How does an Assassin Work?

[Zoolander]

Can someone walk me through the process of how a Hitman/assassin work?

Like i know a hitman/assassin gets a contract to kill someone.

What's next? I know they just dont find the person and directly kill them.

 

[Rodders]

Wife trouble, Zoolander?

 

[Brian G Turner]

What sort of genre are you looking at, Zoolander? I suspect you'll find the mechanics of the process may vary according to whether you're writing about an Assassin's Guild in fantasy fiction, or hitmen in a detective novel, or even in a science fiction on. If you're looking at historical context, it various according to cultural context, from organised religious groups such as the Hashassins during the Crusades, to drunk idiots at the pub in modern Britain.

 

[Hex]

Hi, Zoolander, I've moved your post to General Writing Discussion since (in my experience) people tend to know everything here and someone will probably have what you're looking for.

 

[Juliana]

Can someone walk me through the process of how a Hitman/assassin work?

I could. But then I'd have to kill you.

On a more serious note, I would imagine you can write your assassin/hitman however you want. Maybe as Brian suggests, look at some historical parallels and then create what you need?

 

[Zoolander]

Wife trouble, Zoolander?

lmmfao i laugh way harder than i should have smh

 

[Zoolander]

What sort of genre are you looking at, Zoolander? I suspect you'll find the mechanics of the process may vary according to whether you're writing about an Assassin's Guild in fantasy fiction, or hitmen in a detective novel, or even in a science fiction on. If you're looking at historical context, it various according to cultural context, from organised religious groups such as the Hashassins during the Crusades, to drunk idiots at the pub in modern Britain.

Fantasy... Something on the lines of Hitman meets assassin creed meets james bond.

 

[tinkerdan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_killing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins

Wiki may or may not be helpful here; but it sure leads to hours of fun reading.

 

[jastius]

If you haven't seen it, "Gross Point Blank" is about an angst ridden assassin.
The john Ringo books about the assassin Cally, as in Cally's war and sister act are good for diagraming out the process.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Fantasy... Something on the lines of Hitman meets assassin creed meets james bond.

You should probably look to read a few fantasy novels that cover this - I'm sure there are quite a few that have assassins as main characters.

A couple that come immediately to mind:

Brent Weeks - Night Angel trilogy
Mark Robson - Imperial Assassin (YA, but still very good)

Possibly even a Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser short story collection - for his thieves guild underworld - he's a giant of the genre.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Raymond E Fiest: Nighthawks and sundry other assasins.
Terry Pratchett: Discworld books with Guards in it.


Secretly and quietly.

 

[ralphkern]

The Witcher books and games might give you some ideas too. A lot of intrigue including assassins and what not are involved in them

 

[Zoolander]

thanks everyone!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

You might also like Lawrence Block's "Hit" series, which has an assassin as its protagonist. He's quite a sympathetic character, who collects stamps and has bills to pay just like anyone else.

 

[Susan Boulton]

Take a look at Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

The book opens with an accurate depiction of the attempt on the life of President de Gaulle led by Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry. It could help the ideas spark.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Just to change tack, when I was a young child I had a book on gangsters [as primary school children often do]. Can't remember much of it, except that Jack Spot made a compelling case for being teetotal, but there was a 'firm' called Murder Incorporated, which would probably be called something horrendous like WeKill4U if it were around today.

In fantasy terms, you can also consider philosophical and religious angles, or even dietary ones (if a certain species can only survive eating people, then some of them might well become assassins and get paid to eat).

 

[Toby Frost]

Well, given that the definition is pretty much anyone who kills someone deliberately (and usually tries to get away alive) there’s a lot of room to make up whatever you want. History has many examples: for cults, there’s the Thuggee cult of India, for government-sponsored organisations, there are thousands (the WW2 Special Operations Executive was particularly well-organised and documented, but might be too recent). And then there’s ninjas, of course… I’ve never heard of a real “Thieves’ Guild” like the ones you get in fantasy games (they don’t seem like the sort of people who’d join a guild, to be honest) but maybe the crew of a pirate ship would work in a similar way: criminals, but with rules on how they’d work, who they’d attack and so on.

In terms of people working alone, you’d probably just hear about some dodgy bloke from a friend of a friend, meet him in a pub and give him some money. Also, it’s possible that hardened criminals wouldn’t call themselves assassins – they’d just consider killing people part of their job. Actually, as Thaddeus suggests, it would be good work for a vampire.

 

[Susan Boulton]

Isn't there a vampire assassin in one of Terry Pratchett's discworld novels. Maybe Going Postal, not sure.

 

[mosquiter]

If I remember it well, a guy called Tepic goes through assassin training in the first part of Terry Pratchett's Pyramids. Also as Turner mentioned, Night Angel Trilogy is a lot about assassins, training, contracts, their relationship to authorities and others and much more.

 

[Remedy]

The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

Fantasy series involving the main character training to be an assassin from a young boy. Very detailed.

Espionage, opportunity, deception, the works!