Which Poison to Use?

[Caged Maiden]

Some of you are familiar with my writing, and this rewrite. If it helps to answer the question about poison, here's a link to the story featuring the character in question: https://mythicscribes.com/forums/portfolios/caged-maiden/429-sayan-soul-chapter-1-part-1-a.html (I have all of the first and half of the second chapter posted)

She's a crime boss' mistress, and while in the public eye, she's nothing but a piece of eye candy on a don's arm, in reality, she's a cunning manipulator and con artist. She's not a petty thief, but she's not in the same category as Locke Lamora, either. She's somewhere in between.

In chapter four of the story, her benefactor gives her a sapphire necklace, and asks her to kill a rival. Since she's planning to leave her benefactor anyways, she's trying to scrape up all the cash she can, to begin a new life. She sees the assassination as her "one last job" and begins planning.

The character was raised by a witch and has extensive knowledge of medicinals and poisons. She's 43 in the story, so decades of perfecting her trade. The thing I'm sort of hung up on, is that she doesn't hate this person she's meant to kill. She doesn't have any ill will to him, just needs him out of the way and wants to get paid. Anyways, so poison is definitely her plan. Not only because it plays to her strengths, but because the whole point of her killing this guy, is so it's neat and quiet, and none of it can get traced back to her or her benefactor.

The main effect she's going for, is that she's going to use something that acts fast, say, within 3 hours. There's plenty of things that'll do the job, so I don't really need help coming up with which poisons to use. But...some of them have nasty effects. So that got me to thinking how she would choose the right tool for this job.

One option would cause him to go into convulsions after a couple hours, and he would die of asphyxiation caused by muscles seizing. Worse still, the body stiffens during the death itself and rigor mortis sets in immediately, the corpse often being frozen in a convulsed state.

Another option would cause paralysis, beginning with the face and neck, and spreading to the extremities. Symptoms set on in 30 minutes after ingestion, and death occurs a few hours later. But death comes from muscles rapidly deteriorating, and it is agonizing as the body becomes weaker.

Last one is a classic. Severe abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea, vomiting, and quick death.

But are any of them really "preferred?"

See...it occurred to me that she wouldn't pick the nastiest thing she had at hand...because she's not trying to make him suffer. So, do any of those options sound really feasible?

Is it stupid to have a little time devoted to her decision about which poison to use so that a reader can see that she's intentionally picking something that perhaps has a lower success rate, but at least it won't be as awful a way to die?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I could only answer that question if I knew your character like you do. :/ Would she have that superficial level of compassion, I don't know.

As for poisons, I hear hemlock is one of the most painless ways to go. They made Socrates drink hemlock.

 

[Gurkhal]

Is it stupid to have a little time devoted to her decision about which poison to use so that a reader can see that she's intentionally picking something that perhaps has a lower success rate, but at least it won't be as awful a way to die?

It would depend on. I see it as a bit of characterization which might be redundant if the character is already built up suffienctly at this point. But what I can see is that this could allow you to explore more of the character's relations to her job as an assassin. Does she plan it in cold blood or how does she go about?

From my own experiece I think that the scene could be a bit hard to write to make her come off as competent, but not heartless, when she plans to kill someone for cash who she has no reason to dislike or never did her any wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't stop reading, but this scene could potentially have major impact on some readers' view of the character's morales or lack of them, so that might be something to consider.

 

[R.H. Smith]

From what you described, the crime boss' mistress is very pragmatic. Following that logic, she would simply use the most efficient poison for the job. I'm sure she will try to not leave as much a mess as she can, but in the end, she believes it's her 'last job' so she might not care, she just wants to get it done. You need to understand, people that take other peoples lives have crossed a threshold where sure, maybe they don't want whomever to suffer because there is no malice or hate in her actions, simply a means to an end, but in the end, the death is what matters. Hopefully this can help you with your question

 

[Ireth]

Does she have to use poison? What about using an empty syringe to inject air into the person's bloodstream and cause an air embolism? It would both save her money and be harder to trace, given the victim would die (hopefully) of a heart attack, stroke or respiratory failure, with no obvious outward effects like many poisons would leave. The real problem would be in getting close enough to use the syringe without getting caught in the act.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I don't think syringes would work, because I'm not sure they fit my time period, and she's not exactly trying to tell this guy he's going to die. She meets with him briefly, under the guise of giving him sensitive information. She poisons him and he's meant to die 3-4 hours later, far away from her. I could use any of the three to accomplish this. But they all have pretty ugly effects on the body.

Hemlock is the one I mentioned that will cause the muscles to deteriorate rapidly until death occurs. Arsenic is the one that causes excruciating gastric distress, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. Strychnine is the one that causes convulsions and rapid death and rigor mortis.

The three things I'm considering are all poisons in history (except possibly strychnine, which I'm not sure when it came about, but I can fudge that). I could use a bunch of other plants like nightshade, aconite, oleander (or the honey from its flowers), or even daffodil bulbs, if I wanted to feed him a poisoned meal or drink. But I wanted to make sure she could get the job done. What would happen if she poisoned some wine with nightshade and he wan't thirsty enough to drink it, or finish it?

Arsenic was the one I was leaning toward, but it's rather nasty in a large dose, and that caused me some concern as to whether she'd do this to another human being that doesn't really deserve it other than being in her own don's way. All three will do the job she wants done. She's going to poison this guy, get over to his don's house (a rival) and provide herself an alibi for the actual death of the rival don's agent, and she plans to still be sleeping beside the rival don when the body is found.

I just wondered whether it was silly for her to consider humanely killing this guy, or whether I should just focus her attention on getting the job done (so thanks, RK Smith, because that's how I looked at it, too, but wondered whether i was perhaps being heartless). I feel wary of the implications of her murdering someone, especially someone she doesn't hate. And I have already set up her experience with medicine before this point. The point I was trying to decide is whether she'd take her first choices (one of these three) or whether she'd try to instead rely on something that would make him pass out and then die quietly in his sleep like wine laced with sleeping powder and nightshade), because that would be more humane, but then he might wake up from it if she incorrectly judged a dose or his metabolism), and the job wouldn't be done.

In the time period I'm writing, there is no real way to test for poisoning, other than to know he died under mysterious circumstances, within wounds upon him, and her alibi should be sound enough that no one would suspect her off the bat...well, not anymore than anyone else who might want to kill this guy.

She could certainly hire someone to stab him in an alley, but then it leaves a loose end out there who could talk later. So, her don asked her to do this thing for him because he wants it really quiet and untraceable. The other thing is, there's nothing stopping her just cutting him and throwing him in the river, but with her herbal knowledge, it just doesn't make sense she'd actually dirty her hands and take the risk of maybe alerting him he's in danger. She wants the death to happen at a particular place and time, when she'll be far away.

I hope this doesn't take away any reader sympathy, because it's a turning point for the character in the novel. She's killed before, but this one is different in a way. She's already planning on leaving the crime world, and after she does this thing, she feels sick and guilty. And how can she live a life where she's so good at killing people? And she regrets the things she does for money to leave, but it just makes her want to get out even more.

After this scene, she has a relapse into her own past struggle with addiction and it affects her deeply because she knows she could have gotten out before this, but she always felt like she needed one more job's worth of cash before leaving, to the point she was never going to actually leave. So hopefully, this isn't a place where I'll lose too much sympathy for the character, because it just adds to her internal conflicts I already set up.

Thanks for the great suggestions!

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

What about Cyanide? I think I saw on a medical documentary that it's sometimes mistaken for some other medical condition (I forget which ... a heart condition maybe?). It's no longer on Netflix but you might be able to find it on Hulu or YouTube or something. I think it's called American Experience: The Poisoner's Handbook .

Another option is just calling it poison and never naming it.

Otherwise I might agree that the result/effectiveness might matter more to a mercenary/hit woman than the process leading up to it.

 

[Queshire]

So it seems to me that you're leaning towards real world poisons, but since you said she was a witch, it seems a shame to not suggest some sort of magical poison. Maybe something that makes it so the next time you go to sleep you never wake up?

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

It totally could be some kind of magical/fantastical thing...

 

[Jordan R Murray]

Hmmm, if this is a mistress and she has questionable morals to begin with, what if she sleeps with the guy and smothers him with a pillow in his sleep? To her logic, it may be the last "kindness" the man would receive. If you truly want to rekindle a struggle with addiction afterward you could always have remorse be the cause - rather than the use of poison. Maybe the victim even says something lovely to her right before she kills him that drives her into an old spiral of all the terrible things she has done for money/power/insert reasons here.

When writing, I often try to listen to my gut. Sometimes it's really, really difficult to walk away from an idea or plot point once you have it in your head. It sounds like you might be trying to force the poisoning when there are other ways to naturally write in a death, or another reason for her addiction to return. Love the idea, though. She sounds like an intriguing character.

 

[Jackarandajam]

I don't think syringes would work, because I'm not sure they fit my time period, and she's not exactly trying to tell this guy he's going to die. She meets with him briefly, under the guise of giving him sensitive information. She poisons him and he's meant to die 3-4 hours later, far away from her. I could use any of the three to accomplish this. But they all have pretty ugly effects on the body.

Hemlock is the one I mentioned that will cause the muscles to deteriorate rapidly until death occurs. Arsenic is the one that causes excruciating gastric distress, vomiting and bloody diarrhea. Strychnine is the one that causes convulsions and rapid death and rigor mortis.

The three things I'm considering are all poisons in history (except possibly strychnine, which I'm not sure when it came about, but I can fudge that). I could use a bunch of other plants like nightshade, aconite, oleander (or the honey from its flowers), or even daffodil bulbs, if I wanted to feed him a poisoned meal or drink. But I wanted to make sure she could get the job done. What would happen if she poisoned some wine with nightshade and he wan't thirsty enough to drink it, or finish it?

Arsenic was the one I was leaning toward, but it's rather nasty in a large dose, and that caused me some concern as to whether she'd do this to another human being that doesn't really deserve it other than being in her own don's way. All three will do the job she wants done. She's going to poison this guy, get over to his don's house (a rival) and provide herself an alibi for the actual death of the rival don's agent, and she plans to still be sleeping beside the rival don when the body is found.

I just wondered whether it was silly for her to consider humanely killing this guy, or whether I should just focus her attention on getting the job done (so thanks, RK Smith, because that's how I looked at it, too, but wondered whether i was perhaps being heartless). I feel wary of the implications of her murdering someone, especially someone she doesn't hate. And I have already set up her experience with medicine before this point. The point I was trying to decide is whether she'd take her first choices (one of these three) or whether she'd try to instead rely on something that would make him pass out and then die quietly in his sleep like wine laced with sleeping powder and nightshade), because that would be more humane, but then he might wake up from it if she incorrectly judged a dose or his metabolism), and the job wouldn't be done.

In the time period I'm writing, there is no real way to test for poisoning, other than to know he died under mysterious circumstances, within wounds upon him, and her alibi should be sound enough that no one would suspect her off the bat...well, not anymore than anyone else who might want to kill this guy.

She could certainly hire someone to stab him in an alley, but then it leaves a loose end out there who could talk later. So, her don asked her to do this thing for him because he wants it really quiet and untraceable. The other thing is, there's nothing stopping her just cutting him and throwing him in the river, but with her herbal knowledge, it just doesn't make sense she'd actually dirty her hands and take the risk of maybe alerting him he's in danger. She wants the death to happen at a particular place and time, when she'll be far away.

I hope this doesn't take away any reader sympathy, because it's a turning point for the character in the novel. She's killed before, but this one is different in a way. She's already planning on leaving the crime world, and after she does this thing, she feels sick and guilty. And how can she live a life where she's so good at killing people? And she regrets the things she does for money to leave, but it just makes her want to get out even more.

After this scene, she has a relapse into her own past struggle with addiction and it affects her deeply because she knows she could have gotten out before this, but she always felt like she needed one more job's worth of cash before leaving, to the point she was never going to actually leave. So hopefully, this isn't a place where I'll lose too much sympathy for the character, because it just adds to her internal conflicts I already set up.

Thanks for the great suggestions!

I think strychnine was being used as an herbicide and poisoned a bunch of people when it got into the water. I'm not sure that one would fit into your timeline either. I might be wrong though.

Just an idea... if you want her to be extremely tormented about this assassination, what if she uses the most brutal but most reliable poison, because of that afformentioned desperation to get the job done?

You could detail the internal turnmoil of her character when she chooses it,
Justifying its use on the grounds that it just has to go smoothly, has to work.

then even have the effects kick in prematurely, so he realizes it's her as he's dying. She gets away on a coincidence, but can't get his face out of her head, that sort of thing.
That would explain the turnmoil of a trained, seasoned killer.

Maybe he had a condition (that ultimately gets blamed for his death) that augmented the effects of the poison unexpectedly?

 

[Caged Maiden]

Yeah, I think you guys are right, she'd just go for what gets the job done, and can reflect on how heartless that was, later. Right after this part, she tries to numb her own regrets and feel better, by using again, but instead of feeling good, she's numb and disoriented. The thoughts are worse, more haunting. She reflects instead on how she can stay in a life where she chooses to kill someone mercilessly...all for a few coins. And how there was a time she had great respect for life, living with the witch who taught her about nature.

I just don't want to lose read sympathy in this series of events. this issue will come up again later in the book, when she spills her secrets and her inner feelings to a person she grows close to. It's the turning point of why they grow close in the first place, because before she makes some of these admissions, she's still too burdened by them to be her real self--equating the killer, con artist side of herself to who she really is. But he calms her down (because she's basically yelling her confession at him) and tells her that he sees something else, and that everyone chooses poorly sometimes. That he sees a better side of her, and she has to embrace that side, and forget who she was in the crime network.

Yeah, thanks for the advice. I now just hope I can pull it off in a convincing way, so readers don't feel shocked by her cruelty, but rather sympathize with her desperation.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I think strychnine was being used as an herbicide and poisoned a bunch of people when it got into the water. I'm not sure that one would fit into your timeline either. I might be wrong though.

Just an idea... if you want her to be extremely tormented about this assassination, what if she uses the most brutal but most reliable poison, because of that afformentioned desperation to get the job done?

You could detail the internal turnmoil of her character when she chooses it,
Justifying its use on the grounds that it just has to go smoothly, has to work.

then even have the effects kick in prematurely, so he realizes it's her as he's dying. She gets away on a coincidence, but can't get his face out of her head, that sort of thing.
That would explain the turnmoil of a trained, seasoned killer.

Maybe he had a condition (that ultimately gets blamed for his death) that augmented the effects of the poison unexpectedly?

This. i like this idea. Have her go with the most effective option, then use that to later torment her about what she's done.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Yeah, I think you guys are right, she'd just go for what gets the job done, and can reflect on how heartless that was, later. Right after this part, she tries to numb her own regrets and feel better, by using again, but instead of feeling good, she's numb and disoriented. The thoughts are worse, more haunting. She reflects instead on how she can stay in a life where she chooses to kill someone mercilessly...all for a few coins. And how there was a time she had great respect for life, living with the witch who taught her about nature.

I just don't want to lose read sympathy in this series of events. this issue will come up again later in the book, when she spills her secrets and her inner feelings to a person she grows close to. It's the turning point of why they grow close in the first place, because before she makes some of these admissions, she's still too burdened by them to be her real self--equating the killer, con artist side of herself to who she really is. But he calms her down (because she's basically yelling her confession at him) and tells her that he sees something else, and that everyone chooses poorly sometimes. That he sees a better side of her, and she has to embrace that side, and forget who she was in the crime network.

Yeah, thanks for the advice. I now just hope I can pull it off in a convincing way, so readers don't feel shocked by her cruelty, but rather sympathize with her desperation.

Yeah, that's the tricky part. Even when i'm being true to my character, I second-guess myself because I wonder if my readers will LIKE my being true to my character. My character isn't all that likable. It's hard to have a character be an a-hole and still have the readers root for her. You want her ruthless enough to be true to her character and arc, but sympathetic enough to not make the readers hate her. It's a tricky tightrope to walk.

 

[Jackarandajam]

It seems like it isn't the act that condemns a character, it's the justification.
Don't worry about losing sympathy. Your readers are invested, her problems are their problems, they justify her decision with her.
Be brave!
It's been a long road, me figuring out how to let my MC f%^# up royally enough for it to haunt him. I'm still not there yet. He's my hero, I don't want him to be able to justify something that's gonna hurt him in the long run. But he has to, just like I have, just like everybody does.
Hurt her, like your readers are hurting. They'll thank you.

 

[Jackarandajam]

Yeah, that's the tricky part. Even when i'm being true to my character, I second-guess myself because I wonder if my readers will LIKE my being true to my character. My character isn't all that likable. It's hard to have a character be an a-hole and still have the readers root for her. You want her ruthless enough to be true to her character and arc, but sympathetic enough to not make the readers hate her. It's a tricky tightrope to walk.

Katniss. Total a-hole. Just sayin.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Catniss. Total a-hole. Just sayin.

True. I didn't like her much, though. She was so whiny and shallow.

 

[Jackarandajam]

True. I didn't like her much, though. She was so whiny and shallow.

That's exactly it. I mean, Dorian Gray, that guy was awful!! But you follow the protagonist, not because you're exactly like them, but because you're relishing the ability to look through someone else's eyes. As long as your character has some form of justification for his actions, and it's believable, it doesn't matter WHAT they're doing. Catcher In The Rye. Grendel. You feel what the character feels, even if they're crazy, or a villain. Good writing, good lit, isn't the main character doing everything right, it's the MC feeling everything they do accurately.

 

[Caged Maiden]

A tightrope, indeed. This chapter falls about 70k words into the story, and I've spent several chapter making her inner struggles escalate as she decided whether to stay or go. The way I envision this scene, it's calculated and rather cold, but I've shown her be warm already. SO yeah, I want readers to feel her decide to do something horrible to someone (in a paragraph or two, where I have her select the poison she wants to use and the various effects they have on the body). Then, she does the deed and has to create an alibi that displeases her as well. After it's all done, her don celebrates her success, but she's not really interested in the hearty handshake and hug he's giving her. She's really torn and miserable inside that she is so effective at something she's ashamed about.

Then, she backslides, trying to feel alive again, but the drugs don't make everything better, they make it worse. She's numb and the dark thoughts and self-loathing hit a crescendo in this section. In the end of this chain of events, she's so upset, she's ready to finally make the leap and leave the network and her don's home, but before she can actually take the first step out the door, someone shows up to collect her and they don't ask nicely. They barge into the house, threaten the don, and take the MC forcibly from her home. So...if she'd only left before the murder, she might have escaped the city and been free. Now, she'll have to deal with a brief stay in chains, locked in a cell...and regret more completely the unfortunate choices that landed her there.

Later, when she does break free, it's with the help of someone she hates, and he becomes her savior. They room for a while and their relationship is tense and awkward because they're enemies, but they find themselves on the same side of this issue, across from the men who captured them and are still out there.

As they travel on their journey, the truth of who they are comes out, mostly in shouting matches, and finally, after they gain a thorough understanding of why they hate each other so much, they begin to realize how much they admire each other and can relate to all the lies that were being told. Which begins a tumultuous romance that doesn't have a completely happy ending...

Yeah, I hope I don't lose readers because of her committing murder. At the heart of this story, the tale is one of redemption for a woman who made bad choices and tried to change her circumstances, but was always a bit late in making the decisions that might have saved her from pain.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

A tightrope, indeed. This chapter falls about 70k words into the story, and I've spent several chapter making her inner struggles escalate as she decided whether to stay or go. The way I envision this scene, it's calculated and rather cold, but I've shown her be warm already. SO yeah, I want readers to feel her decide to do something horrible to someone (in a paragraph or two, where I have her select the poison she wants to use and the various effects they have on the body). Then, she does the deed and has to create an alibi that displeases her as well. After it's all done, her don celebrates her success, but she's not really interested in the hearty handshake and hug he's giving her. She's really torn and miserable inside that she is so effective at something she's ashamed about.

Then, she backslides, trying to feel alive again, but the drugs don't make everything better, they make it worse. She's numb and the dark thoughts and self-loathing hit a crescendo in this section. In the end of this chain of events, she's so upset, she's ready to finally make the leap and leave the network and her don's home, but before she can actually take the first step out the door, someone shows up to collect her and they don't ask nicely. They barge into the house, threaten the don, and take the MC forcibly from her home. So...if she'd only left before the murder, she might have escaped the city and been free. Now, she'll have to deal with a brief stay in chains, locked in a cell...and regret more completely the unfortunate choices that landed her there.

Later, when she does break free, it's with the help of someone she hates, and he becomes her savior. They room for a while and their relationship is tense and awkward because they're enemies, but they find themselves on the same side of this issue, across from the men who captured them and are still out there.

As they travel on their journey, the truth of who they are comes out, mostly in shouting matches, and finally, after they gain a thorough understanding of why they hate each other so much, they begin to realize how much they admire each other and can relate to all the lies that were being told. Which begins a tumultuous romance that doesn't have a completely happy ending...

Yeah, I hope I don't lose readers because of her committing murder. At the heart of this story, the tale is one of redemption for a woman who made bad choices and tried to change her circumstances, but was always a bit late in making the decisions that might have saved her from pain.

My character stabs someone to death in literally the first chapter. And continues to be an a-hole with almost no admirable traits for like the entire book (so far, 52K words in...) So...at least yours HAS a visible good side.

Mine is a story of redemption too, but it's subtle and slow-burn. I'm having trouble changing my character for the better, so it's a bit more slow-burn than I thought at first...