Writing Cleanly: Realistic injuries

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you’ve stopped by, for the next in our series on writing clean fiction. It’s a subject that I think we really ought to talk about more often, because there’s a stigma against clean fiction. It’s a stigma that says clean fiction just can’t be as good as its unclean counterpart. And you know what? Most of the time… well, they’re right. Clean fiction just doesn’t get the hard-hitting nitty-gritty that a lot of readers are looking for out of their fiction. Which is why we need to spend a little more time honing our craft and perfecting the way we write, so our work stands up to the cultural norm.

This week, we’re talking about something that I touched on just a little bit in week one, but one that I thought we should come back around to, because of how important it really is in the long run.

Writing Cleanly: Realistic injuries

There’s a distinct lack of realistic injuries in television and film as well, and nobody seems to mind, but in the written word… believe me, they mind. They mind a great deal. So it’s extremely important that we take the time to write those injuries properly, and that we do our research so we know what we’re talking about.

Again, I’m going to remind you that there’s no way to please everyone. Clean fiction readers tend to be a little more intense of an audience, in that they can be far more difficult to please. They don’t know what they want, but they know what they don’t want and they’re not afraid to bash you online for doing the thing they don’t like. I know, it’s annoying. But you made the choice to write clean fiction for a reason, and there are ways to ensure that fiction is still amazing. I promise. It just won’t be able to please everyone who reads the genre. In fact, with a lot of the things I’m telling you, you might do better in some ways to not market as clean fiction. Other readers will love your books as well, and not even notice they’re clean.

When it comes to injuries in clean fiction, it is vitally important that you say what you mean. It’s a common trope of writing in general, that someone must be injured in the story, at some point along the way. So you’ll need to know who’s getting injured, how they would correctly respond to the pain of that injury, and what effects that injury will have upon them for the rest of the story.

This isn’t easy, and for some reason, many clean writers just don’t bother to do the research. There’s this stigma that says clean readers don’t want to see any blood at all, even if someone gets stabbed in the stomach. Well, that’s just not true. We don’t want to see the gore of it. We don’t want to see sinew unless it’s entirely necessary (if a character falls and breaks his leg, we’re more apt to be okay with seeing that sinew—if he’s sliced open by another character, it’s harder for us to stomach). But most of all, we really do want it to be realistic. We don’t want someone to break their ankle in one chapter and three chapters later have that same someone walking around like it’s nothing.

Now, the easiest way to make sure you’re doing this correctly is honestly to find a friend. I’m willing to bet, in this day and age, that you know a nurse (or someone else in the medical profession). And if you don’t, well, it’s not that difficult to go into a hospital and meet one. ;-) Point is, a medical professional would be able to tell you exactly what effects that injury would have on a person, tell you how long they’d expect for recovery, and even tell you whether or not that person would be likely to pass out when the injury is inflicted.

Of course, if you don’t have a friend in the medical field and don’t want to make a friend for the sake of your writing, there’s always the internet—and it really is a treasure trove of information. Point is, you need to do some research, either way.

And like I said before, the rule of thumb for showing detail in injury is whether or not it was an accident, and the level of gruesome in the injury. Clean readers very rarely ever want to see spilled intestines, but we’ll handle smashed skulls, broken bones, shredding muscle, and very much more—as long as it happened by accident, or happenstance. Intentional injuries are much harder for us to stomach, and you’ll have to use your best judgement to decide how far you’re willing to go.

Have a specific injury you’d like an opinion on? Send me a message and let me know!

[love]

{Rani Divine}