Details

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I take details seriously. I invent nothing for a story, especially one with a medical theme.

My horror taie is about a girl who assumes the identity of a dead MD but has to learn medicine. She works days and studys medicine at night. She learns as she goes. I call it NIGHT DOCTOR. It opens with her picking up a married man at a bar, taking him home for sex, restraining him, and connecting him to an iv bag of shit she made that'll kill him so she can dissect his body. I hadda find a recipe for such a brew and then figger out how to use it, a shot wont do, forget poison apples, you need plenty. An iv!

Then I found a collection of dissection tutorials, I haven't watched a dissection or autopsy in many years.

Later she gets into amputations. And when a detective gets too close she seduces the woman and sends her to Jesus, too.

 

[lovecraft68]

It dawned on me after I submitted it that I left two small details out at the end of my contest story.

One is very minor, a physical action that should have taken place, but I think it will escape most people.

The other is a little more serious and if the reader is one of those that do the "what if they..." after the story they might come up with it.

But I missed them and now it will be a game to see if anyone calls either out.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I usta practice something called CLINICAL EPISTEMOLOGY. In a nutshell its a process of challenging claims patients make. Its a nice way of saying, YOURE FULLA SHIT. Or SHOW ME! (seems like a familiar term)

Applied to writing its how you create plausibility. Otherwise readers start wondering if youre fulla shit or a Harry Anderson magician, and they wanna know more about the illusion.

So when I suggested murdering a character with a dissolved dose of a weak benzodiazepine (narco-sedative) I hadda find a recipe to dissolve the drug, learn what dissolves the drug, then figger out how to get the med in the victim. Water don't work. Alcohol works great but you need too much. Kiddie cough syrup works best, but still is too much for a syringe. I thought about it and hit on an iv bag and drip. And that requires restraints if the victim isn't up for dying. The recipe is real but the rest I made up based on basic info. The reader will buy it cuz its familiar experience.

 

[49greg]

I've heard that Agatha Christie was a pharmacist or pharmacist's assistant at some point, perhaps in the great war? Anyway she used the knowledge she acquired there in writing about poisons in her stories.

 

[RoyceConnors]

I usta practice something called CLINICAL EPISTEMOLOGY. In a nutshell its a process of challenging claims patients make. Its a nice way of saying, YOURE FULLA SHIT. Or SHOW ME! (seems like a familiar term)

Applied to writing its how you create plausibility. Otherwise readers start wondering if youre fulla shit or a Harry Anderson magician, and they wanna know more about the illusion.

So when I suggested murdering a character with a dissolved dose of a weak benzodiazepine (narco-sedative) I hadda find a recipe to dissolve the drug, learn what dissolves the drug, then figger out how to get the med in the victim. Water don't work. Alcohol works great but you need too much. Kiddie cough syrup works best, but still is too much for a syringe. I thought about it and hit on an iv bag and drip. And that requires restraints if the victim isn't up for dying. The recipe is real but the rest I made up based on basic info. The reader will buy it cuz its familiar experience.

I would have her going to her garden and fetching some Belladonna, foxglove or poppy seeds. All of them are very good at killing quickly or sedating to an unconscious state quickly. All are easily added to foods and drinks and hard to detect. If I was going with a secluded place where she can practice her craft and not arouse suspicion buying those drugs.

JAT in that direction if it fits.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Thanks. I was thinking its easier to use OTC drugs than find belladonna, etc. and risk having it growing in the yard. I know liquor and benzodiazepine work well together to sedate and kill. Maybe I'll have her steal a friends pills.

 

[49greg]

I would have her going to her garden and fetching some Belladonna, foxglove or poppy seeds. All of them are very good at killing quickly or sedating to an unconscious state quickly. All are easily added to foods and drinks and hard to detect. If I was going with a secluded place where she can practice her craft and not arouse suspicion buying those drugs.

JAT in that direction if it fits.

That sounds like a Christie murder.