Fightclub - A writer's guide to fighting, pain and injury

How to write pain

Fighting and pain are connected, by many strings. Pain raises the suspense, heightens drama, raises  the stakes and makes your writing more realistic.

So why can reading about pain be so boring?

For example:

The pain shot up Chapa's arm like fire. She cringed. It exploded in her head with a blinding whiteness. It made her dizzy. It made her reel. The pain was like needles that had been dipped in alcohol had been jammed through her skin, like her arm had been replaced with ice and electricity wired straight into her spine.

For your characters, at its worst the pain can be all-consuming. For your readers, though, it can become a grind. 

Let's be honest, you gave up reading that paragraph by the third sentence.

I don't know, if you've ever of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. The two are bestselling authors, writing coaches, and international speakers. You might know their "Thesaurus series". I can really recommend those writer's guides. If you're interested, you can order them on Amazon.

Anyway, those two made a "pain scale", which I'm going to show you now.

Disclaimer: I don't own the following scale.

Minor/Mild: This is pain that your character notices but doesn't distract them. Consider words like pinch, sting, smart, stiffness.

Moderate: This is pain that distracts your character but doesn't truly stop them. Consider words like ache, throb, distress, flare.

Severe: This is pain your character can't ignore. It will stop them from doing much of anything. Consider words like agony, anguish, suffering, throes, torment, stabbing.

Obliterating: This is the kind of pain that prohibits anything else except being in pain (and doing anything to alleviate it). Consider words like ripping, tearing, writhing.

Just making sure, I don't get any copyright problems. Now back to my own words.

Most pain that matters in fiction isn't a one-and-done kind of a deal. A gunshot wound should burn, itch and ache as it heals. A broken bone should send a jarring blast of lightning into the brain if that bone is jostled or hit.

Injuries need to have consequences. Otherwise, what's the point?

There are three main ways to remind a reader of your character's suffering

Number one; show them suffering

If you want to show their pain, the easiest way is to tell.

For example:

her shoulder ached

 she rubbed her aching shoulder

But be careful not to use those metions more than once per scene. Otherwise your scene will sound monotonous.

Number two; show them working around their suffering

Another option is to watch the character working around their injuries.

For example:

She led each step on the staircase with her good leg

It's a reminder, but it's also a small challenge that they're solving before your very eyes.

Number three; change their pain

Pain isn't constant. It changers. It can change from debilitating to bearable in a minute.

For example:

The pain in her shoulder ramped up the from stiffness all the way to searing, blinding agony faster than she could blink.

The agony had faded to a dull throb

If I can offer one more piece of wisdom, it's this: research the injury inflicted upon your character. 

At the very least, try to get a grasp on what their recovery might look like. It will add a level of realism to your writing that you simply can't fake without it, and remind you that they should stay injured beyond the length of a scene.

And don't just use wikipedia for your research. The things there are often described in a very complicated way, and could be hard to understand. Especially when English is not your mother tongue.

You should also describe:

The object to harm the character

Where the injury is

How long the chracter had had the injury

How deep the injury is

Wether or not the wound triggers other thing (dizziness, bleeding, nausea)