I’ve got a side character that self harms. I will be honest—it’s not something I have written before (closest is just self destructive compulsions) nor is it something I have a personal history with. My greatest fear is this: bringing it up in my story in a manner that is gratuitously melodramatic. So this is my problem: How do I show self harm as something this character does in a tasteful way? Distasteful depictions in media of domestic violence and assault are some of my personal pet peeves, and I want to do this character justice. As it stands in my script, this character has a lot of guilt and grief over a girlfriend who unexpectedly died, and so she currently dealing with a combination of self hatred, loss of control, and not a lot of support. An aspect of this is self harm, which is finally brought up about 2/3 of the way into the story in a “It’s not like you hurt yourself on purpose.” “Well what if I do?” fashion. And then it’s left as that. This feels wishy washy, so I wanted to check with y’all if you have other ways of showing it that aren’t gratuitous. I’m open for all thoughts and suggestions. I considered having another character spot scars, but I couldn’t tell if that leaned too heavily into melodrama and vanilla gratuity. So all help is welcome. If you have examples from books or shows that you quite liked, feel free to share. Thank you for reading
this is a tough call because this is a tough thing to represent. because you want it to be genuine, right--you want to write it in a way that makes it vivid, but not a lurid spectacle, and you want the reader to respond to it. but...it's sticky ground, right, because there's the possibility that someone who struggles with self-harm will respond to it in ways that no compassionate writer would ever want. And balancing that is a hell of a thing. I personally would step very carefully for the sake of the people who understand what you're portraying all too well.
I would try and frame it how it really is...a temporary physical distraction from a long term emotional pain, making sure to emphasize the temporary nature of the relief. She looked down at her left arm as blood oozed from a fresh cut, the razor blade which had inflicted it still quivering between her right index finger and thumb. The searing pain gave voice to her grief but she knew it was not relief. It was never relief. The more she looked the more the scars that crisscrossed her arms like spiderwebs stared back at her as silent witnesses, bearing testimony to the fleeting and futile nature of her self destruction. Maybe something like that?
Why wait until two-thirds of the way through the story to bring up self harm? Is this a one-time mention or does it become a significant issue? I lean on the side of being too subtle rather than being too blatant: “It’s not like you hurt yourself on purpose.” Well what if I do? She thought. Or if you want to be more specific: Well what if I do? She thought, closing her hand to hide the scar on her palm. I don't agree that writers should tiptoe through creativity worrying that something they write may trigger a reader's anxieties. A writer's job is to tell a story. Readers are responsible for processing their personal reactions to the story, including depictions of self harm, spiders, falling from a skyscraper, or peanut butter sticking to the roof of their mouths.
Honestly, if this is 2/3 through the book and is something that comes up just this one time never to be mentioned again, I think you're totally fine with leaving it vague like this. IMO the amount of detail should be proportionate to its place in the story and relevance to the plot; otherwise you might have readers thinking that this is foreshadowing of an important future event, and they may be confused when something that you went into graphic detail on ends up leading nowhere.
