: Re: How do I subvert the tropes of a train heist? What are the recognizable tropes to a "train heist", or more broadly the action sequences where a protagonist boards a moving train in order to

@BetL639

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I'd go with a double (or triple?) con and a play showing you know all about the train heist trope.

If your heroine has an antagonist or someone she needs to get rid of, have her plan the whole train heist with them, and perform it according to the full trope — or perhaps, use other answers here to make the heist less tropey. (Or maybe she could do the heist with just anyone, but I think your effect would be even bigger if it's someone she needs to get rid of.)

However, your heroine is "working undercover" and leads the bad guys into a trap set by the "feds".

And while the bad guys are being arrested, your heroine steals the package or whatever you want to heist, preferably something other than the target of the original heist (diamonds instead of gold bars, info instead of guns, etc... something "lighter" and "smarter").

And only later do the feds realize that dependable agent from agency X is gone and oops agency X has no clue who that is... and where is the McGuffin! Crap!

Done right you hint at different layers of the final con during the story. Perhaps a meeting with a buyer for the McGuffin stolen in the end. Perhaps your heroine purchasing false credentials (maybe even as "an agent of Agency X" — you'll have to feel out how much you can reveal).

I think this one done a bit badly would be with flashbacks that reveal key clues as the con unravels layer by layer. (And that may be a must to make it work...)

Or the story could jump back and forth between the heist and what your heroine does to set it up before it happens. Maybe even starting with the heist, doing a bit of it, jumping back, then doing a little bit more, and jump back to reveal even more of what happened before.

The classic in media res start is to do the heist until it seems to get really bad and then jump back to "4 days earlier". However, I think that one works best on TV, several episodes into the show, when we already know and care for the characters.

Just writing the heist scenes knowing there's a second and third con going on might give the reader a feeling something isn't right with the heist, but you could plant hints on purpose as well to give that, something-is-up feeling.

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