Stories with realism

[Caged Maiden]

Recently we were talking about realism in fantasy novels which inspired a sort of sharing of experiments we've done in the course of research. I invite people to share their experiences here, immortalized for all to see. What have you done in the name of research? What have you experienced in life that you HAD to write into a novel? Please share. Here's the original thread: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/7528-fantasy-vs-being-realistic.html

So while it makes most sense to keep this to a fantasy writing theme, please feel free to include anything you think people might want to know about when including realism in their novels.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I'll go first since I made the thread.

Besides the bullet in the arm story, which was actually a pretty unique experience, I have some injury stories of my own.

I once climbed a tree in my Grandma's yard. I must have been about thirty feet up (of course, that's my perception having almost fallen, so take it how you will...). A branch broke because that high up they were pretty flimsy. It was terrifying. Instincts took over and I caught my weight on another branch and had to try to get back down. My hands were shaking while I was trying to hold on. My heart was pounding, my eyes only seeing branches that could hold my weight, like tunnel vision.

I wrote this into a novel recently, where a woman and her husband are talking about the view high up on the three story balcony. She tells him she regretted that she missed the view because she was too busy trying to get down... a fact that I lamented for a long time.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I often have hard time coming up with realistic responses when my characters experience things I haven't personally lived through. Anyone have any other real reactions to things, an observation that could breathe life into a scene?

Okay I'll do one more before I let the thread go.

This last summer, I thought I was having a heart attack. I was lying in bed reading my computer, when my breathing became labored out of nowhere. Five minutes later, it began to hurt. And five minutes after that, I was calling my mom (an RN) for help. I got her voicemail. SO I tried my husband at work as I felt my consciousness fading. I couldn't get air no matter how hard I tried and it felt like someone standing on my chest.

By the time I got my husband's voicemail, I hung up and my mother was calling me back. I rejected her call and dialed 911. I had four small children with me and I was dizzy, afraid, and for all intents and purposes, thought I was going to pass out and die in front of them.

When the ambulance arrived, twelve EMTs rushed into my house, scaring the crap out of my kids and firing off questions at me left and right. I guess they couldn't see I was having a hard time breathing... My next door neighbor barged in and scooped up my kids, sying she was taking them next door. All I could do was gasp and nod.

Anyhoo, they got me into the ambulance, just as my husband pulled into the driveway, a look of horror on his face.

I went to the hospital nd had blood drawn and a chest X-ray... I went a few days later for an echocardiogram. Turns out I didn't have a heart attack, no damage and my heart id fine. They think it was an esophageal spasm. Whatever happened, it hurt like a mofo and I thought I was dying. It's weird how after you have a close call, you change. Since then, I have a really rough summer, doing some things I ordinarily would never have done. It took me time to bounce back from that and stop living like every day might be my last.

I wrote that into a character once. A guy who almost dies and is deeply affected when confronted with mortality.

 

[Chime85]

That sounds like a very scary experience you had, Caged. I'm glad it turned out to be less harmful than first suspected. I love your experience with at your grandmothers, and the note that you regret not appreciating the view afterwards. I think something like that could only come from such an experience.

Although I have not placed it in a story yet, it's amazing how debilitating a leg injury can be, and how often these matters seem trivial in fiction. I recall at the age of 14-16, I was into skateboarding. I was never into half pipes and skate parks, although I did see their merit. I was more into "street skating", using the walls, railing etc that you walk by on a day to day basis.

There was a wall which stood at around two foot high, which I just had to try better tricks on. It was a wall I had tackled many times before, so I was confident that I was able to perform my stunts on it. One day, I tried to flip my skateboard and grind the wall (the act of sliding on a surface using the underside of the board, but not the wheels). As I flipped the board with my feet, the board fell short of the wall. I lost control in mid jump, my shin and knee crashing on the sharp lip of the wall edge.

The skin from my shin and knee was scraped away and I physically could not stand. Not only was my leg scraped but the collision also twisted my ankle. I could not even stand. When I tried to get up, my leg could not even take the weight of my own body. Along with the pain (there was a lot) it was like my body was trying to numb it at the same time. Luckily, I was not alone, so I had my friends put themselves under each of my arms. For the rest of the day, I was unable to walk on it. Luckily, nothing was broken, but there was major bruising to my ankle, shin and kneecap (I imagine a small amount of internal bleeding in my kneecap too. It was NOT pretty for weeks). It took days before I could walk on it for any decent length of time, even longer before I could run or skate again.

I'm not entirely sure about the internal damage, but it has left a scar along my shin and kneecap. Also, it aches a lot during the colder months.

Even what would e considered a flesh wound in a fantasy battle could leave a soldier near unable to fight.

 

[Chime85]

As an aside, I know as writers of stories, we can afford a certain distance from realism to create the story we wish. However, being fantasy writers with supernatural beings, magic, immortals etc, I personally feel that hightens the importance of realism when it comes to aspects such as character reactions and abilities.

While it could be argued that abilities are different due to aspects such as magic, they should however reflect the limitations the writer has set from the get go. Of course, I do not say this is a firm rule, there are many great stories where this practice is loosened. However, there is nothing wrong with researching the facts in question before a writer sets sail on a particular event or character development.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Okay so keeping on the injury train here...

When I was 21, I was driving round with two brothers I didn't know very well from high school. They had drunk more than me, so I drove their truck to the next bar.

A cop pulled me over saying I ran a red light (which I hadn't) and asked me to take a field sobriety test. I don;t think I did well, mostly because I was terrified and shaking. SO he gave me a brethalizer. I blew a .02... well within the legal limit, confirming my story I'd had two drinks earlier in the evening.

Well the officer was so outraged he couldn't arrest me, he told me (or rather shouted in my face) that he was going to have the vehicle towed because he believed me too impaired to drive, and leave us stranded on the side of the road at 2:30 am forty miles from home on a dark country highway. I argued, telling him he had no right to threaten me and I demanded he take me back to the police station so I could call my parents to pick me up.

He asked me if I had any weapons before he put me in the car and I told him I had a knife in my pocket. He immediately tackled me to the ground and him and his partner laid on top of me, pinning me to the ground and squashing me into the pavement. I screamed for them to get off me and they shouted in my face, pushing me harder. I cried, terrified and when they wouldn't let me up, I began hyperventilating. It was my first panic attack and I felt like I was going to die. My mind shut off, flight my only concern. I begged them to get off me and asked them why they were doing it.

Eventually, when I was completely out of reality, they let me up and I couldn't even rise. They called an ambulance and gave my drunk friends their car keys, telling them to get out of there. I went to the hospital, well shaken up by the incident.

Some time later I watched a nature program about wolves. The thing about wolves is that they can take down big prey because they hunt in packs. Basically, they can outrun anything over distances, and they tire out a moose until the bloody thing just passes out and lies down, too exhausted to keep running. The problem with wolves, versus lions, is that thy lack the jaw strength to deliver a killing blow to a big quadruped. So essentially they begin eating the moose while it's still alive. Prey animals have a built-in mechanism where they sort of go into a trance waiting to die. They sort of zone out like my panic attack and don't know what's going on. They feel less pain and eventually, blood loss causes shock and they expire. I thought it was kind of interesting how the body reacts to terror, fear, looming death. While it's easy to assume any animal or person would fight till it's dying breath, it just isn't always the case. Now, I'm not a specialist or biologist or anything. I'm going on the nature channel here, but I thought it was interesting how instincts and nature work sometimes. Imagine having a predator on your trail and not having the energy to fight or run anymore...

 

[Chilari]

Wow, interesting stuff. I guess the way people react in difficult situations isn't always what you might expect; biology takes over and works for the benefit of survival or the avoidance of conscious pain. Knowing this academically is not the same as understanding the effect on a person though, so these stories are really useful.

Not sure what I can add.

 

[Chime85]

Living where I am at the moment, I have the privilege of having first hand knowledge of what it's like to live by the sea, and how it interacts with our senses. Waves do crash, yes that is true. It gets very windy too, but really hot in the summer. The part which is different than most descriptions is when the scene is described as "having a refreshing sea air on his/her face" or something similar.

I can tell you now, it is not refreshing, it smells rather like dead fish (surprise surprise!). As you can imagine, this can be rather damaging to the claim that sea air is refreshing.