Main blog is @artsietango! This is where I'll reblog most of my writing and OC art to make it easier to find. I'll also post writing rants and excerpts here.
Hey guys! Iâve been seeing a lot of people do this, so I thought i should do it too! Hereâs a little info about me and my WIPâs!
About Me:
Iâm Aimee! they/them, bisexual, mid-20s, and graduated college with a degree in Spanish! My interests include creative writing, trying to read, and art (mostly drawing). If you want to see me reblog stuff and occasionally post art, my main is @artsietango :)
Published Works!
Embrace & Unravel - Bottlecap Press
Embrace & Unravel is about trying to find yourself in other people, finding the right people, and convincing yourself youâve moved on. These poems and short essay in this work explore the different feelings of angst and longing associated with what we consider love, what love looks like when itâs what we need, and the feelings associated with figuring life out.
BUY HERE
My current WIPS are:
The Questing Academy (Fantasy):
The first book Iâm working on is The Quest for the Book of Balance, and The Questing Academy is the series name. 8 teenagers are accepted into a school that shows them that reality is more magical than they could have imagined. But what comes with the light of magic is also paralleled by a slow rising darkness, turned by the tides of an sorceress. Itâs definitely not the first year they were expecting!
WIP INTRO
White Teeth (Young Adult):
As far as Iâm aware, this might be a standalone, but it also may have a sister album. And it may be more of a passion project than something I plan to publish. Harper Coaste is 19 and ready to get out of town, but she has some old scores to settle and bridges to burn before she goes. Will her internal rage and spite destroy her though? Or will the consequences of her actions change her story forever?
Metal (Science Fiction):
A crew of eight find that the ship that they operate and call home is being junked, but only a few of them are making it onto the new craft. Throughout their different POVâs, they try to figure out why their government has some of them blacklisted, and the real reason why their Mother ship is being junked.
Short Stories (on Tumblr):
As Clear As The Sun Speaks
Draconis Decisions
The Answer
Vivikaâs Bones
The Color Yellow (a QBOB one shot)
I have so many more stories I want to work on, but these are the main four that I think are a good start for now. Iâll be sure to update more often with what Iâm working on and my progress! And please feel free to include me in writing ask games and ask me questions about my wips!
If you're writing anything involving cons, scams, heists, or morally questionable characters who are very good at lying, here are some free resources I've been using for research. Saving you the "why is this in my search history" anxiety.
1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.
2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.
3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.
4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.
5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.
Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.
Reblog to save for later. Your WIP will thank you.
Iâm noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 whoâŚuhâŚmayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip
Using a random fic of mine as example..
The left example: â â â
The right example: âââ
Idk how many times Iâve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear itâŚitâs insufferable!
If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. Iâm not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer butâŚpleaseâŚtyâŚ
This is a good thing to keep in mind! It is often and unfortunate that a really good fic doesnât get love because its formatting makes it too difficult to read!
AO3's posting form has two modes: Rich Text and HTML. the vast majority of people write in Rich Text editors, aka any normal word processing software (MS Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages, what have you). but when you first open it, the posting form opens in HTML view. if you paste formatted text into HTML view, it erases every piece of formatting, including paragraph spacing.
this is an easy fix. when you go to post your fic, make sure the posting form looks like this:
not like this:
and please spread the word! this is an important piece of computer literacy that nobody is teaching to the new generations and they deserve to know
and the reverse happens when pasting from some places (google doc, ms word) into rich-text where it doubles the spaces between lines.
If you look at the html it generates </p><p> </p><p> tags - an extra paragraph containing a single space, which you can search and replace down to a single </p><p> (end paragraph, start new one).
Also, since sometimes working with the rich text editor can be a pain even when copy-pasting from another rich text editor, there is a Google Docs script that will format your document in HTML and make it appropriate for posting into the AO3 html editor. I swear by this and I use it every time I post to AO3. It's literally just a specific Google doc that you can make a copy of that includes a script where you just select a menu option and it will automatically convert formatting to HTML, and using this script + pasting into the HTML editor has bypassed the issues of "extra line breaks between paragraphs" and "a space after italics where there shouldn't be" for me.
The original google doc is here and it includes directions both for getting a copy of it into your own google drive and for using it to prepare your fic for posting on AO3.
Also be aware that if you write in Scrivener it will not keep your formatting when you paste it into AO3, even in the Rich Text editor.
There's a reason I'm only writing one fic in Scrivener (it's the timey wimey one where I need the corkboards function on Scrivener in order to function).
adding on that if you use ellipsus (online alternative to Google docs) there is a native "export to ao3" function which automatically copies an html version of your fic including the spacing and formatting and opens a new tab for a new work in ao3. Just paste into the text box and you'll be set!
There used to be a lot of activities that took place around a populated area like a village or town, which you would encounter before you reached the town itself. Most of those crafts have either been eliminated in the developed world or now take place out of view on private land, and so modern authors don't think of them when creating fantasy worlds or writing historical fiction. I think that sprinkling those in could both enrich the worlds you're writing in and, potentially, add useful plot devices.
For example, your travelers might know that they're near civilization when they start finding trees in the woods that have been tapped, for pitch or for sap. They might find a forester's trap line and trace it back to his hut to get medical care. Maybe they retrace the passage of a peasant and his pig out hunting for truffles. If they're coming along a coast, maybe your travelers come across the pools where sea water is dried down to salt, or the furnaces where bog iron ore is smelted.
Maybe they see a column of smoke and follow it to the house-sized kilns of a potter's yard where men work making bricks or roof tiles. From miles away they could smell the unmistakeable odor of pine sap being rendered down into pitch, and follow that to a village. Or they hear the flute playing of a shepherd boy whiling away the hours in the high pasture.
They could find the clearing where the charcoal burners recently broke down an earth kiln, and follow the hoof prints and drag marks of their horse and sledge as they hauled the charcoal back to civilization. Or follow the sound of metal on stone to a quarry or gravel pit. Maybe they know they're nearly to town when they come across a clay bank with signs of recent clay gathering.
Of course around every town and city there will be farms, more densely packed the closer you are. But don't just think of fields of grains or vegetables. Think of managed woodlands, like maybe trees coppiced-- cut and then regrown--to customize the shape or size of the branches. Cows being grazed in a communal green. Waiting as a huge flock of ducks is driven across the road. Orchards in bloom.
If they're approaching by road, there will be things best done out of town. The threshing floor where grain is beaten with flails or run through crushing wheels to separate the grain from its casing, and then winnowed, using the wind to carry away the chaff. Laundresses working in the river, their linens bleaching on the grass at the drying yard. The stench of the tanners, barred from town for stinking so badly. The rushing wheel-race and great creaking wheel of the flour mill.
If it's a larger town, there might be a livestock market outside the gates, with goats milling in woven willow pens or chickens in wooden cages. Or a line of horses for the wealthier buyer or your desperate travelers. There might be a red light district, escaping the regulations of the city proper, or plain old slums. More industrial yards, like the yards where fabric is dyed (these might also smell quite bad, like rotting plant material, or urine).
There are so many things that preindustrial people did and would find familiar that we just don't know about now. So much of life was lived out in the open for anyone to see. Make your world busy and loud and colorful!
This is a big reason that I have always loved the Brother Cadfael novels, set in the mid 1100s. Written by Ellis Peters, each book has such a vivid sense of the place and the time period. Many different settings around Shrewsbury are described, along with the people and their various jobs.
I love that kind of world building and would add that many resources were tightly regulated that we don't consider nowadays. Examples are the right to herd your pigs in an oak forest belonging to a specific monastery (saw an example where an altar piece had a carved pig to make sure the claim was known and advertised) or down to which farmers had the right to tree leaves in the fall (shortage of other animal bedding in certain Swiss valleys). The idea of a wilderness in a medieval setting is not what we think.
Forever recommending A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry as an introductory resource for this! The author is a historian of the ancient mediterranean and he has a lengthy two-part blog post on "lonely cities": how fictional cities tend to look in pseudomedieval fantasy versus how real cities actually worked, specifically how they reshaped the land use for many miles around. Part I, part II, or available read aloud on YouTube here.
On pitching: it's a fine art, and a tricky one - the instinct is to tell readers what it's about, but that's often the last piece of the puzzle. The goal with pitching is to catch a reader's attention, and then to give them something to remember. These are my best tips with examples of how I used them!
1. Find your "ooh" factor: You already know what makes your book amazing, but sometimes loving something so much means you get lost in details that aren't going to mean anything to strangers. Look for details that are unique - your hook, anything that your book has that you might not find elsewhere - and will make a complete stranger say "ooh" and ask for more information.
(For my debut, my "ooh" factor was that it featured two secrets: how a girl died, and the way her toxic behaviour destroyed her friend's life. For my upcoming novel, my "ooh" factor is that a boy wakes up in a girl's body with no memories and 100 loops of the same day to find himself.)
2. "FOR FANS OF": For traditional querying, you want to find books published roughly in the last year* that operate successfully in the same sphere you think your book will be. (i.e. for YA you want YA, for adult romance you want adult romance titles, etc). For casual pitching, you can do literally whatever you want. Use movies, TV shows, games - you're aiming for vibes. It's really valuable to be able to give would-be readers context for your book from what they already know, so "If you liked X, you'll definitely like my book" is a great tool.
(*For my debut, my comps were Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon, Looking for Alaska by John Green and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky. For my upcoming novel, my comps were If I See You Again Tomorrow by Robbie Couch and Every Day by David Levithan. Clearly, some of these books are not published within the last 5 years, so you can get a little sneaky with this.)
3. Lean on tropes and themes: Used sparingly, tropes give readers even more context from other media they know and love. Themes give a broad-strokes window into what readers can expect.
(For my debut, the tropes and themes I used were "second chance romance" and "toxic friendship." For my upcoming novel, I used "time loop" "body swap" and "friends-to-friends-to-friends-to-lovers".)
4. Ask questions: Using questions prompts a tiny bit of reflection from readers, whether consciously or not. I often use "What if?" questions to wrap up a pitch.
(For my debut, the big question was "What does it mean when your best friend dies and your instinct is relief?" For my upcoming novel, the questions are "What would you do if you woke up in a body that wasn't yours with no memory of who you really are?" and "What happens when the boy you're falling in love with forgets you at the end of every day?")
One thing I wish people would ask themselves when they're trying to get started in any kind of professional capacity as a writer is "what can I nail?" Work that's an absolute slam dunk, well within your current ability to write, will open more doors - and teach you more in the process - than starting by tacking something way beyond your skill level.
And there's so much more to the profession of writing than just the writing - the more you can be completely confident in your work, the more you'll be able to rely on that when you do all the other nervewracking stuff. Save the major projects until you know what you're doing. Trust me. I am trying to save you.
Romance meets writing and rugby in my upcoming novel
HOLD ME GENTLY đâď¸
coming out 27 November in paperback & already available to preorder on Kindle!
ADD IT ON GOODREADS HERE
KINDLE PREORDER HERE
blurb:
Sage Halliwell has always believed words could save her. But when she enters her universityâs writing competition with a publishing deal as the prize, winning isnât just a dream. Itâs survival.
Still reeling from past abuse, Sage pours her anger into violent, unapologetic fiction. Yet as the pressure mounts, doubts creep in about her story, her talent, even her future.
Then thereâs Theodemer Castleton, the charming rugby player she canât seem to avoid. Sage wants to keep her distance, but his patience and unexpected gentleness begin to chip away at her walls.
With deadlines closing in and stakes rising, Sage must decide if sheâs willing to risk her heart again and believe that some stories donât end in tragedy.
it is honestly amazing how much of writing and editing is just. logistics. like... do i use a name here or a pronoun? if i move this dialogue tag to the middle of this line and break it in half, does the end of the line hit harder that way? what if i move the tag to the front? what if i remove it entirely? ...wait, whose point of view am i in; can i reasonably say this character is appalled, or must i say they look or seem or sound appalled? is this a deliberate action or a step-removed one; is her hand closing on his shoulder, or is she closing her hand on his shoulder? environment environment environment, we need to break all this dialogue up with some narration, the scene is coming untethered. what! are! they doing! with! the rest of their bodies that are not hands! fuck fuck fuck FUCK i forgot we covered this two chapters ago and now i either need to cut this whole chunk or find a reason to reprise the conversation from earlier. name or pronoun? name or pronoun? name or pronoun? move this clause around in this sentence? oh i'll add this phrase-- nope, never mind, past!me added the same phrase two lines down. okay, if i add too much environmental narration it's going to take away from this bit, but not enough and it won't feel grounded. what if i move this to its own line? where the FUCK are their hands?
I'm obsessed with characters we only hear about second or third hand, especially when those accounts are conflicting. No, you don't get to see them, but here's a warped mirror of what other people thought they were. Enjoy your contemplation of how being known is an act of translation and communicates only aspects of the self.
I know absolutely nothing about the publishing world so forgive me if this is the stupidest question ever, but I was wondering why you're aiming for traditional over self publishing? Is it cause of the marketing publishing firms do, or cause you want TWD to be a physical book (which I assume isn't possible in self publishing without a lot of money), or something else? I'm thinking about the self publishing success of Wool/Silo (and no smut like you said about TWD!) but I know that's probably super rare
it's not a stupid question at all! Self publishing and traditional publishing are two different routes towards a similar goal, they both have advantages and disadvantages and it really depends on the author for what they're going for.
Needlessly detailed breakdown of self pub vs trad pub under the cut:
Self publishing can be very attractive for creators with a small but passionate online following. It allows fans of your work to support you financially and have their own copy (digital or physical) of your book! It also gives the author a higher cut of the sales revenue their book makes. Royalty rates vary based on a bunch of factors (what publisher you use, what paper you print on, how many pages your book is etc) but here's a breakdown by McZell Book Writing (as of 2023):
But there are also some significant disadvantages to self publishing. For starters, ALL the marketing is on you. You don't have the machine of traditional publishing pushing your book. It's not going to be in brick and mortar bookstores, it's not going to have publicists and advertising campaigns, it's only going to reach as many people as you, the individual author, are able to reach. And of those people it reaches, only a small percentage will actually pay money for it.
Statistically, most self published authors sell less than 100 books during the entire lifetime that book is on sale. At least, that's what all the agents and writing forums on the internet tell me -and it's probably correct. And once you've self published, it becomes exponentially harder to sell that book to a trad publisher should you change your mind in the future.
Additionally, though your royalties are markedly less with traditional publishing, you're also likely to have an advance* - a lump sum the publisher gives you in good faith, which your royalties are then deducted from. Let's say a publisher pays you a $50k advance for your first book (that's slightly less than the average for a debut, according to google). Well, that's money that you can use to pay the bills while you write your NEXT book, which you'll hopefully sell to the publisher for even more money. This has an obvious appeal over self publishing, where you have to fight and claw to sell every single copy for that $5 cut. Basically, instead of quitting your job and using that advance to write for a year, with self publishing you'll have to keep your full time job, and take on the second full time job of marketing and selling your book, AND the third job of trying to write your next book. Glamorous, it is not.
(*Important acknowledgement that publishers are capitalist enterprises and there's many reasons they fuck with an author's advance, delay paying out, or simply don't pull their weight on the marketing side of things. There are many instances of publishers failing to pay out an advance for up to TWO YEARS after the book has hit shelves. I've mostly seen this done to women of colour, and I do think that's a factor in this fuckery. Having a trad publisher is not a guarantee that you'll have meaningful financial stability or industry support. Essentially, authors are being fucked on all sides)
Now, with self publishing, you DO have more control over the story! You can prioritize the story you want to tell without worrying about what the market research team in Penguin Randomhouse thinks. I have seen horror stories of authors being told "We like the story, but the queer characters aren't relatable, axe them" by the publisher they're in submission with. Trad publishers are also notoriously fickle, and can change their mind at any point in the process - basically until that book is printed and on the shelves, it doesn't matter how much interest they're showing you. They can and do back out of deals. I saw one absolutely heartbreaking case of an author who had been in submission with a trad publisher for over 8 months and had done 3 rounds of edits that they'd requested and was waiting for the final feedback, when they called her and told her they weren't going to move forward with her book because she didn't have a large enough online following. I cannot IMAGINE the spiral of despair that would send me down. But that's the publishers prerogative - their job is to make money, and that is how they look at the books they receive for consideration.
However, there are also significant limits to your control with self-publishing. For one, Amazon is practically your ONLY route to self publish, whether you like it or not. Vanity Presses (publishers you have to pay to get your book printed) are scams who prey on naive authors that are blinded by aspiration and don't realise they're being conned. IngramSpark isn't UNattractive as a self-pub option (for starters, it gets you on a global distribution list, so you have SOME chance of getting into a brick and mortar bookstore - though not much). But IngramSpark sell most of their books via Amazon ANYWAY - and what's worse, sometimes they'll "sell" books to Amazon, which will appear to the unsuspecting author as genuine sales. But when Amazon fails to sell those copies on to actual customers, they'll return them to IngramSpark, leaving the poor author to foot the bill for the refund. Amazon is the unavoidable beast in the dungeon here, so swallow whatever ethical objections you have towards them if you want to self publish. Selling on Amazon guarantees your book will never appear in a physical bookstore, because Amazon sells books at a loss as a way to put bookstores out of business. What bookstore is going to buy from their direct competitor, try to sell the book at standard retail price, and make a loss because Amazon has it for 40% cheaper?
There is one other self publishing option: Print and distribute your book independently. This is the hardest of all publishing options, because it requires CAPITAL. To put this into perspective, to print my novel at its current length with the cheapest, shittiest paper, completely ignoring any additional costs such as shipping to the author's home for storage, printing a colour cover, any decorative/hardcover editions, and distribution to customers: It costs $7.28 per copy. Now consider that the average cost of a paperback novel in the US (the largest book market on earth) is $5-$7. So you the author now have to convince people to buy your book for higher than market price so that you can make a miniscule profit per copy - AND you're still working your full time job, AND you're still doing the work of marketing and selling your book, AND you're now the distributor of your book so that's ANOTHER job, AND you want to write your next book.
Etc, etc. All of this to say... Isn't it a bit fucked up? Think about this for a second. We live on a planet that is brimming with art. Books, podcasts, music, theatre, illustrations etc... There is more art on this Earth than anyone could enjoy in a lifetime, and the people making that art want desperately to share it with everyone they can, and yet the only way We The Everyman can interact with it is through the grubby, greedy hands of some of the most morally bankrupt institutions in the world. Amazon and Spotify and whoever the Monopoly Man Of The Day happens to be - they don't make the art, they don't pay the artists any more than a trickle they can get away with, and they rake us for every red cent they can just so we can experience a second of escapism from the cruel reality THEY made the world into.
Anyway. Self publishing is definitely not out of the question for me! It's just not my first option :)
I agree with a lot of the points Boin made, even if i obviously came to a different conclusion on which route to take.
If anything, I'd like to mention the two costs of self-publishing that they left out: 1) an editor and 2) cover art (although maybe they didn't mention this because if they selfpublished, they could do their own coverart lol).
Both of those were my highest costs to self-publish because they required hiring another person for hours of their time. you could just self edit only and use like sites like canva or whatever for the cover and still self-publish, but that wasn't the sort of book i wanted to put out there so i paid accordingly. I never intended to quit my office job or to really make a profit from my book, which is part of why i took the route that gave me the most freedom even if it came with the most costs. I also wanted to publish by the end of the year and self-publish has a much faster timeline.
I'll also confirm that DSM has sold less than a hundred copies because i hate marketing and am not good at it lol. also had to pay to make my little author website, which i definitely need to re-vamp/put more effort into.
Lots of pros and cons to both sides and neither is correct or wrong. wishing anyone who wants to publish the best of luck!
YALL. Holly Black has a list of resources she's used for writing her books on the fair folk. I'm OBSESSED. I love her work and world building. it's so true to the heart of faeries
Some other resources that might be worth checking out (not strictly about faeries but related):
The Corpus of Electronic Texts, or CELT, a collection of Irish cultural materials. This includes English translations of Irish myths.
Mary Jones - similar to CELT, and a resource we used for translations in the Irish mythology class I took in undergrad.
An Encyclopedia of Fairies by Katherine Mary Briggs, a British folklorist.
The Folklore of Cornwall by Ronald M. James. Unfortunately this book is harder to access and is often only in university libraries, but if you're interested in piskies it's a potentially very helpful read.
Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall by William Bottrell.
1.) Commaful â a friendly and supportive writing community, smaller but denser than Wattpad, and far more active and engaging.
2.) FictionPress â original fictionâs answer to FanFiction.net. If youâre familiar with that format, youâll be familiar with this. Â
3.)Â Smashwords â an ebook publishing platform that also welcomes short stories, and collections thereof.
4.)Â WritersCafe â old-school but solid, with an active community and plenty of contests/challenges to get the creative juices pumping.
5.) Medium â a place where you can post, essentially, anything and everything. Articles and non-fiction are its biggest market, but fiction is welcome as well.
6.) Booksie â less community-based, with fewer interactions and comments. However, it still attracts great talent, and can be great for authors who are shy and donât want to get bombarded with interaction.
7.) RoyalRoad â a rich community, with a strong emphasis on mutual support between authors. Focuses on web novels, fanfiction, and original stories.
8.) FanStory â an oldie but a goody. Donât be fooled by the name â it seems to be predominantly original fiction, and offers contests with cash prizes.Â
9.)Â Young Writers Society â as the name suggests, oriented towards writers in their teens and twenties, but is by no means exclusive to authors of this age bracket.Â
10.) Wattpad â Wattpad provides users with the opportunity to post original fiction and gain a loyal following. Itâs not for everyone, but some people swear by it. Â
On that note, you can also post original fiction to AO3 and FanFiction, but as they are predominantly for fan works, I decided not to include them on this list. Whatâs your favorite way to post original fiction?
Instead of doing NanoWriMo I will be doing something where I try to aim for writing an actual average of 400 words a day for the month of November in memory of Terry Pratchett, who as far as I know never thought telling a computer to write a book for you is a good way to hone your skills as a writer.
I LOVE THIS. THIS is the spirit of NaNoWriMo: to invent a challenge to make you write.
If I may add some ideas:
The 666 challenge: Writing six pages a day in a month (no matter how shitty) because Stephen King writes 6 pages a day. Equating it with the devil is to explain why it's shit sometimes.
The 420 challenge: Get high. Write 420 words a day.
THE OTHER 51 challenge: Write 51 words a day because, yes, Hamilton wrote 51 essays in six months, but that bitch was crazy, and you can write 51 words without feeling like you're running out of time.
The Fibonacci challenge: Try to write as many words a day as required to meet the Fibonacci sequence. So, 100 on day one. 200 on day two. 300 on day three. Etcetera. If you don't hit the number in the sequence, you can respond "DO I LOOK LIKE A MATHIMATICIAN TO YOU"
If you wanna NaNo your heart out at 1667 a day, absolutely do that. Enjoy it! But if start talking now if you're looking for a group who will join you and not try to fuck AI up its server-hole.
⧠Broken ribs suck. You donât just âwalk it off.â Breathing hurts. Laughing hurts. Existing hurts. Characters with rib injuries wonât be doing heroic sprints.
⧠Concussions arenât instant naps. Dazed vision, nausea, dizziness, maybe even personality changes, but theyâre not going to collapse neatly like in the movies.
⧠Blood loss is sneaky. Itâs not just about dramatic pools of blood. Itâs dizziness, confusion, and the body getting cold as circulation tanks.
⧠Adrenaline lies. Someone can take a serious injury and not feel it until the fightâs over. That âI didnât realize I was bleeding until laterâ trope? Very real.
⧠Twisted ankles are brutal. One bad step and suddenly running is off the table. Even walking hurts like hell. Perfect way to ground a chase scene.
⧠Burns linger. Even small burns hurt more than most people expect. Blisters, infection risk, constant pain, itâs not just a cool scar later.
⧠Dislocated shoulders = useless arm. Characters canât keep swinging a sword or firing a gun. Theyâre basically fighting one-armed until itâs fixed.
⧠Shock is a thing. Pale skin, trembling, rapid heartbeat, and eventually disorientation. A character might not even realize how bad their wound is.
⧠Stitches arenât magic. Getting sewn up is painful and recovery takes time. Theyâre not instantly battle-ready after a needle and thread.
⧠Scars tell stories. Some fade, some donât. Some stay sensitive forever. Donât forget the aftermath when the wound becomes part of the character.
