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10 Non-Lethal Injuries to Add Pain to Your Writing

If you need a simple way to make your characters feel pain, here are some ideas: 

1. Sprained Ankle

A common injury that can severely limit mobility. This is useful because your characters will have to experience a mild struggle and adapt their plans to their new lack of mobiliy. Perfect to add tension to a chase scene.

2. Rib Contusion

A painful bruise on the ribs can make breathing difficult, helping you sneak in those ragged wheezes during a fight scene. Could also be used for something sport-related! It's impactful enough to leave a lingering pain but not enough to hinder their overall movement.

3. Concussions

This common brain injury can lead to confusion, dizziness, and mood swings, affecting a character’s judgment heavily. It can also cause mild amnesia.

I enjoy using concussions when you need another character to subtly take over the fight/scene, it's an easy way to switch POVs. You could also use it if you need a 'cute' recovery moment with A and B.

4. Fractured Finger

A broken finger can complicate tasks that require fine motor skills. This would be perfect for characters like artists, writers, etc. Or, a fighter who brushes it off as nothing till they try to throw a punch and are hit with pain.

5. Road Rash

Road rash is an abrasion caused by friction. Aka scraping skin. The raw, painful sting resulting from a fall can be a quick but effective way to add pain to your writing. Tip: it's great if you need a mild injury for a child.

6. Shoulder Dislocation

This injury can be excruciating and often leads to an inability to use one arm, forcing characters to confront their limitations while adding urgency to their situation. Good for torture scenes.

7. Deep Laceration

A deep laceration is a cut that requires stitches. As someone who got stitches as a kid, they really aren't that bad! A 2-3 inch wound (in length) provides just enough pain and blood to add that dramatic flair to your writing while not severely deterring your character.

This is also a great wound to look back on since it often scars. Note: the deeper and wider the cut the worse your character's condition. Don't give them a 5 inch deep gash and call that mild.

8. Burns

Whether from fire, chemicals, or hot surfaces, burns can cause intense suffering and lingering trauma. Like the previous injury, the lasting physical and emotional trauma of a burn is a great wound for characters to look back on.

If you want to explore writing burns, read here.

9. Pulled Muscle

This can create ongoing pain and restrict movement, offering a window to force your character to lean on another. Note: I personally use muscle related injuries when I want to focus more on the pain and sprains to focus on a lack of mobility.

10. Tendonitis

Inflammation of a tendon can cause chronic pain and limit a character's ability to perform tasks they usually take for granted. When exploring tendonitis make sure you research well as this can easily turn into a more severe injury.

This is a quick, brief list of ideas to provide writers inspiration. Since it is a shorter blog, I have not covered the injuries in detail. This is inspiration, not a thorough guide. Happy writing! :)

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks? 

Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!

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the unique problem of rping is wanting to rp but being too tired to actually rp

but wanting to rp

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Being obsessed with your own ocs is so so good for you i seriously can't recommend it enough

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forget who’s the top or bottom, which one of you is nursing a fresh bite-sized wound and which one of you is licking the blood off your teeth

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writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

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people who don’t start screaming when they are angry and instead lower their voice until it turns into a whisper are scary as fuck

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Anybody else make the expressions of their characters when they're writing? If somebody grimaces, I'm grimacing with them.

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“who’s your favorite character?” my friend’s oc. “who’s your favorite character in canon?” my friend’s oc. “your favorite character can’t be your friend’s oc!” the posters on my walls and discord messages say otherwise. my wound has a heartbeat and only my friend’s oc can fix it. goodbye chat

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Did You Know: The scribs care about you? If you wait around in the wilderness, one may stop by to see how you are doing. This interrupts your waiting, but they will not be hostile.

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i think 'I trust you with my life but not your own' as a trope is one of the ones that can always fuck me up no matter what

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Prompt #1137

"Thank you. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you did the right thing."

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i think we as a society need to use cell phones/laptops/cars/backpacks to flesh out characters

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i’ve seen a lot of posts floating around that decry skyrim’s stupider mods (skimpy armor, bouncy breast-and-butt physics, etc), but i haven’t seen any lately that point out the fun ones, which is a shame. so i’ve written up a quick list of my favorite obscure-ish mods to share with you all—these aren’t massive overhauls, just little tweaks here and there that add to the overall experience

female giants: fantastic reskin that replaces some of skyrim’s male giants with women. there are a few mods for this on the nexus, but this is the only one in which the giantesses resemble their male counterparts, not scaled-up lady nords. you have to hike out to the more distant camps to find them, iirc, but that’s part of the fun 

friendly giants (and mammoths): makes giants unaggressive towards the player unless attacked outright. sometimes they’ll even run over and help you out in a fight. great for lore purposes—i play a researcher who’s friendly with several giant clans—or for players who just want to hang out with giants. who doesn’t

scarified dark elves: adds decorative scar patterns to dunmer models (like in morrowind). you can either apply it to your character alone, or to all the dunmer in the game

redguard fashion: modder’s resource that adds several yoku outfits to the game. noteworthy for including the biggest, fluffiest gloves i’ve ever seen—perfect for redguard characters who miss home, but still want to stay warm and toasty

falmer companion gleeb: adds a falmer follower to the game! his name is gleeb! i love him so much! you will love him so much!

player headtracking: rather than staring blankly ahead all the time, your character will turn their head to look at npcs within a certain range. depending on your character’s relationship with that npc, they’ll also smile or frown at each other! an absolutely essential download, if only so your character can smile at gleeb

bigger trees: scales up all the trees! forests are dense and gorgeous with this mod installed

fallen trees: adds fallen trees to strategic locations around skyrim. some of them span cliffs and rivers, which is fun—instead of wading through the water, you can (very carefully) edge across on the tree

bent pines: adds a gorgeous new tree model to the game. yes, i do like trees. why do you ask

supreme and volumetric fog: i like fog, too. if you hate being able to see your hand in front of your face, this is the mod for you. it really is Supreme and Volumetric

the bottomless pit: probably not lore-compliant but i’m including it anyway. this is my favorite quest mod because of how different it is—you navigate the dungeon (a bottomless pit) entirely by falling. it is extremely challenging. you will die. you will die a lot. but you’ll definitely feel as though you’ve earned the prize at the end

winterhold bridge repair: fixes the college’s crumbling bridge, rendering it infinitely less dangerous. my archmage held me at staff-point until i downloaded this

none of these will eat your framerate, jiggle a boob, or crash the game. go forth and download gleeb immediately

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BOOPS YOU

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grabs your hand. you've had enough plot and exposition and character development lately im taking you to the beach episode