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Your action hero just got shot in the shoulder, stitched it up in a motel bathroom, and is now running through a forest. I need you to know that a shoulder wound severs muscle, nerves, and sometimes bone, and the human body's response to that is not "mild wincing followed by full range of motion." here is what injuries actually do to peoplee...

⊹ Adrenaline is REAL and it does allow people to do extraordinary things immediately after injury, BUT it is a loan, not a gift. you borrow the function and you pay it back later with interest. Your character might genuinely be able to run for twenty minutes after being stabbed. and then the adrenaline drops and everything the body was delaying arrives all at once. the collapse is NOT weakness. it's biology collecting its debt. write the debt collection. it's more interesting than the heroic sprint anyway.

⊹ Blood loss changes cognition before it drops you. you don't go from "fine" to "unconscious." you go through a whole middle stage of confusion, poor decision-making, emotional dysregulation, a strange calm, tunnel vision, difficulty forming sentences. Your injured character making a bad call, saying something they normally wouldn't, becoming suddenly and inexplicably gentle--that's blood loss. use the middle stage. it's dramatically rich and almost nobody writes it.

⊹ Recovery has a timeline and the timeline is long and boring and inconvenient to plot. a broken rib takes six weeks and during those six weeks sneezing is a genuine emergency. a concussion means no screens, no reading, no bright lights, and symptoms can persist for months. a stab wound to the abdomen means weeks of infection risk, limited mobility, and a specific kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with sleep. Your character being sidelined and frustrated and useless for a long time is not a narrative problem. it's the story.

i love you all and i need you to stop writing trauma as a single breakdown scene in the rain after which the character is Healed and Ready to Love Again. that is NOT trauma :(

⊹ Trauma doesn't announce itself. it shows up as your character suddenly not being able to eat a specific food, or going very quiet in a loud room, or laughing at the wrong moment because their nervous system decided that was the appropriate response. it's mundane and weird and it makes no sense from the outside. the dramatic flashback sequence is the least realistic part. the most realistic part is your character suddenly needing to leave a grocery store for a reason they can't articulate.

⊹ The body keeps score and it keeps it in the strangest places. a particular smell. the quality of light at a certain time of day. a tone of voice that sounds like someone who hurt them. your traumatised character doesn't think "this reminds me of the bad thing." their heart rate spikes and they don't know why. they feel wrong and they can't locate the feeling. they're irritable for three days and only later, if ever, do they make the connection. write the disconnection. it's more honest.

⊹ trauma also does not make people universally sympathetic and wise. it makes some people controlling. some people funny at inappropriate times. some people very good in a crisis and completely unable to handle a normal day. some people are generously kind to strangers and absolutely terrible to people they love. trauma shapes behaviour in contradictory, inconvenient ways that don't resolve into a lesson. your traumatised character can be difficult to like. that's not a flaw in the writing. that's the WRITING.

@swshows week: DAY 5 – Favorite Quote

Captain Rex to Dogma in "The Carnage of Krell" (4x08)

The Mandalorians and the Republic

Bio below cut

Short stories can help you sort through your thoughts and create a stronger and tighter narrative. A short story can also act as your muse.

Short stories can morph into novellas and then full blown novels.

Get to the point quickly. Kurt Vonnegut recommends, “Start as close to the end as possible.” This is extremely relevant for a short story as space is limited.

Dive into the action quickly, too. You don’t have a lot of time to build the story so get right into the action and show as you go.

Don’t waste too much time outlining and planning. Create a one-sentence summary of what you’d like the short story to be about and then get to writing.

Write the whole. Write more and then edit the piece rather than not writing enough, as this may force you to add more for clarity or pacing.

Don’t take too long to write your short story. It’s a short story, and it shouldn’t take months to craft. Get most of it down quickly and then go back and edit.

Edit, edit, and edit again. Your first draft is just that­­. It’s definitely not final, even with a short story. The good news is that a short story is a lot easier to edit than a 300­-page novel.

If you need some inspiration for your next story, current WIP or even for scenes for your book. Here's a compilation of random things for you all.

A single rose petal, an ornate pocket watch, a stack of weathered letters, the scent of lavender

Candlelight flickering, a raven's feather, a worn leather satchel, an old family photograph

Frost-covered windowpanes, a gilded mirror, the taste of cinnamon, an emerald ring

A glass unicorn figurine, the sound of violin music, a tarnished key, a faded floral dress

Shifting sand dunes, the crash of ocean waves, a vintage compass, a tattered mappaemundi

Dancing fireflies, the smell of freshly baked bread, a silk ribbon choker, a velvet-bound journal

Flickering gaslight, a regal peacock feather, a stack of vintage postcards, the caw of a lone crow

Moonlight on still water, the feel of worn denim, a bronze astrolabe, the faint taste of honey

Dusty rose petals, the crackle of an old record, a leather-bound tome, the soft glow of a crystal ball

Distant thunder, the gleam of polished silver, a withered sprig of lavender, the weight of a family heirloom

Hey, Last Call won an Ursa Major award for dramatic short work! Thank you!!