Back To The Suture

Was curious this morning about a nasty wound a character suffers, what it would look like, what it would feel like.

Short of injuring myself in a similar fashion to get a visceral experience, I returned to my humble library to review a Writer's Digest Books Howdunit Series edition called "Body Trauma: a writer's guide to wounds and injuries."

Glad I don't have to Google "assaulted elders, battered women and injured kids" (pg 36) or "injuries that may kill within minutes" (pg 88). What ever would the internet police think? Safer for everyone that I have the physical book within reach.

The thought of anyone suffering physical injuries fills me with dread and raises my blood pressure in real life, but when crafting a story it somehow raises my curiosity.

Stories require conflict, and conflict playing out on the physical level (one of the Three Levels Of Conflict that I rely on as I write) often requires graphic action.

Strange that writers choose to - and, ultimately, need to - hone in on the darkest aspects of our shared, broken humanity in order to craft compelling scenes, when in real life we'd be horrified if subjected to anything like it.

Verisimilitude demands details - credible, informative, exacting details that strengthen the narrative and engage the reader.

Books like the Howdunit Series remain valuable resources, unflinching insights within easy reach, especially when we're investigating topics that our mind's eye gets to oogle but that we'd prefer not to Google.