HITMAN | Donna Collins' Blog

Posts Tagged ‘HITMAN’

Finding The Right Kill Can Be Murder

Posted in Writing, tagged anne archer, antagonists, author, Basic Instinct, characters, Die Hard, Donna Newton, donnanewton, executing, facebook, Fata Attraction, fiction, Guns, hero, HITMAN, imagination, inspiration, Kathleen Turner, killing, methods, Michael Douglas, murder, novel, plotting, professional killer, psychopath, richard kuklinski, sharon stone, shooting, social media, stabbing, thriller, Timothy Olyphant, tweet, twitter, villain, writer, writing, wwbc on January 7, 2011| 17 Comments »

How would you kill someone?

For the last month or so I have been plotting my second novel and I have struggled a little in one particular area. Let me explain. My antagonist is a professional killer hired to kill an amnesic victim. I reached his first kill and suddenly it hit me. Just how would he kill? Now, I unashamedly admit to having an over zealous imagination in the killing department. Because of this, I needed to strip bare my ideas, go back to the beginning, and list the basic ways one could kill a person.

So my list began.

Shooting
Stabbing
Strangulation
Poisoning
Torture
Asphyxiation
Explosives/Bombing
Snapping Necks
Bludgeon to the head
A Wand – well it worked for Harry Potter.

All of these are killing techniques we have seen a thousand times in various movies such as Die Hard, Scream, Basic Instinct, Friday the 13^th ……I could go on and on. However, each of the above, when applied to a certain character, would be executed in a different way. For example, Die Hard’s John McClain would perform a magnificent display of acrobatics while catapulting his vest top covered torso through the air to shoot his enemies. Whereas in Fatal Attraction it takes Anne Archer just one determined shot to kill Glenn Close. Another example is stabbings. In Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone seduced her victim before unleashing a frenzied attack by way of an ice pick. However, Romancing the Stone (can you see a Michael Douglas pattern forming here?), sees Kathleen Turner merely flicking the knife at her antagonist who, unfortunately, blocks it with a plank of wood.

So, which would my professional killer use? And how would he carry it out?

Well, firstly, what kind of professional killer was he? I did not want a character like Richard Kuklinski, who froze his victims to disguise their time of death and even filmed victims being eaten alive. So, after watching timothy Olyphant in HITMAN once or twice (oh alright, maybe it was a lot more), I decided my hitman would be military trained and disciplined in planning his attacks. Explosives, sniper shootings and the odd hand to hand combat would suffice nicely. The places he choose to kill, however, are another blog.

Now it’s your turn. Can you think of a similar outcome where two characters use the same tools but apply different methods?