One Thousand Ways to Die

This panel at Wiscon was bought to you by people who have been really injured and really work with injured people (TM).

The cast:

Alex Gurevich: Your moderator who asks probing and interesting questions.

Cassie Alexander: In her identity as Erin Cashier, she is a nurse.

Lisa C. Frietag: A real doctor, the kind who helps people.

Gary Kloster: Author and martial arts instructor. Has been in pain before.

Jake Kolojejchick: Avid reader and survivor of mountaineering accident.

Snapshots from the conversation:

When people get hurt, they stay down.

Fairly minor injuries can incapacitate you. However, no one wants to see the protagonist of a novel get bed rest for fifty pages or so.

Head injuries are the most problematic in books. A common plot device is knocking a character out and getting them to the bad guy’s lair. If you are hit so hard you are knocked out, you have much bigger problems than the bad guy.

Psychological consequences are often underplayed as well. Elizabeth Moon’s Paksenarion is an example of a character who was tortured and raped, and just got back up again.

HOWEVER, one of the ways that writers often get around these limitations are by writing about enhanced beings, or using a supernatural outside intervention.

First aid scenes are often not accurately recreated. CPR is kind of iffy. Shocking people is oversimplified. Most first aid scenarios leave a lot of litter from discarded packaging.

Does anyone do it right? Well, Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden bitches a lot about pain, but since he’s enhanced, he keeps on going. A couple of audience folks thought Paksenarion’s lack of consequences was justified because of the intervention of her deity.

But no. Most writers don’t portray injury as accurately as they could, and it might be because that would be BORING.

So key is a balance between believability and story telling? Much depends on the kind of story you’re trying to tell.

Author: Catherine Schaff-Stump

Catherine Schaff-Stump writes fiction for children and young adults. Her most recent book, The Vessel of Ra, is the first book in the Klaereon Scroll series. She is currently working on its sequel, as well as penning the middle grade adventures of Abigail Rath, monster hunter.

One thought on “One Thousand Ways to Die”

  1. It’s a fine line to tread. With my book (or really any violent action book/flix) there’s a balance between reality and what works to heighten tension and also make it believable.

    As my wife once asked, “In real life nobody could take that much punishment and keep going, right?” And the answer is no. Most people would be a bloody pulp halfway through such a beating. And they most certainly won’t be getting up anytime soon.

    The best we can go with is verisimilitude.

    Although I do try to be accurate with the secondary people. In the first scene a 2nd person gets their hand lopped off. For most action heros they’d just keep going. However, this character shows the trauma, stops moving by internalizing, and then goes into shock.

    Can’t quite do that with main characters. Kinda stops the story dead.

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