#whump tips

(disclaimer: i am concussed but mildly so llike idk research more before giving your character a brain bleed, i am not a medical professional)

the headache - omg the headache. my head has hurt constantly since hitting it (3? days ago?) weirdly not sticking around where i hit it, it moves a fair bit. it's wacky.

nausea. comes and goes. throwing up is symptom of a badd concussion, but nausea is bad. whenever i stand up too long. yay.

uhh

light headedness, again, comes and goes. room spins when i stand up.

confusion. i didnt really notice this but my friends say it's like im on power-saving mode. struggling to focus for more than five minutes on anything - especially screens and reading.

light sensitivity. especially screens. typing this on the lowest brightness possible. it's not constant, but it kicks in randomly and boy does it hurt.

Can be almost any color under the rainbow.

Can have a variety of causes (blunt force, stabbing, illness, etc.)

Can be any size.

Can be any shape (big blotch? Or perhaps a hand print?)

Can be accompanied by swelling.

Can have any degree of pain.

Can be hidden for that dramatic reveal later.

Can be numerous without killing the whumpee or even put their life at risk.

Can itch when they heal.

Everybody reacts differently to trauma. Rene be that character with support always do better. If the character was abused as a child, their brains might not have developed correctly. This happens because when a chemical called cortisol is released it can affect brains that are still growing. Cortisol is released during fight or flight mode.

Cortisol is basically like hey guys bad shit is happening and then the rest of the brain is like oh no we have to prepare for this. The brain doesn’t develop areas like adapting and learning that are considered unimportant for survival. It just focuses on areas that it considers helpful for surviving. Characters might have trouble fitting into everyday society because of this. They might do really well in life or death scenarios because their brain is well developed and skilled in that but when it comes to learning and adapting, the brain has no idea what it’s doing.

The nice thing is brains don’t really ever completely stop growing so your characters brain, with support and care, can change. However the traumatic event will most likely affect people for the rest of their lives.

Also the whole what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger thing is wrong. What doesn’t kill you gives you trauma. Brains aren’t meant to deal with extreme pain and suffering. Back in caveman times, you got badly hurt and you died or you only got a little hurt and survived. There wasn’t any branding, gaslighting, water boarding or the other horrible things humans came up with. Our brains didn’t have to learn how to deal with that until much later. So the idea of, wow this guys so tough he can get tortured for years and then be fine is completely wrong.

“Being tough” doesn’t protect you from trauma. Trauma isn’t something that you can somehow be immune to with power and determination. In other words DO NOT CREATE DUMBASS CHARACTERS WHO ARE SOMEHOW IMMUNE TO TRAUMA. Make it realistic. Of course if you just want to have fun writing that’s fine. But if you want to have realistic writing then give your characters trauma.

As someone who wears a lot of collars and chokers, I thought I’d share what it’s really like for all you whump writers out there!

If you’ve been wearing a collar non-stop for multiple hours, your neck will get sweaty and itchy

Even if the collar isn’t actually tight, it might feel like it and create a constant sense of discomfort

Looking down with a collar will make it harder to breathe

If the collar is tight enough, you will constantly feel your heartbeat in your neck and it’s very annoying and disturbing

Taking deep breaths with a tight collar puts pressure on your throat and it’s very uncomfortable

Metal collars will be cold at first but quickly warm up against your skin

If your hands are free, you will likely put a finger between your collar and neck to get more breathing space

You often have to move your head around to find the most comfortable position where you don’t feel your collar pressing on your throat too much

What you’re feeling is completely understandable.  Everyone feels like they’re stuck in a rut at some point in their writing, and whump is no different.  I’m going to separate your question into three different issues: repetition, pacing, burnout.

Repetition (aka I’ve been using the same words since forever)

First, I want to state that this isn’t a problem.  I have a grand total of five words I usually use to describe pain (searing, burning, stabbing, throbbing, pulsing) and a couple I bring out only when it’s serious (agonizing, excruciating).  When you’re writing whump, your descriptions are naturally constrained to violence and pain.

But if you truly feel like you want to change the tone/voice of your writing, here are a few tips:

Try out a new style.  Usually write long scenes?  Try shorter ones.  Try a text-message based fic.  Try omniscient narrator.  Try first person pov.  Try out a new tense.  Try 100-word drabbles.  Find a new format, and see how it tweaks your writing.

Change up your character voices.  Every character has their own voice - this is a little easier to do in fanfic, when the character voices already exist, but you can do it for original characters as well.  Write a scene from the pov of each of your characters and see how a single event is interpreted differently by each of them.  Let them use different idioms, and focus on different things, and describe things differently.

Pacing (aka I lose interest halfway through writing)

Ah, the ever-present problem of trying to translate from daydream to written word.  First up, the bad news - there is no easy solution.

We don’t usually daydream in written word.  The two mediums aren’t the same and, as with all translations, something’s going to be lost along the way.  Maybe one day someone will invent a way to save daydreams in their own format, but as of now, we have to make do with whatever words we can squeeze out of our mind-image-construction-things.

This obviously gets a little frustrating, especially when we’re on scene 56 of our daydream and stuck on scene 3 of our writing.

But here are some tips to help with translating your imaginings into writing without losing interest:

Outlines.  It’s okay if you’re a pantser, but if you want to remember everything that happened in your head, jot down a simple note as a placeholder, like ‘B falls off a cliff’ or ‘A takes a wrong turn and gets captured’.  With an outline, it’s also easy to make sure that the whump stretches as long as you want it too.

Daydream in words.  Some things don’t translate to written word very well.  It’s one of the reasons that fight scenes are so annoying to write, even when they look super cool in your head.  One of the ways to reduce frustration with the transference is to daydream the writing, instead of the scene.  Imagine that you’re reading the words and not viewing the mini-movie.  Your success with this technique may vary.

Emotionally traumatizing comfort.  Getting bored when you get to the rescue?  Make the rescue chock-full of emotional whump.  I am definitely a comfort kind of person, but I make the comfort as painful as possible.  First you break their bones, and then you break their heart.

Burnout (aka I’m losing enjoyment in whump)

This happens to everyone, across all domains, and especially with everything that’s going on now.  C’est la vie.  Sometimes our energy and interest flags, and it’s perfectly normal.

Some tips for when you feel like you’re running out of steam:

Take a break.  Everything in moderation.  Watch a stand-up routine.  Watch a documentary.  Read some history.  Take a walk and marvel at nature.  Hang out with friends.  Play a new game.  Creativity works with stimuli and sometimes you need to do something completely different to kickstart your imagination.

Watch/read some new whump.  Fanfiction is great, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you need to read or watch something new.  It may not be entirely whump, but it’ll be something fresh.

Young, sickly character A is adopted by their formidable aunt, character B.

At first, B doesn't know what to do with A. A's very thin and pale, very quiet, possibly homesick, and wakes every night with bad dreams. A's health is even declining further with stress and the toll of not eating on their tiny body, alongside the memories of the thing which meant they couldn't live with their parents anymore (if they ever did).

As time progresses, B becomes very fond of their young niece/nephew, as they make room in their heart for them. A also warms to their aunt, trusting her and feeling protected by her. Soon enough, they are able to open up a little more about the circumstances that led to the adoption.

In time, A improves a little, but is still weak and sickly when A goes out in extreme weather under suspicious/ dangerous circumstances, and their health takes another nose dive.

It was so fun writing about conditioning, and quite a few people liked it. I have a lot of things I could do. Social psych, disorders, psychoanalysis, therapy, motivation, health, memory, learning, more on conditioning, I’ll do anything. 

Just, would anyone be interested?

I really want to help y’all with it since a lot of people liked the last one.

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