Male Witch/Occultist/Hollow Vessel [trvsh] iām sick. iām haunted. iām still here. She pulled me out of the grave & i never stopped bleeding. not a prophet. not a savior. just a mouth rotting around a prayer. donāt follow me if youāre looking for hope. i donāt have any left. "for those ghosts who still bleed." m/valley of the damned, colorado
There was a preacher who died, and became one of the few humans to go to the heaven of his god Christ after his death. He was greeting by a golden city, filled with strange angels with firey wings and shining eyes. The sky was above him and below him, and it was black and it was bright.
When he stepped into the gates of this heaven, the golden city was massive, yet almost empty, few walked it's streets. It had been made big enough for every human to live to walk through it, yet it had been open to so very few, most of the buildings were empty, the streets always wider than they needed to be, and lights rarely on. Even most of the angels had fallen away.
A lone angel guided the preacher through the city, and the first thing the preacher asked was, "I would like to see my daughter here. She had died before me, she would be waiting here for me I'm sure."
The angel replied in a glassy and inhuman voice, "No. She is elsewhere. She was a homosexual. You had preached many times that her kind would not be accepted here when you lived on earth. I recall you had said such words exactly to her. You should not have been suprised to be correct." The angel did not understand when the preacher wept.
The preacher than asked the angel, "Still then, perhaps I may see my father. I always wished to see him again here."
The angel replied, "He is here neither. I question why you wonder this? He was an adulterer, for that you cursed him well, and gave him your anger. Why do you want him here now for what you cursed him for on earth?"
The preacher wept again, but than asked, "Than may I at least see my brother? He has committed no act of grave sin has he?"
The angel replied, "Your brother was an atheist. Did your books not so clearly say that he who rejects the lord may not be let to his kingdom? You had preached such words on earth, and said such words to him? Why have you changed so much in death."
The preacher wept again and replied, "Than I am alone here. So may I at least see Christ so that I may than have someone?"
The angel walked him up a castle with a thousand steps, past great cannons and ballistas that were used to fight non christian spirits. Past the endless hallways and the rivers of wine that was blood and blood that was wine. And Christ sat on his golden throne, with his crown still of thorns, and his eyes still black, and wrists and ankles still bleeding endlessly into the night.
And the preacher begged Christ, "Please. Send me away. Send me to whatever hell you have dammed the others. I cannot be here if I am alone."
dehumanization as horror is great and all but what about humanization as horror. Being forced into a role that was not made for you. Being forced to fulfill expectations that you can never achieve. Being made to exist in a society that so cruelly expects you to act in a way that is against your nature.
There are ghosts of parts of people that died. They say when you take someone's time, their potential, you kill part of their soul, that you feast on their life as much as a murderer, just more slowly. So when you kill part of someone's soul, sometimes that part still has unfinished business too.
You can see some wandering the halls of a local school at night. Often congregating by the playground. Faint images of children and teenagers playing and talking to eachother, and doing all the things children and teenagers were once meant to do. They are the ghosts of their creativity and their passion, snuffed out by hours of tests and meaningless words, ghosts of interests and passions long since given up on and discarded and childish or useless, ghosts of time spent socializing killed by fear and sorrow. And there they still play, play while the bodies they once belonged to work, and enjoy childish things in the graves where their childhoods are buried.
And in an office building lay stranger ghosts. Ghosts of faded and washed up dreams taken away by cold practicality and time spent working. The ghosts of dreams wander those halls. A singer sings with a voice long killed to make phone call after phone call. A punk wears shining pink hair and black leather as a reminder that they were killed for the sake of a that woild not offend HR. An artist draws a comic that they was killed along with their artist's soul I'm favor of a practical career. And a loving father wanders the halls looking for his children, not knowing they're all away now in boarding school, raised by someone who has time to take care of them.
And in the church there are even more ghosts. More dark and aggressive. A child's inoccence flies around with wailing screams and weeping eyes, killed by words of hellfire and damnation. A woman's love for humanity, and good will stands with feathered wings, destroyed long ago when the holy texts told her who killed her God. And the ghost of a man stands in the armor of a knight, waiting for revenge, for his death when the preacher told him he was made a woman by God, and that it was sin to want that to change. And the priests of the church find themselves haunted by screams, and cut by claws at night, and their dark ritual wine truly turns to blood at times, with an unholy metalic smell.
They say the most ghosts of the living are by the prison. Dark and screaming ghosts, ghosts of hope, ghosts of will to live, and ghosts of years of lives taken by the bars of cages. Those ghosts having sharp teeth, and claws of steel willing the strike, and the guards there often turn up dead and bloodied, and they can't help but hear the calls and screams in their slumber.
And let it be a lesson to those who take from living souls, that the ghosts of the living can be as wrathful as those of the dead.
REFERENCES (Types of Physical Pain; Levels of Pain; Showing vs. Telling Pain; Physical vs. Emotional Pain; Tips for Writing about Pain; Consequences; Limitations of Agony; Types of Violence in Writing; Tips for Writing Violent Scenes; Research; Killers & Criminals; Ethical Portrayal; Other Notes)
Types of Physical Pain Choosing the Right Word
Commonly understood descriptors can be useful when writing about pain.
Semino references the 1971 McGill Pain Questionnaire and summarizes author Ronald Melzackās categorization as follows:
āPhysical damage via insertion of pointed object - stinging, pricking, boring, drilling, penetrating
Physical damage via the application of sharp objects - sharp, cutting, lacerating, stabbing, lancinating, piercing
Meanings to do with movement - beating, pounding, jumping, shooting
āEmotional or affective dimensions - āwretched and annoying
Other words for "pain"
Levels of Character Pain
A characterās pain isnāt a one-size-fits-all prescription. When youāre writing pain in a story, itās important to consider the types of experiences your characters may have.
LOW / MILD
Your character feels this pain but does not bother them too much.
Use words like sting, stiffness, pinch, etc.
Mild pain might include:
A tension headache
A dull sciatic ache
A small flesh wound
MEDIUM / MODERATE
This kind of pain is disturbing enough that it creates a problem for your character (e.g., inability to concentrate during an exam).
Use words like throb, ache, hurt, etc.
Moderate pain might include:
Non-life threatening injuries
Migraine headaches
Severe pain partly healed
HIGH / SEVERE
This goes for pain that is so bad it makes your character abandon whatever they were doing.
Use words like anguish, throes, torturous, etc.
Severe pain might include:
Injuries that are life-threatening
Violent injuries concentrated in one place
EXTREME PAIN
Completely immobilizes your character; keeps them focused on it and treating it.
Use words like racking, ripping, harrowing, etc.
Take Note:
Metaphors will have their place on this scale.
But avoid using more than one level of pain.
Example: if you like āpunishingā, donāt combine it with ārippingā in one metaphor.
Showing vs. Telling Pain
Avoiding ātellingā things to your reader as much as possible allows them to experience sensationsāpositive and negativeāright beside your characters.
This helps them feel more engaged with the story.
Example
Telling: "His toes hurt."
Showing: "He leaned on his heels to keep his weight off his raw toes."
Physical vs. Emotional Pain
Your characters will probably experience both physical suffering and emotional distress at some point during your story.
The brain often processes emotional and physical pain in very similar ways. Example:
Anxiety and heartache can lead to sharp chest and muscle pain, rawness in the throat, and difficulty breathing.
This isnāt just an illusory sensation; in extreme cases, emotional pain can lead to a real heart attackāthis is called stress cardiomyopathy, or ābroken heart syndrome.ā
When youāre writing about difficult emotions, consider the ways they might manifest in your charactersā bodies.
Physical pain has an adverse effect on our emotional state. Examples:
Think about the emotional reactions your characters might have to physical suffering.
If our bodies are damaged, weāll probably be in a bad mood and may have trouble concentrating or remembering things.
Exploring the mental and emotional effects of physical pain can help you āshow, not tellā the full scope of your characterās hurt.
Writing Tips: Your Characters' Pain
Turn your characterās pain into an obstacle.
Give the pain its own arc. Example: If your character was hurt in a bar fight, they will feel the effects long after.
Pain is not constant. There will be moments when it feels horrific and moments where it feels more manageable.
Some characters may even experience a āphantom pain,ā which is where the body psychosomatically remembers an injury even after itās healed.
Treat your characters as human. If your charactersā injuries arenāt having a real, measurable impact, they become nothing more than costumes.
Your characters need to have limits. Otherwise, there's nothing at stake:
This is true even for characters that arenāt technically human, or human in the way we understandāsuch as mythical creatures or superheroes. Their limitations may be different than ours, but they will still have a breaking point.
Find the right words. Every good story has at least one scene where a character is hurtāwhether thatās physically, emotionally, or some blend of the two. When you learn how to write pain convincingly and authentically, you make your story feel that much more immersive and intimate to the reader.
Be careful not to mention the pain too frequently. A good range is to bring up the pain from once each chapter to once each scene.
Questions to consider:
How has this character experienced pain before?
How long does it take for them to recover?
What's at stake?
The Pain's Consequences
Think about how you might show physical and emotional reactions rather than telling the pain. Examples:
If your characterās pain is crushing, you might express this by showing him struggling for breath; if itās gnawing, you might have him bent and holding his belly.
What if instead of being told that the character is in agony, we learn that he doubles over, falls to his knees, vomits, or blanches?
Perhaps he experiences a white-out, or loses control of his bowels.
What about the sounds he makes ā¦ or those he doesnāt because heās rendered voiceless?
How does the pain move and what does it look like?
Some of these reactions may be brutal, but the injury & consequent pain are themselves brutal and neednāt be shied away from.
Emotional reactions can help with the writing of physical pain:
How does your character feel when that hammer hits his elbow? Depressed, frightened, vulnerable, hopeless, despairing, humiliated, angry?
The Limitations of Agony
Thereās nothing wrong with escapist writing that allows for agony tolerance & superhero-like brilliance if thatās your intention & your readerās expectation.
If youāre aiming for authenticity and grit, though, be mindful of pain thresholds, especially whatās possible when your characterās in agony.
Agony, drawn realistically, can make us doubt the protagonistās ability to make it. Why is that interesting?
Which is best? Whether you choose to leave your character's hurt to the reader's imagination, tell it through using commonly understood descriptors, or show it through reaction and environment will depend on your style, genre and intention.
Notes: For "showing-it-all" violence
Provide stage direction and choreography but avoid repetition.
Play with narrative distance (using thoughts and free indirect speech).
Experiment with commas and conjunctions (asyndetic and polysyndetic constructions) for rhythmic effect and to introduce tension.
Alter sentence length and evaluate the impact on pace.
Donāt forget the environment ā will glimpses of it enrich a readerās experience of the violence?
Notes: For "reporting-after-the-fact" violence
Focus on outcomes. Even if we havenāt followed the violence as it occurred, what are the after-effects? Think bodily injury, emotional trauma, and damage to the environment (though consider genre).
Use dialogue to explore the violence through other charactersā perceptions of and responses to it. Might you introduce contrasting emotions to unveil character traits?
Keep it short. While a show-it-all fight scene might fall over one or two pages, trust your reader to do more of the work in this case. Give them nudges that enable them to join the dots.
Note: If your scenes of violence include weapons or specialist fighting techniques, do your research. Some of your readers will know their guns and martial arts.
Other words for "hitting"
Writing Tips: Violent Scenes
Know your audience. The writer always has a higher tolerance for violence than the average reader, so if you are wondering if a scene is too much, ask your agent, editor, writing group colleague, or a beta reader for a second opinion.
Write the scene 2 different ways. When approaching a scene with violence, write it both with and without graphic descriptions. (Side note: This also works with sex scenes.) Let the two scenes sit for a while, then go back and read both. Which scene feels smarter? Which has greater resonance?
Make violence matter. Some authors write about ordinary people in extraordinary situations, and those situations may be unpleasant. But don't forget these are ordinary people, and as such violence isn't a common occurrence in their lives. So when you do write a violent scene, make it matter. Aim for the reader to say, "What if this happened to me?" If you've spent enough time developing your characters properly, when the time comes that you need to plunge them into a kill-or-be-killed fight, the reader's empathy levels will be soaring. On the other hand, if your main character gets into fights every chapter and always comes out winning, your reader will quickly grow tired. Keep in mind: Less is more. (Another side note: The same can be said of profanity).
Other words for "fighting"
TIP: Use Location & Setting as a Character
Bring your story to life by giving your location a "personality":
Is the city dark and grimy, a decaying relic riddled with vice and corruption?
Does the chocolate-box village give a misleading picture of what lies beneath?
Does the suburban street promise security but deliver death?
What does the location look like, smell like, sound like, feel like?
And how does this affect the characters?
What are its key features? Buildings, weather, volcanoes, darkness.
Who lives in this place?
Create an atmosphere in which your crime happens and that your characters inhabit.
What is their relationship to it?
Are they desperate to leave?
Or does it promise the life they always wanted?
Are they able to leave if they wanted?
TIP: Avoid Cliches
Unpredictability is more important in crime than many other genres.
Gender stereotypes such as the prim and proper female character who eventually caves to the male protagonistās charms
Genius crime-solver who is rubbish with humans (the maverick loner)
The wacky, funny sidekick who canāt stand the sight of blood
Similar again, the brilliant serial killer
Cops from broken families
Murderer monologues (they describe exactly why they did it)
Some personal link between the detective and the murderer
The partner who has to have everything explained to them
The hard-ass police chief
Car chases and shoot outs
The estranged wife/daughter/parent
The young female they underestimated
(Middle-aged) men who are irresistible to (young) women.
Some elements will be hard to avoid, so, if you do want to include something that has been used frequently, ensure you can bring something new to it.
Do Your Research for example:
The limits of forensics
How DNA worksā¦ and doesnāt
How the legal system works, from warrants and arrests through to trials and sentencing
How the police works, from ranks and departments to internal politics and procedures
The crime scene. How do the police work a crime scene, from clothes and equipment to who gets access?
What happens to bodies when theyāre cut, shot and killed?
How do murderers think? There are many types of murder and so there are many types of murderer. How does yours think? Whatās their motivation and is it realistic?
Most of us can use a mobile phone, but do you understand how various computer hacks work? Or how certain technologies are used to find and track criminals?
Killers & Criminals
What makes a compelling killer?
One we hate and fear.
One that makes us want them locked up, killed or met with revenge.
Here are some tips:
Make the killer powerful in some way
Make their crimes make sense to them
Show their motivation (though not always at the beginning).
Your killer will not be your hero, but we enjoy complex and conflicted criminals.
Why does your criminal do what they do?
While not necessarily justifying their crimes, show the reader what drives them ā complex criminals compelled by things in their own unpleasant past.
It is interesting to note that ābaddiesā often see themselves as the good guys.
What is their motivation and why does it make sense to them? Do they have an internal struggle?
What emotions drive their actions?
Other words for: Decompose ā Wilt
How do we ethically portray violence in crime fiction?
Perhaps one answer is that we write what we think is necessary and then make sure that we also write the consequences.
Maybe we just try to be human, aware of other humans, their experiences and their emotions.
There will come a time when you love somebody, with every fiber in your being, and theyāll tell you you canāt be together, not because they donāt want you, but because something stands in your way, something that seems so small and ridiculous to you, but to the person you love? Itās an impenetrable wall, an unconquerable object. You love each other, and if there was no tomorrow youād throw caution to the wind and love each other exactly the way you want to, but there is a tomorrow, and caution holds you both back, so instead of loving, you look at each other with tear filled eyes and quietly whisper goodbye.
This is a post about my personal recognition and use of the ādarkerā elements. These elements are based around the four basic elements, only with more aggressive and destructive qualities.Ā
ā¤ Rot, the Darker Aspect of Earth ā¤
Earth energy is normally associated with life, fertility and growth. More often than not, we focus on the growthĀ aspect. Spring is normally what we think of with Earth energy; the growing of flower, the blooming of trees, the Earth waking up from her long winter slumber.
The Darker aspect of the Earth is Rot, or Decay or Fermentation.Ā This is a vital cycle in the Earthās life and is usually observed in Autumn when the trees shed their leaves and we can smell the wet, decaying smell of them. However, RotĀ is more. Without the act of rotting, nothing new can grow in the dead thingās place. When trees fall and rot, when an animal dies and the flies swarm, this is the power of Rot.Ā It is not pretty, and it is not a beautiful thing. It is a necessary thing.Ā
Associations: The stench of rotting flesh (animal or plant), mold, flies and maggots, blood and bloating.
ā¤ Tempest, the Darker Aspect of Air ā¤
Air energy is usually associated with intellectual thinking, creativity, wit and freedom. Air is seen as wild and untamable, constantly flowing and moving in a never ending dance. Air is light and fresh and uplifting.
The Darker aspect is the Tempest, the Gale, the Typhoon.Ā This is the true meaning of untamable.Ā Air becomes wind, filled with a violent strength, able to heave earth and fall trees. The unseen force becomes a physical power, a destructive force of nature. There is no safety or freedom in the Tempest. She is a brutal, terrifying force that can bring the world to itās knees if she is wrathful enough.
Associations: The sharp sting of rain that only a windstorm can bring, the howl of the wind, the alarming creaking you hear as houses and trees strain to stay upright under the assault.
ā¤ Lava, the Darker Aspect of Fire ā¤
Fire energy is usually seen as theĀ ādarkā element. Fire itself is already destructive. It burns and destroys, leaving only ash. However, Fire can also offer light and heat and warmth. Fire can be a soothing element as well as a dangerous one.
The Darker aspect of this is Lava or Magma. This is Fire in all itās destructive power. There is no simple warmth from Lava.Ā To come even close to it would mean to melt your skin. It is the deepest, most hidden part of our world, itās core. The Earth herself cannot withstand the heat. Rock and stone melt into a thick, semi-liquid.
Associations: Searing, blistering, the earth itself bursting into flame, rock melting and sluggishly moving like water bringing with it all the destruction of fire.
ā¤ Abyss, the Darker Aspect of Water ā¤
Water energy is seen as constantly flowing, adaptable. It rules the emotional realms and is associated with intuition and all manner of psychic abilities. Water is a necessary force, it makes up most of our bodies and we need it to survive. It serves a variety of different purposes in our lives.
The Darker aspect of Water is Abyss. Deep down in our oceans, there comes a point where the light is not strong enough to penetrate the water. In this, we find the AbyssĀ energy. Here the water is dark and cold, with no light. It is a realm of the unknown. There are creatures in these dark waters, some very terrifying, but with no light, you cannot see them. The most terrifying creature could be an arms length away and you would know no different. This is the closest to death we can come while still living.
Association: The unknown, the loss of the senses, embracing the fear, cold silence, the cold embrace of death.
ā¤ Using the Darker Elements ā¤
The Darker Elements are focused on all the destruction that is caused by the primary element. The Darker Elements are used in spells where you want to harness the brutal destructive force of the primary element.Just as with the principle of the Fire element, the destructive forces of the Darker Elements can be used for both positive and negative outcomes.
Destruction can mean many things. It can mean the destruction of one thing in order to transform it into another, similar to the Phoenix. The Phoenix burns, but it also reborn from the ashes. Destruction can also mean aggression. You can use these destructive powers in aggressive protection or banishing spells. Destruction can also be used simply to lay waste in a curse.
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