I am going to write a short story for a writer's course, and I keep getting an idea in my head of a deadly roadside shoot-out between FBI agents and a psychopathic bank robber and cop killer (perhaps a thinly-veiled caricature of Baby-Face Nelson), set in middle America in about 1934. In this instance a crucial piece of action I am thinking of is where the FBI car suddenly stops and does a U-turn, and I thought for effect I'd write: "Suddenly, 100 yards up the road the black Buick paused and the brake lights flashed. The motor then roared as the car turned 180 degrees and charged towards them." Or something like that.
I tried googling brakelights on cars in the 1930s, I searched automotive history websites but didn't have much luck. Did cars come with brake lights in the 1930s, and if so, which ones? Ford? Chevy? Any others?
Time: ridiculously far into the future Place: another planet People: Humans and one lone Time Lord. Search Terms: debilitating poison, chronic poison, invalid poison (which got me lots of stories about suicides) debilitating drugs (hits on drug addictions and side effects),
I know I can make this up out of whole cloth and wrap it up with a bit of technical babble, but I would like to know what is possible in the here and now before I do.
I need a poison or drug that will make the victim seem an invalid. But not a disease or disorder. The villain is doing this to her and he needs her to be sick, not well and definitely not dead. So if you were trying to keep somebody sick in the present day in the first world, what would you use?
Then the Doctor and Martha need to cure her, but that's another question.
I'm trying to think of a few different ways a young adult could die where it would be impossible to tell what the cause of death was just by examining the body (ie., the body looks "normal"). I've come up with a heart defect and carbon monoxide poisoning. Any other suggestions? I Googled "causes of death" and "no sign of trauma", but not much luck.
Yes, this is how I'm spending my Friday night. Sigh.
