Conflict is the fuel of any story, and the key is to drive the characters forward in the right direction. There will be no easy path for the characters we have, because compelling characters will fail along the way. There shouldn't be impossible odds because that would be too farfetched when it comes time to make the climax believable, and it shouldn't be too easy, or you will rob the story of all its dramatic moments and worst yet the viewer will see precisely where you are going with these characters. Some stories stay in a genre and even play to a formula that can be seen in Law & Order: SVU series. The format of this show first introduces a sex crime, and afterward, the detectives try to work the case, but as I mentioned before, everything isn't so simple, and it will always take the same amount of time to complete each segment of this story. If you know what you are doing this is a foolproof, paint by the numbers way of writing. The only possible thing that could cause trouble is blocking the detectives from doing their job. Without access to a crime scene or evidence, the case could not move forward and the story quickly loses steam without any missteps to learn from.
As the leads drop off others are picked up and it becomes more certain that the accused might be guilty, yet when the accuser doesn't have a mark on her because any possible physical injuries would have healed years ago leaving the detectives with nothing tangible to help them solve their case with, so in the end of this episode there might be a dramatic scene where one of the working detectives on the case confronts their captain saying:
"I think we should box this one, Captain, there is absolutely nothing for us to put together. There is no DNA. We don't have what Vic was wearing when she was attacked. We don't even have the residence where this happened or even the neighborhood. And as for the time she claims it happened it might as well be in the Middle Ages. It was that long ago. If we had this case the week in which it happened, she doesn't really even know when that was, we might have moved forward on it, but not now. It is like she has it in for this guy because he's an important judge, up for a big promotion. The Vic is not a big fan of his politics. It really looks suspect to me. Even if these charges are genuine, proceeding with them doesn't seem like a good idea. Maybe she would revisit them in another 36 years."
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