10 Non-Lethal Injuries to Add Pain to Your Writing

New Part: 10 Lethal Injury Ideas

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.

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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if u have trouble being soft to urself u should make a blanket. doesn't matter how. I crocheted mine, and it's huge, big enough for my bed, all single crochet with yarn that is really too thin to be advisable for such a big project. and it took like 3 years working on and off. I brought it to book club and family gatherings and once to work. Just a little at a time. hours upon hours of boring repetitive work. And it took forever and my wrist got tired and I bitched about it the whole time. and now I get to wrap myself up in it and it's so warm. oh I made that, I put all that time and care into it, and now it holds onto me after a hard day. even when I don't have it in me to like myself in the present I still have evidence that I cared about myself enough to make myself a big warm blanket. would recommend.

how it feels to wash your hair and brush your teeth and have clean clothes on

This is the funniest shit I’ve read all day

.🐁🐀

"When [Disgrace] published the 'Ruff Sex' portraits in On Our Backs in 1989, I ran one photo as the centerfold - a girl gang bang that showed it's femme bottom in the outer reaches of sensation. It was an amazing construction of a classic girl fucked into insensibility by strangers who carry that 'don't know or care' air about them. The magazine was immediately returned by most of our retailers, and never made it though the mail to others. 'Ruff Sex' was seen as the unthinkable

- a lesbian oxymoron. How could women be so rough with each other? How could there be a

"victim' and her tormentors? How could they

'use' her that way? And to top it off, how could these women be such remorseless exhibitionists as to perform the whole scene for the camera?

None of these questions would be relevant if it weren't for the assumptions that we have about female sexuality: deferential, gentle, nurturing, modest. We are surprised to see women put their bodies to the test sexually, to go to the extreme - although this is exactly what a woman's body is made for: extremes, endurance.

One thing about women who are into masochism is the stamina factor - the endurance, and the yearning for release through endurance. Perhaps the greatest feat of 'Ruff Sex' is the players look out of control - as candid and spontaneous as spit-"

Susie Bright, Nothing But The Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image (1996), photo from Love Bites

(1991) shot by Del LaGrace Volcano

When you're old AND you're obsessed with FFXIV. I'm sorry to say this but you're cooked. 😭

- Paris Hilton

...WOW.

say you're sorry, mean it, and don't do it again really is the best way to go about it when you've fucked up.

99% of "mysterious disappearances" esp of people in their 20s who start acting weird for 48 hours and then vanish are not mysterious, thats just when a lot of reality-obliterating mental illness tends to kick in and it's pretty easy to get a short circuit in your brain that makes you go family guy death pose in joshua tree national park. it's not any less tragic, it's just a documented phenomenon and not particularly predictable. its a big reason the medical advice is for people with a family history of schizophrenia to completely avoid weed and psychedelics. "people just go crazy sometimes" is a principle of human health that used to be a lot more accepted prior to the american midcentury and to a certain extent thats a healthier way to conceptualize and prepare for the risk, as opposed to the modern assertion that anyone acting weird is dangerous and broken forever.

you should have a rough outline of a plan for if any of your loved ones experiences psychosis, it really does happen a lot. UTIs can cause psychosis. taking drugs, even safe drugs, or prescription drugs, can cause psychosis. i was once prescribed a heavy regimen of vitamin D because i was deficient, but the doctor never told me to stop taking it, so i moved to california, stopped being deficient, and developed vitamin d toxicity with downstream hyperparathyroidism which triggered significant hypomania that was undetected and uncontrolled for yeeeeeeears. i just slowly got Weird and started making impulsive decisions based on slightly out-of-gamut beliefs. i drove cross country by myself to have a love affair. the love affair was real, the series of decisions leading to burning down my life in pursuit of it were based on not great brain function however. etc. you see what i mean. churchill mentioned depression being the "black dog who stalks us" (one reason for Churchgrim's multi-referential name) but theres another, stealthier dog called Insanity and it's closer to some people than others but man it sneaks up on you. every time i see one of those "guy gets weird and drives into the wilderness forever" missing persons stories i think "yeah i could totally pull that off"

"van gogh cut off his ear what a lunatic" you are 3 nights of bad sleep, getting unexpected upsetting news and taking a substance as benign as coffee at the wrong time away from doing the same hope this helps

I have nothing against trans girl headcanon stuff where people are like "this character would dress and present exactly the same as they did pretransition" but its always applied to characters it absolutely would not apply to

"if jesse pinkman transitioned she'd still dress the same and stuff she'd be a masc lesbian" jesse pinkman is extremely self destructive, infatuated with self image, prone to becoming attached to older men, has had zero healthy conduits for expressing femininity, and has an obscene amount of drug money to drop on plastic surgery and tiny black bodycon dresses she would not be fucking masc she would end up on mugshawtys 6 months into her transition

Skating through Harar, Ethiopia

Courtesy of @ethiopian_girl_skaters

ily, menswear guy

Clothing has denoted social class since... oh wait since forever. Like literally. Sumptuary laws, which often designate WHO is allowed to wear WHAT (styles, fabrics, colors, accessories) have been around since ancient times. Certain clothing has denoted whether you are in the royal court and what specific rank you have (like the colors of wonsam in Korea - which also has this fascinating history with enormous wigs and whether they're legal). Prostitutes in many medieval European cities had a particular "uniform" to make them immediately visually identifiable from "virtuous" women, and Jewish people in medieval Europe likewise have been forced to wear certain kinds of clothing and accessories so everybody knew they were Jewish (yes, like the Jewish star during the Holocaust). Women in England and France during the French Revolution cut their hair hella short to indicate their sympathy with the French aristocracy, who had all their hair cut off in preparation for execution at the guillotine. Women wearing trousers in various situations from the 19th century to the late 20th century could be a revolutionary political act. Black women in the 1960s wore their hair in an afro as an expression of pride in their heritage and culture. I wear t-shirts with trans-inclusive Pride flags - and lots of other US Americans wear Confederate flags - to advertise adherence to particular causes, political parties, and identities. Dress is inherently, universally, eternally, deeply intertwined with politics.

Had a conversation with a housemate earlier and I want to reiterate this on the internet. Speaking as a disabled person, who’s been Officially Disabled on paper for more than a decade: I literally do not give two shits if those twits who are taking horse dewormer - the ones seriously damaging their health longterm, what with the risk of blindness and organ damage and all - end up going on disability or receiving public assistance. They should still receive disability benefits if they qualify for them. “It taxes an already stressed system-” Yeah, you know why it’s stressed? Because rich people don’t pay their taxes. We could fund these programs a dozen times over if we actually made it a priority, as a society, to take care of people. And maybe, I don’t know, bought fewer tanks. People still deserve to eat and have housing. We don’t let people starve in the streets because they made bad choices. (Besides, what about those kids whose parents are COVID deniers, or feeding them vetrinary drugs? Do they “deserve” to suffer their whole lives because their parents are assholes?) Once we open that door to “Oh it’s their own fault they’re disabled, so why should society pay for it?” it VERY QUICKLY becomes “Well, it’s your fault for being fat*. Or “You must not have been eating right, so you deserve it.”  Or “It’s your fault for not trying yoga”. Or “This treatment didn’t work for you, so you must have been doing it wrong”.

*This isn’t an academic exercise. The city I live in has a policy that if your disability is due to alcoholism, drug abuse, or “obesity”, you can’t qualify for a reduced fare transit pass, or paratransit services. Do you know how easy it is to spin something into not qualifying for benefits? “Well they’re fat, so the pain must be their own fault.” even if it’s a matter of “Bad knees run in my family, and being in pain all the time makes it really difficult to exercise”. Who gives a shit why it happened? They’re suffering, and access to better transportation would make them suffer less. Actually, if someone’s an alcoholic or addict, I probably want them to have MORE access to public transit? Drunk driving is bad. We don’t give people more reasons to deny people help. I literally do not give even a single, solitary fuck if a million people who “brought it on themselves” get help. Any focus on “BUT THE UNDESERVING-” is an attempt to con you into policing poor people and disabled people more.

See also, “I’m going to dance/shit/cheer/etc.on the graves” of people you don’t like.  They’re not excluded from sympathy, empathy or help.

Oh, no, I think you’re fundamentally misunderstanding me here. I already have a menu and celebratory playlist planned for when That Orange Motherfucker dies.

It’s totally fine to be happy when someone who’s causing harm dies. I’m saying that denying people real, concrete help - such as disability benefits, or SNAP, or whatever -  because they’re a “bad” person - isn’t okay and DEFINITELY will harm people beyond your intended target.

Saying “Well you overdosed on veterinary medicine and wrecked your health, so why should taxpayers pay for it?” will, ABSOLUTELY, 100% be used for “Well, you’re fat, so it’s your fault that you’re sick (even if whatever illness you have is UTTERLY unrelated to your weight) so we won’t provide benefits“. Or “Well you have an invisible/difficult to diagnose illness, so we think you’re making it up”. Or “You say you did X treatment and it didn’t work, so it must be your fault”.  Or even, in a few years, “Oh so you took the horse dewormer because you were a minor child at the time and your parent made you take it and now it’s cause ongoing health problems. Well, that sounds like it was your fault too, so we’re denying you help.” There’s a federal law that bans people with felony drug convictions from receiving food stamps. Because they’re “bad” people. (Nevermind that they still have to eat.)  “Punishing” people for perceived “immoral” behavior by taking away their basic needs is cruel, and it doesn’t work. Look. Quite honestly, I’d like to dropkick some of these people into the sun. They’ve certainly made it clear that my life, as a disabled person, is worthless to them. But we don’t leave people to starve in the street just because they’re terrible.

Made a mouthwashing animation yayyy

Holy crap this is so well made check it out guys

New zine that's free for anyone to print and distribute! Read the whole thing at newlevant.com/COVIDzine or in the rest of this post.

UPDATE 4/11/2023:

I swapped out the colloidal silver nasal spray info for xylitol nasal spray info. I originally included colloidal silver spray because of the linked study and recommendation from RTHM, but I don't want to be pointing people toward something with notable health risks. Xylitol spray (Xlear) is also cheaper and more widely available!

This is such a concise and informative resource! PLEASE boost this and keep each other safe! The pandemic is NOT OVER.