I'm writing a story and I'm a bit stuck with a detail in the plot, I'm hoping someone can help me to get rolling again.

Two characters are jointly involved in ongoing medical malpractice, 'Doctor Evil' because he is evil, 'sidekick' because he has no choice, 'Doctor Evil' is blackmailing him to do it.

'Doctor Evil' needs to have a pretty big hold over 'sidekick' in order to get him to cooperate, I need to establish what that thing is.

If 'Doctor Evil' once saved 'sidekick' from certain death, would that be enough? I mean, if you owe someone your life, does that mean they have a degree of control over you forever? Or would there come a point where you say "thanks for saving my life, but I'm not doing this evil stuff anymore"?

I have an alternative plot option where 'sidekick' is even more evil than the doctor and he's doing the blackmailing. He has evidence of the doctor's past which the doctor must keep hidden. Unfortunately this storyline leads to some complications so I'd rather go with the first one.

Any comments would be most appreciated.

I  love the twist in the second plot but I don't think your sidekick would be ethical enough to choose wrong over right just for saving his life many years ago. It puts the life of others at risk to accept that under extreme pressure - unless in the end you are going to wrap your ending around this thought - that with internal conflict, sidekick finally kicks Dr. Evil to the curb and becomes your hero.

Thanks for responding.

I've decided to keep Dr Evil as the blackmailer forcing the good-guy sidekick to assist him in his evil deeds.

Sidekick becomes a hero (posthumously) when he reveals, in a letter to Dr Evil, recently-aquired evidence of Dr Evil's secret past and states that 'he will not submit to blackmail any longer' - he can't live with his conscience, so he'll take his chances with Dr Evil's threats. So the tables are potentially turned.

We never find out the details of the blackmail because they are both deceased by the time this letter is discovered, it just confirms that Dr Evil was the bad guy and sidekick wasn't.

Very nicely done. I have a story I'll have to post one of these days in chapters here, but it means I have to re-type it since it's in PDF form and I don't have the software to convert it to word for easier handling. :-)

Socks? I think you can just copy the text from a pdf like screengrabbing. I'm almost certain that it's very easy to do.

Yup! Just checked. If you right-click you get the option to use the SELECT tool. This allows you to select text and copy it to a text proggy.

0BM890,

Dr Evil: ".....and falsifying your mother's medical records to get her insurance to pay-out is still a criminal offense......."

Chris, I seem to ba able to do that but it moves in a text box and becomes a .JPG and I can't put that in as text. I can only post it as a .JPG   Or am I not getting it right even with your help?

Wanna send me the PDF and I'll see what can be done....?

Sure but keep in mind it needs some editing and rewrite.  I have it in a couple of file chapters. The intro I typed recently so that is not the problem now... Watch your rendomail...

Thanks Chris.

You're fine, Socks. I'm not your English tutor.

Did you get the rendo mail with the PDF?  Don't need an English tutor.  I majored in English literature with a side on American 19th century literature and have been taking creative writing for the open market since I was 16 years old.  I just tend to get on a roll and write faster than my grammar lessons can keep up.  Proofing is a major deal for me. LOL

I'm sure I replied.....sigh....

Ok, got the pdf, but the result I got was unreadable after putting it through OCR. You're better of typing it all out again I'm afraid ;-(

Thanks, Sugar. That was what I had come up with. I'm no slouch with word processing and such. Been working verious Office Suites and plug-ins for about 27 years now and often I can mix and match and convert my way through mazes for a good result, but this one stumped me. There is a program I can buy that Adobe has that will scan and convert to a word program for line by line edits that comes out as a .docx but I don't have that sort of cash laying around. 

So, watch for my story in edited form in the next few months.