non-profit initiative, although all of his above “friends” will be there too.

In terms of what he’s hoping to gain from feedback, Dan says he’s hoping for:

Ideas on how to put together a truly compelling story arc.

Here’s how Dan describes his biggest challenge in writing this novel:

I’m unsure about the villain. I like the idea of having so many antagonists: his wife, the FBI, white-hat activist hackers, disgruntled employees. They all can pick at Chad from different angles.

But I’m not sure what exactly will happen other than “people will try to stop Chad”. I keep trying different ideas, but they all spin out of control and make the plot kind of senseless.

What I love about this premise is there is so much potential conflict! Everybody’s out to get Chad. But Dan’s right. If the conflict doesn’t have some direction, it can spin out of control. Let’s discuss what gives a caper plot direction and how Dan can use that knowledge to create an awesome story arc for his novel.

Side note: Caper is the umbrella term for novels about heists, cons, and other crimes told from the perspective of the characters committing the crime. Elmore Leonard’s novels Get Shorty and Rum Punch (adapted as the movie Jackie Brown) are capers. As are the novels in Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg’s Fox and O’Hare series about an FBI agent who partners with a notorious con artist to go after the agency’s most wanted criminals.

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The first two things a caper premise needs

Caper stories are great because they have such concrete story goals. Rob the bank. Steal the priceless painting. Relieve the heiress of her fortune. Trick the collector into handing over a priceless object. Readers know exactly where the story is heading and they understand that anything that makes reaching that end goal more difficult creates conflict for the hero.

So the first thing a good caper needs is a hero with a concrete end goal that takes many scenes to accomplish. The size of that story goal determines the length of a novel. A goal for Chad might be: steal a bunch of money (and not get caught), destroy all the evidence of his past crimes (with no one noticing), repair his public image so a notorious gossip columnist stops slandering him every week, escape from the people who want to kill him, or frame someone else for his misdeeds.

Throughout the novel, Chad might pursue several of these goals, but one of them should be the primary goal that he pursues for most of the story and that matters in the climax. If Chad fails to achieve his story goal in the climax, there will be serious negative consequences. If he succeeds, he will be rewarded. (It’s also possible for him to have mixed success in the climax. But for this post, we’re going to focus on success vs. failure.)

The second thing a good caper needs are side characters with concrete goals. (Bet you didn’t see that coming.) For the main villain, their story goal will be constant throughout the novel. However, the main villain’s plan to achieve their goal can change, but the goal itself stays the same. For the minor antagonists, their goals can shift, but to a smaller degree than the protagonist’s goals shift. (The protagonist is often the protagonist because they have the hardest goal to reach.)

Just like the protagonist’s success or failure has consequences, the antagonists also face consequences for failing to reach their goals and rewards for succeeding. Those consequences can be different depending on the goals each antagonist is pursuing. The characters who are grouped—the FBI, the hackers, and the employees—should be separated into individuals, or small groups of characters who share a common goal.

For example, there may be one FBI agent who was a high school classmate of Chad’s who has a personal reason to pursue (and humiliate) Chad and another FBI agent who was called back from retirement to help with this case. She’s already booked a flight to Buenos Aires for Saturday and she’ll be damned if she’s going to let this case run long and force her to reschedule her flight and miss any of her tango lessons.

Once everyone has a goal, we can get to the truly fun part of creating a heist. Giving all the antagonists plans to achieve those goals that force them to interact and antagonize each other in addition to the protagonist. It’s easier to show through examples.

How plans become a page-turning plot for Dan’s novel

Here’s what Dan said about his plot:

Chad is in Las Vegas, about to announce a new initiative to help global non-profits with funding and free software. He hopes this will generate goodwill and erase a lot of the bad press he and his company have been getting, and ultimately that his wife will remember that they wanted to live bold, world-changing lives, and not private ones. But a lot of things will go wrong at the conference. Hackers will ruin part of his presentation, his disgruntled employees will be incompetent. I’m not sure what his wife will do but she will throw a wrench into his plans too. Basically, Chad will try everything to salvage his company and marriage here in Las Vegas.

We know Chad is up to something shady because this is a caper, but we don’t know what Chad’s plan is or the consequences of failing or succeeding to reach his goal. Let’s imagine two scenarios of what Chad might be up to, what the consequences might be, and how the antagonists’ plans work together to form a fun plot.

SCENARIO ONE - Put the money back

Chad used his company to steal money, and the conference is a cover to retrieve all the money he’s put away in an offshore bank account (or maybe a cryptocurrency exchange). If he doesn’t pull off putting the money back (without getting noticed), he’ll go to prison, his company will be dissolved, and his wife will leave him.

In this scenario, goals and plans for the antagonists could be:

The FBI agents suspect the company of the theft and they’ve got their people everywhere. They think the conference is a cover-up, and they’re looking for evidence to prove their suspicions. They try to recruit informants among the disgruntled employees and are tracking everything. Their goal is to make a high-profile bust.
The employees are disgruntled because Chad fired all the experienced engineers (Chad thought they’d discover the theft) and now there are only junior engineers who didn’t sign up for this much responsibility. The juniors want their colleagues to be reinstated or they’re going to walk out of the keynote and create a media scandal.
The wife is upset because Chad cancelled their luxury Mediterranean vacation. If he doesn’t rebook it, she’s filing for divorce. She’s only in this marriage for the perks. And if Chad doesn’t cooperate, she’ll hand over her journal (which contains damning evidence against Chad) to the FBI.
Activist hackers might be on a mission to make all kinds of private data available to the public (à la WikiLeaks). Their goal is to make Chad’s company’s data public and available to reporters and citizens for the greater good.

SCENARIO TWO - Cooperate with Feds

Chad’s company has been spying on their customers and it turns out the mafia uses the service. The FBI wants the company’s help to apprehend the head of a notorious mafia family. The mob leader is a fugitive, so he’s rarely seen in public. If Chad hands over the mob’s data and helps the FBI capture the reclusive patriarch, they’ll overlook the spying on other customers.

However, the mob has been in touch too. They know Chad has been talking with federal agents. If anything happens to a member of the family, they’ll be forced to reveal Chad’s biggest secret—he’s been using his company’s data to blackmail his competitors, and drive them out of business. Chad will be in even deeper trouble with the Feds, will probably go to prison, his company will be dissolved, and his wife will leave him.

In this scenario, the goals and plans for the antagonists could be:

An Undercover FBI agent is going to use the conference as an elaborate ruse to capture the mob patriarch. The lead undercover agent and the mob patriarch’s son are going to receive awards during Chad’s keynote speech. The agent will propose a new business opportunity. They’ve got warehouses full of essential items like smartphones, toilet paper, and kid’s clothing. With all the disruption to the global supply chain recently, they want to partner with the family to help distribute and sell these items. The agent needs to get the son to bring the patriarch to agree to a meeting where the godfather can be arrested.
The patriarch’s son says he’s going to the conference to receive his award, but really he’s going because he knows that someone in the family is an informant to the FBI and he’s going to find out who.
The employees can be disgruntled because not only are FBI agents are trying to recruit them and mob underlings are following them. They are looking for ways to escape the building, get to the airport, and get as far away as possible from this mess. But FBI agents and mob guys keep thwarting their escape attempts and forcing them to return.
The wife might be irritated because there’s a guy following her around. She thinks Chad is spying on her because she’s having an affair. (Really it’s a mob underling who is tracking her to intimidate Chad.)
Activist hackers can be on a mission to force the FBI to release one of their hacker buddies from prison, and they are applying pressure by wrecking every undercover operation they can find.

Both scenarios have much more urgency, because we know what will happen if Chad fails. He’s screwed! And in the second version, he’s in trouble no matter what he does.

Also, the antagonists have goals that are in conflict and plans that force them to interact, so it’ll be much easier for the antagonists to antagonize each other in addition to Chad. That’s the key to creating a good caper plot. Making the plans overlap.

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Next Steps for Dan

I’d recommend brainstorming goals and plans for each of the characters mentioned.

For the Protagonist

What does the Chad want? What happens if he fails? (This might suggest even more antagonists. That’s ok.)
What does Chad gain if he succeeds?
What steps will Chad take to achieve his goal?

For the Antagonists

Chad’s wife -What does she want? Money? Revenge? To ruin Chad’s company because he loves it more than her? Something else?
The FBI - Is it just one agent or multiple agents? Are they undercover or in uniform? If there’s more than one, what do they each want? Does one need to save their career? Do they need a big bust to help the department? Does one have a personal reason to be assigned to this case? Is being assigned to this case a punishment and if the case gets closed quickly, the agent will be able to go back to their normal duties?
White-hat activist hackers How many hackers are there? Is there a leader? Do any of the other hackers disagree with the leader? Maybe some hackers are unhappy with the leader and they’re planning a coup? Or maybe one hacker is just there because he’s trying to impress the hacker he’s in love with? Maybe one hacker wants revenge on Chad or on one of the other antagonists?
Disgruntled employees - How many employees are there? Do they all have the same jobs and skills? Or are there smaller groups who have different goals and different plans to reach their goals?
Additional antagonists - if you go with a mafia threat, then you’ll have the mob patriarch and underlings. They might have different goals. If you come up with a different threat, is it a threat posed by a group or a single individual? If it’s a group, who leads the group? Does anyone in the group resent the leader or feel less committed to the group’s goals? Or perhaps someone feels committed to the goal, but thinks that the group is pursuing the wrong strategy?

You’ll know your own the right track when you’ve got characters who have plans that overlap. When one character gets closer to their goal, it should push other characters further away from their goals. Everybody creates trouble and everyone has to deal with the mayhem that other characters unleash.

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