This Is Some Helpful Shit

This is some helpful shit

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So, I don't know how to write pain like! What words do I use? how do I describe it! I really need some help here!

No problem! And sorry about not answering sooner, I was on vacation. To make it up to you, I’ve made one of my trademark Long Posts about it.

TIPS ON HOW TO WRITE PAIN (FOR BOTH ORIGINAL CONTENT WRITERS AND FANFICTION WRITERS)

When I first started writing, about eight years ago, I had the same issue as @imjustafuckinggirl.

How are you supposed to write about pain you’ve never experienced before???

The characters in my book suffer through all sorts of terrible shit, and in no way am I writing from experience, which is marginally easier to do than write about something that has never happened to you.

However, with time, I managed to gather up a few strategies on how to write pain.

1. Don’t Write Paragraphs About It

I know, it’s tempting. You want to convey to the reader just how much pain the character is in, and you think that the pain will be emphasized the more you write about it.

This, however, is a lie.

As a reader, when I’m reading a book or fanfiction where, whenever the writer uses agonizingly long paragraphs to describe when a character is hurt, I skip it.

Entirely.

It’s boring and, quite frankly, unnecessary, especially during a fight or huge battle, which are supposed to be fast-paced.

When it comes to writing about pain, it really is about quality and not quantity.

In my own writing, I stick to short, quick paragraphs, some of them which are barely a line long. This gives it a faster pace and sort of parallels with the scattered, spread out thoughts of the character as they suffer.

2. Describe it Right

Many times, usually in fanfiction, writers over-exaggerate certain injuries.

This partially has to do with the fact that they’ve never experienced that injury before and are just thinking about what it might feel like.

As a girl with two brothers and who often participated in rough play-fights, I can assure you that getting punched is not as painful as you think it is.

(However, it does depend on the area, as well as how hard the punch is, on top of the fact that you have to take into account whether or not the punch broke bones)

I’m reading a high school AU where a character gets punched by a bully (Idk where they got punched it wasn’t stated) and the author is describing it like they’d been shot.

It was to the point where I was like Did the bully have brass knuckles or something????

It was very clear that this author had never been punched before.

When describing the pain of an injury or the injury itself, you have to take into account:

- What object was used to harm the character

- Where the injury is

- How long the character has had the injury

- (For blades) How deep the cut is

- (For blunt force trauma) How hard the hit was

- Whether or not the wound triggers other things (Ex: Concussion, vomiting, dizziness, infection, internal/external bleeding).

There’s also the fact that when some authors described wounds caused by blades such as knives, daggers, and swords, they never take into account the anatomy of a person and which places cause the most blood flow.

Obviously, a cut on your cheek will have less of a blood flow than a cut on your wrist, depending on what the blade hits, and I hope that everyone consults a diagram of veins, capillaries, arteries, etc. when they’re describing blood flow from a certain place.

There’s also the fact that you have to take into account where the blood is coming from. Veins? Arteries?

The blood from arteries will be a brighter red, like vermilion, than the blood from veins, which is the dark crimson everyone likes to talk about.

Not all places gush bright red blood, people!

3. DIFFERENT INJURIES HAVE DIFFERENT KINDS OF PAIN

Here, let me explain.

A punch feels different from a slap.

A broken arm feels different from getting stabbed.

A fall feels different from a dog bite.

I’ll give you a list of all the kinds of things that can be described for the three most common kinds of injuries that happen in stories:

Punch/Blunt Force Trauma

How it feels:

- Aching

- Numbness (In the later stages)

- A single spike of pain before it fades into an ache

- Throbbing

Effects:

- Vomiting (If the character is punched in the gut)

- Swelling

- Bruising

- Broken bones

- Unconsciousness (Blow to the head)

- Dizziness (Blow to the head)

- Concussion (Also a blow to the head)

- Internal bleeding

- Death (In the case of concussions and internal bleeding and broken bones- ribs can pierce lungs)

Stab Wound/Cut

How it feels:

- Stinging (only shallow wounds have just stinging)

- Burning

- With stab wounds, I feel like describing the effects of it make it more powerfully felt by the reader

Effects:

- Bleeding (Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be)

- Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)

- Unconsciousness

- Infection (if left unattended)

- Death

Gunshot

How it feels:

- Depends on the caliber bullet, from how far away they were shot (point-blank range is nothing like being shot from a distance), and in what place. Do careful research and then make your decision.

Effects:

- Bleeding(Consult chart of the circulatory system beforehand for the amount of blood flow that should be described and what color the blood should be. Also take into effect the above variables for blood flow as well.)

- Dizziness (Heavy blood loss)

- Infection (if left unattended)

- Death

Some things that a character may do while they’re injured:

- Heavy/Harsh/Ragged breathing

- Panting

- Making noises of pain

gasping

grunting

hissing

groaning

whimpering

yelping (when the injury is inflicted)

screaming

shrieking

wailing

- Crying/ Weeping/Sobbing/Etc.

- Clenching their teeth

- Unable to speak

- Pressing their hands against a stab wound/cut to try and stem the bleeding

- Eyesight going out of whack (vision blurring and tilting, the room spinning, black spots consuming sight)

- Eyes rolling up into their head

- Trembling/shaking

- Ears riniging (from gunshot)

HOPE THIS HELPED!

What are some good tips for getting started with writing a book? I have a concept but i can't put it into place.

Getting Started with Your Story

There’s no one way to start writing a book. For some people, it’s enough to just jump in and start writing to see where the story takes them. If you’re not too keen on that idea, then here is one process (as in, not the only process) that might help you move beyond your concept. 

Concept ≠ Plot

Many writers mistake concept for plot, but they’re actually two very different things. A world where everyone grows up with superpowers is a concept; the plot is what you decide to write about within that concept - the specific characters and what happens to those characters; who your antagonist is and what conflict arises when that antagonist goes after what they want. All of these things contribute to your plot. 

So first, define what it is you actually have at this particular point. Do you just have a concept? If so, you’ll need to take the necessary steps to develop that concept into a plot. 

Concept >>> Plot

If you’ve decided that all you really have is a concept, then how do you take it and turn it into a plot? You brainstorm. All brainstorming really amounts to is expanding your ideas. All you’re doing is asking questions about the concept and delving deep into the answers. 

The most simplistic way to start this process, especially if you’re struggling, is to ask one of two questions (or both, if applicable). These two questions: What could go wrong? What could go right?

Going back to my example about a world where everyone grows up with superpowers. If I were to ask the question “what could go wrong,” I’d end up with a whole list of possibilities. 

The powers suddenly disappear

People start abusing their powers

Someone figures out how to steal powers

A hierarchy of strong vs. weak powers develops, creating superiority/inferiority dynamics

Someone is born without a superpower

There are many more possibilities I didn’t even think of here, but any one (or more) of these could become a plot. Choose one that sounds interesting, and then ask yourself “and then what?” 

Say I choose: Someone figures out how to steal powers. Then what does that person do? Do they recruit people to do the dirty work for them? Do they work alone? Do they hoard these powers and barter them for other goods? Do they attempt to enslave people? Do they attempt to take control of institutions? What do they do?

Your goal is to take your ideas and turn them into actions taken by characters. People doing things. And each piece you add will usually lead into another. If you went with the idea that this character is stealing powers and essentially selling them for other goods, you’d have to ask yourself follow-up questions. First, who are they selling to? Why would anyone buy a new superpower if they already have one? What uses would they have for additional ones? What is the key demographic that this person is trying to reach? Secondly, what are they selling them in exchange for? Money? Favors? Souls? What is this character getting in return?

Now that you’ve examined potential actions that the character takes, you’ve also exposed potential new characters. 

People they’re stealing from

People they’re bargaining with

People that try to police these crimes

People that try to copy this character’s process

At the beginning of this section, I talked about using “what could go right” as another optional jumping off point. This is a good path to follow if your concept is already really negative. For a concept where someone is killing people for some pointed reason, you might ask “what could go right” and explore ideas where the killer is caught and brought to justice. 

The point of all this is to think about change as a means of taking your idea from concept to plot. A concept is static - it doesn’t move, evolve, or change. By developing a plot, you’re forcing the concept to be challenged in some way. If you think about it that way, you’ll be able to formulate conflicts, and the people that orchestrate and fight against those conflicts. 

On that note, I think we’re ready to move onto the third piece of my graphic above. 

Plot = Character Actions and Consequences

At this point, you have sketches for characters. You’ve got this nameless, faceless person that is stealing the powers, and all these other nameless, faceless people that I listed above. In essence, we have character concepts. And just like we turned our initial concept into a plot, we have to turn these character concepts into actual characters. 

The basics are the easiest way to start. You figure out their name, their gender identity, their age, their appearance, some brief backstory and personality traits. I personally prefer the simplest questionnaire that I put together back in the early days because it hits on the poignant pieces of a character without overwhelming you with 100s of questions. 

Now that you’ve given your character concepts names and faces and potential behaviors, you start to consider how one character’s view of the world inspires them to take certain actions, and you then think about how those actions affect your entire story. 

We already kind of talked about the motives of the power thief in our example, but definitely delve deep here. On the surface, this character seems bad - stealing from people and then selling what they steal. But depending on what it is they’re getting in return, could we not argue that this character is a supernatural Robin Hood? Maybe instead of selling, they’re giving, and maybe the characters they’re stealing powers from are people that abuse and misuse their powers. Character motives can take a plot and turn it on its head, forcing you to reconceptualize everything. And that’s okay! That’s part of the process.

But separate from that idea, if we have a character concept of someone whose powers were stolen, and after developing their basic backstory, we discover that person’s name is Rose, and she has an especially close relationship with her brother. So when her powers are stolen, how does this affect her life? Was she using her powers to keep her brother alive and protected? What she using them to keep a roof over their heads? Was she using them as part of her job, as a means of providing? What happens to her life when her powers are stolen? And what will Rose do about it? Whatever Rose does will impact the story. If she does nothing to get her powers back, how does she solve her problems and does that make for a good story? If she does decide to act, then you’ve moved onto a new plot point to dive deeper into.

My point is, character concepts come from plots, but characters themselves often create plot, as their decisions and mistakes and successes create new outcomes. So if I could modify my original flow chart:

Before you develop something, you conceptualize it. You have a concept, then you make it a plot. You have concepts for characters, then you make them characters. And those characters end up driving your plot, to the point that this happens:

Plot inspires character. Character inspires plot. And it just keeps going around and around and around. Breaking it down into these pieces helps organize the process, but developing a story is rarely this neat and tidy. You’ll get ideas that don’t make sense, ideas that aren’t cohesive, characters you don’t need, characters that piss you off, problems you can’t solve, or plot points you’ve committed to that you no longer like…it will be messy. But it’s your mess, and the more you work on developing your own process, the more it’ll make sense to you. And it’ll become easier to know how to go about fixing it when something’s not right. 

Have fun with this process! It’s supposed to be fun. When the pieces start to become clearer, you’re able to put them together in a rough outline. And once you have a rough outline, you can start writing, and really see it take shape. 

-Rebekah

Write about a character whose best intentions backfire.

Here are the edits of some Roy and Riza wallpapers. I do not own the wallpapers they belong to their respective authors but I do own the edits. Please tell me if you like them

Put your hands together for "bad grammar" and their new single "especially in english" (grammar mistakes were on purpose here)

what’s up this is my band Comma Overload