Which Poison to Use?

[Nimue]

Hey CM, it's really interesting hearing more about your story and Raisa's dilemma. I've no authority on poisoning or non-sympathetic protagonist choices (my protagonists can sometimes be *too* goody-two-shoes?) although I can say that I don't think the murder writes off Raisa's likeability by any means. It's a conflict, but her obvious remorse will reassure readers as long as it comes before & during the choice to poison him, as well as strongest after, of course. It may help that she's doing this as part of a job--I think people are often willing to forgive assassins when murder is framed as their profession.

Besides that, though, there was one thing I wanted to point out:

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.

(Just realized this might be a more appropriate thing to point out in the "crime boss house" thread, but oh well.) It sticks out to me that the people just happen to show up to kidnap her. That makes her regret her choices more, but...is that really a result of her choices? This could be much, much stronger if the kidnappers are after her because of the recent murder, or because of some ancillary choice she's made. It's possible that without a strong causation (downfall due to characters' decisions being the heart of tragedy) this kidnapping may seem like authorial meddling, "punishing" the character without it really being her fault that this is happening. If that makes sense. This might already be what you're doing--I didn't notice this in the other thread, so correct me if I'm wrong about that.

 

[Caged Maiden]

So...in the "behind the scenes" chapters (3 and part of 4) I have an antagonist looking for a cure to his curse, and he meets up with other antagonists, and they begin looking for an heiress of a long-dead mage, so they can get her to open the mage's crypt.

I have set up some foreshadowing, first subtly, then more flagrant, and Raisa is the person they seek. Just after she kills this guy, her guilt and disgust is really hurting her, and then the guy she hates, who just moved into the house, shames her completely. He calls her a whore, and she says, "How can you treat me so badly, I'm no common whore." and he kisses her and she's high and responds with confusion at first, but then embraces him back and finds his daring really exciting. Until he pushes her away a step and goes, "Common enough." And he leaves her in the garden alone and mortified. So...she's murdered a rival's agent for her don, she turned to drugs again after bashing her druggy don and his drug-slinging business for three chapters, and she's been put in her place by a loser she hates...WHO SHE KISSED BACK! It's sort of an all-time low for her.

In the background, the antagonists have gotten hold of a magic mirror (which Raisa knows about but doesn't know what it does), and they will use it to see the face of this women they're looking for (ala Disney's Beauty and the Beast). When they see who it is, the rival don, the guy with the dead agent, identifies the woman they're looking for as my MC. So...they have to figure out how to get her, and they decide to go get her right away from the mansion, and not wait...because the antagonist is cursed and running short of time, so he insists on going NOW rather than waiting to come up with some sort of clever trap or whatever. And the reader will see this stuff happening, so it isn't a surprise to them when the mercenaries come looking for my character.

The kidnapping chain of events has been in play since chapter 2 when Raisa learns about the mirror, and chapter 3, which is devoted entirely to PsOV that aren't the MC, and in those scenes, we learn about the curse, time running short, the crypt (in a scene with two other guys, a werewolf and an elf, who decide they also want to gain entrance to the crypt and need to find the heiress, too), and why she's the only one who can open the door.

So...the kidnapping isn't random, and hopefully it won't feel cheap and tacked-on. I do hate the "hand of God" sort of plot, where things look hopeless (or the writer otherwise writes himself into a corner), and the "hand of God" sweeps down and lifts the character to safety, or wipes out the undead horde, or squashes a character who was going along a little too easily.

My hope was to build tension as the reader sees the bad guys closing in on her, while she's still messing around, trying to scrounge up just a little more money, and that when she's captured, it sort of feels like a horror movie, when you're screaming for the character to leave the house, but instead they go down to the basement anyways, and you just know something bad's going to happen down there.

Thanks, yes, I share this same concern, Nimue, I'm just trying to avoid it feeling cheap by building it up for the reader, so it has context and suspense, but isn't a surprise.

 

[Nimue]

Oh yeah, I think that clarifies.... I get the "wasting time when she's running out of it" angle, but it still strikes me that the kidnapping would be stronger as a consequence of something she's done, even if it's in a minor way that she's not aware of, but the reader is. Like she tips them off somehow, makes a small mistake that makes her easier to catch or get to. Maybe the mirror requires a clear image and Raisa lingered too long near the body while dealing with her remorse, risking herself in more ways than she knows. (baseless suggestion) This subplot certainly wouldn't seem random if it's been built up for that long, but actually interweaving it with Raisa's agency would make it stronger in a story about a woman who's fouled by her own choices and actions.

Aaah tangent. Sorry, hope that makes some sense... I need to be in bed an hour and a half ago.