OTOH, someone who's blind would be able to get in somewhere and not be suspected, because she's blind. And if you look at Japanese history, blind women were traditionally given jobs as masseurs and (koto, was it? or biwa?) players/singers/storytellers. Both of which could be invited into someone's home without excessive suspicion. They'd be able to lurk around areas in the home and out of it where people talk, they'd have access to both areas of a household - servants' areas because they're of lower status than the inhabitants and would be fed and housed in those areas and higher areas because they'd be taken there to perform their services. Especially if it's a society like Heian Japan where the women were sequestered, and so entertainment and other services would have to be brought into the house for them.
If she spends the night or several nights there as part of her cover duties, it's fairly easy to sneak about. Someone finds her lurking in the wrong place in the middle of the night, she just starts looking worried and apologizes profusely because she got up to visit the privy and got turned around and lost. Handwave her own navigation - scents from various rooms (Japanese nobles had personal incense scents blended for them and would perfume their robes with it) identifying people and places, air currents and variations in temperature telling her whether there's walls or corridors, the sounds of people moving coming through thin paper walls. And look up a few of the news articles that came around before about the blind kid who uses echolocation to get around like everyone else - he makes clicks and listens to the tones of the echoes.
Then a few days or weeks later, after the memory of the masseur/entertainer has faded, sneak back in during the night and assassinate. Or instead lure the target into a situation where she has the advantage - deep fog, total darkness, extremely bright light - or force her advantage - something that affects the eyes, like a version of pepper spray or smoke.
And then you make those parts nonstop action, so that the scene changes before the reader has a chance to slow down and think "wait..." about anything you forgot.
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Minekura and Cook both have worldbuilding, but it's subsumed to the characters, and it's inferred from the dialogue and action. Tom-Tom and One-Eye stand out because they're dark-skinned and come from the south, so the world is set up similar to ours in which the light-skinned people tend to occur farther north. There's high-energy magic, but it requires lots of training and is really beyond the reach of an ordinary person. Etc.
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branchandroot
Re: Cool Bits Story Generator to the rescue!
Date: 2008-07-26 08:21 pm (UTC)If she spends the night or several nights there as part of her cover duties, it's fairly easy to sneak about. Someone finds her lurking in the wrong place in the middle of the night, she just starts looking worried and apologizes profusely because she got up to visit the privy and got turned around and lost. Handwave her own navigation - scents from various rooms (Japanese nobles had personal incense scents blended for them and would perfume their robes with it) identifying people and places, air currents and variations in temperature telling her whether there's walls or corridors, the sounds of people moving coming through thin paper walls. And look up a few of the news articles that came around before about the blind kid who uses echolocation to get around like everyone else - he makes clicks and listens to the tones of the echoes.
Then a few days or weeks later, after the memory of the masseur/entertainer has faded, sneak back in during the night and assassinate. Or instead lure the target into a situation where she has the advantage - deep fog, total darkness, extremely bright light - or force her advantage - something that affects the eyes, like a version of pepper spray or smoke.
And then you make those parts nonstop action, so that the scene changes before the reader has a chance to slow down and think "wait..." about anything you forgot.
=================
Minekura and Cook both have worldbuilding, but it's subsumed to the characters, and it's inferred from the dialogue and action. Tom-Tom and One-Eye stand out because they're dark-skinned and come from the south, so the world is set up similar to ours in which the light-skinned people tend to occur farther north. There's high-energy magic, but it requires lots of training and is really beyond the reach of an ordinary person. Etc.