So in my story I am currently working on, the main character is a kind of 'inquisitor' of the period (essentially doling out bad-assery where it needs to be felt.) Obviously, this is a dangerous job and she will need to sustain injuries in order for it to be a believable, logical plot-line. At first, I was fine with the idea of having her stabbed, shot, clubbed, etc., until I decided on doing some independent research and realized just how debilitating these such injuries could be to a person. I feel as though I will have to remove some of these instances to keep her from either becoming a bullet absorbing mega human, or paraplegic. Obviously, getting injured is not how they portray it in the movies. A person can have permanent nerve or muscle damage from a gunshot, or can easily bleed to death from a single puncture. My question/discussion is : How to others feel about this? Is it best to have a few painful bumps here and there, or take them out completely?
Funny you should ask, because I'm not entirely sure myself If pressured, I would say a steampunk meets dystopia meets fantasy genre...although that just sounds silly on paper.
I know the feeling mine genre hop a lot. If it is fantasy you have scope to make something up hmm I'll think about it more overnight.
I like dystopia a whole lot and steampunk is pretty cool. Sounds interesting. If someone wants to hurt her, then maybe instead of something like a gunshot, they could torture her in some way where it doesn't affect her ability to move around a few days later. Or if they need to take her down quickly, there's always tranqs and choloform. Hope I helped!
Elgaisma - That's true, but I do still feel as though I need to stay connected to the limits of the human body. I suppose one could utilize advanced technology to repair nerves, instantly mend bone, etc., however. Mallory - Thank you for your encouraging words That is a good suggestion. I was thinking something more along those lines, such as just getting a knee to the gut or a fist to the face. Adds nice drama without the lasting damage.
Books are similar to movies in the fact that the reader is willing to suspend some of their disbelief. Injuries that would severely hamper a person's movement in real life may not phase a character until later on in a book. The author can write it off as the result of an adrenaline rush or shock. Or as someone suggested earlier, maybe your MC got lucky and the word looks worse than it is. Depending on what genre you finally decide your story is can contribute other factors as well, such as spells or potions that heal injuries rapidly.
I'm very into physical fitness and on several occasions when I wasn't being smart I sprained something. A strain is basically a muscle tear, and they can take SIX MONTHS to heal. Gun shots basicall pulp the tissue they smash their way through and may leave that muscle never working proberly again. I've known a lot of criminals who were shot. One guy got hit in the gut and had to wear a diaper forever. But, another guy I knew got shock seven times, as a kind of torture, and once in the head and he didn't die. The gun was a 9mm pistol and the bullets didn't have enough velocity and mass to penetrate his muscle mass and skull. This guy was very fit and had dense hard as a rock muscles, but the skull I don't know about. Anyway, it took him months to heal and he suffered from severe crushing migraines from whatever trauma happened to his brain from getting jangled around by the bullet, so it's not like the movies, but can sorta be. I suggest that your character wear some armor of a real or fictional nature that will limit trauma. From what I know of bulletproof vests the person can end up with painful bruising after getting shot, but that can be bounced back from. Currently, there's a system coming out what has a reactive gell that stops the bruising and so there's real products to build your fiction on.
