Injuries
I recently underwent a major operation. I wasn’t wounded and it was all planned. Still, it is over a month ago as of this post and I’m still not 100%. What it is telling me is that when a character suffers a serious if not life threatening injury, even if younger and fitter than I am, they’re not likely to be “up and running” anytime soon thereafter. This is particularly true of a major combat injury. My surgery was carefully planned to be minimally invasive. Although it was major and a long operation and, hence, being like being hit by a large bus, as a clinician said. Consider what a stab or slash wound would be like? They’re not careful surgery, quite the opposite. The amount of damage and the multiple areas it might have affected are potentially far worse than those I suffered.
A bit of a long premable, but the key to this is in the realism of a character’s abilities after suffering a major trauma. Not the Holywood overnight rest and the, bandage across the chest, as good as new and once more unto the fray. The harsh reality is that a major injury is going to leave the character disabled for quite some time. This then becomes a key plot and story point.
I have a discarded novel where my major character is shot with an arrow. This proves a real nightmare for those with him. He’s so severely injured that, without the attentions of a healer, he’ll die. It drives their actions from that point onward until they can get him seen to. And even after treatment, afterwards he’s weak and feeble and hence has to be cared for. He can barely walk, so they need a cart, which is fine but if pursued by riders will be quickly overtaken. So much that follows the MC’s wounding affects how the story develops.
Is what I wrote realistic? I like to think some is. Certainly the likelihood of death if not properly treated is realistic. That he can/has to travel afterwards? Perhaps or probably less so since the timeline between injury, treatment and being able to travel is severely truncated. But having the MC idle for a month didn’t really suit the plot I had in mind. Hence, compromises were needed.
Others have written good stuff on injuries to characters and their implications. We should forget the idea that our characters are super solid and can shrug off severe injuries and seek more realistic—and more problematic in terms of plot—consequences from these. But as always, we will need to make compromises if we want our story to have the right pace.
I have another character, Thagar, a Norseman, who also gets shot at the end of the first part of the story. He survives but, again, is weakened until he can recover. It’s a good way to complicate the plot.
Go with it!