Creating Physical Wounds for Your Characters
Factors to consider for giving characters meaningful physical injuries.
Hey Story Crafters,
Last week’s post got me thinking about injuries—physical ones this time, which I want to talk about in this post.
Whenever there’s a fight scene, your protagonist risks getting injured. (To be honest, the risk of injury exists in all action scenes; but it’s especially true—expected, even—for fight scenes. And the same risks apply for a group of characters.) If, say, your protagonist breaks his ankle in the first fight scene of the story, the consequences of that injury need to affect every action your protagonist takes from that moment onward. He can’t suddenly jump to his feet in the next chapter, ready to continue on his adventure; not unless he has a healing ability, or a magic potion that can heal him.
When a character sustains an injury, the circumstances that injury occurs, what the injury is, and how that injury affects the character—mentally, emotionally, and physically—all need to be purposeful. The injury needs to mean something to the character, needs to have stakes and consequences. Not just for the injured character, but for the plot, too.
An example of a character who undergoes a serious, life-changing injury is Jaime Lannister from A Game of Thrones (based on A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin). I’ll do a brief breakdown later on, but if you’re familiar with the character, keep him in mind as you read on.
Circumstances of the injury
If your stories tend to be more action-oriented, your first instinct might be to assume that a fight scene will be the most likely time your protagonist gets injured.
That is not always the case. While it can certainly be suspenseful for the protagonist to be victorious in a fight scene against the “bad guys,” only to realize she was cut by a poisoned blade—leading to a subplot of finding a doctor or an antidote to cure her—there are other potential setups, depending on your protagonist’s interests, skills, strengths, and weaknesses.
The circumstances of how a character gets injured is another opportunity to establish character, and show development.
Protagonist’s interests, skills, strengths, and weaknesses:
What are your protagonist’s interests? Do they like animals? Fast cars? Hanging out at the beach? And is your protagonist proud or comfortable with her interests, or are her interests a source of shame? Knowing your protagonist’s interests and how she feels about them can provide opportunities for a scene when an injury can occur, if it’s relevant to the story.
Do the same thing with your protagonist’s skills, strengths, and weaknesses—what are they, and is your protagonist proud or ashamed of them?
Considering these factors can create interesting sources of internal tension
Type of injury
Though this technically falls under the umbrella of “circumstances of the injury,” I set it apart for better organization.
The type of injury sustained by a character needs to have meaning, to prompt the character to change and, hopefully, grow.
You might also consider story type and worldbuilding elements when deciding the type of injury your protagonist or another character (or characters) sustains.
Story type
Story type matters when deciding the type of injury a character might sustain. For example, the expectation for injury in a love story is very different from expectations of more action-oriented stories. In a love story, the expectation might be that the male lead gets slapped, or a black eye.
Make sure to keep audience expectations in mind when considering the possibility of injuring a character.
Worldbuilding elements
The type of treatment an injured character is able to receive can reveal worldbuilding elements like the status of healthcare in the story world—how advanced it is, and how accessible it is to the average citizen vs. a more affluent one.
The mental/emotional/physical effect of the injury
How does your protagonist react to his injury? Is he ready to tackle the next obstacle head-on, or does he start to question his ability to reach his ultimate goal?
How do the characters he interacts with treat him, or behave around him, post-injury?
As an example for the third question, say you have a typical fantasy quest type of story where a group of individuals come together to defeat an evil sorcerer terrorizing the land. The protagonist—the hero, the chosen one meant to defeat the sorcerer—gets seriously injured while rescuing a cute, fluffy magical creature in distress, and her ability to confront the evil sorcerer is in question. The members of the group can react in several ways, but it basically boils down to this: 1) they believe in the protagonist and do their best to support her, or 2) they start to lose faith in the protagonist.
The effect an injury has on the injured character, and the surrounding characters, is another opportunity to establish character, and show development (for the injured character and the characters they interact with).
Character Example: Jaime Lannister (a very brief breakdown)
*Note: It’s been a while since I watched A Game of Thrones, so this is a very brief, broad strokes breakdown. If I misremember some details, please don’t hold it against me too much. 😊
Circumstances of injury: Jaime and Brienne are captured by Bolton soldiers on their way to King’s Landing. He manages to successfully prevent Brienne from being assaulted, but when he tries to secure his own freedom, he inadvertently provokes his captor’s rage.
Skill: Jaime is a skilled swordsman, and takes pride in this skill. He might not take pride in every aspect of his reputation, but his skill as a swordsman is the part of his reputation he is proud of.
Injury type: Jaime loses his sword hand. Since GOT has a medieval setting, he doesn’t have access to proper care for his injury.
Effect of injury: In losing his sword hand, Jaime loses his sense of identity. He initially wallows in despair, but he eventually adapts to this loss, and learns to use a sword with his nondominant hand. He even grows, as a character.
A Final Note
You don’t need to use all of these factors when deciding if your story needs a character to be injured to advance the plot. But they’re worth thinking about and exploring, especially if you think your current story doesn’t have high enough stakes yet.
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Best,
Leah
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