One Thousand Ways to Die

[cathschaffstump]

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.

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.