#time frames

[evilhorse]

Strange things happen when you mix disparate time frames.

(Fantastic Four #10)

[scripttorture]

This was prompted by the post on writing torture scenes. How would a scene involving (for lack of a better word) active torture, like beating or waterboarding, differ from a scene involving sleep deprivation, temperature torture, solitary confinement, or other tortures where the torturers might stop in to "interrogate"/humiliate the victim every so often but which don't require that the torturers be present, and when they're present, only require them to stand and watch (and probably insult)?

There’s a difference in time frame but it depends on what you want from the scene.

 When we’re talking about something like waterboarding or beating an individual attack is only going to last seconds. And the whole ‘session’ (for want of a better word) might last a couple of hours with multiple attacks spaced out over that period. (A lot of it seems to depend on how many torturers are involved and uh- stamina.)

 In contrast sleep deprivation will typically take place over several days or weeks and is likely to be more or less constant for that time. A temperature torture will take place over a minimum of several hours, and might last days, weeks or even months (though there’s likely to be some relief from it if a victim survives that long). Solitary confinement is constant for as long as the character’s held prisoner.

 The former gives you more opportunities to have the victim and torturer interact. The latter gives you more opportunities to explore what’s going on in the victim’s head.

 There’s a piece of fanfiction I wrote ages ago that focused on solitary confinement. I chose it because it made sense in the situation and because the canon focused really heavily on the thoughts and feelings of very few characters. It provided a way to dwell on the main character’s internal landscape while also providing a reason why he’d latch on to a character he was still (justifiably) infuriated with.

 I’m planning to have a torture scene in a story I’m working on at the moment and while the character is beaten the scene itself is going to be him being left in a stress position. I chose that because part of the point of this scene is that the character actually planned to be arrested. He knew this was going to happen and he’s gambling on the idea that it will have magical repercussions for his enemies.

 Having him standing, while the pain builds and the delirium with it, and realise that it’s working, that he’s winning, seemed to work more effectively then any interaction with his torturers could have.

 Conversely one of my other stories has the relationship between one of the heroes and the torturers as a central theme throughout the book.

 To use your phrase more ‘active’ tortures were important in that story because they allowed for character interaction to a much greater degree. They let me put together scenes where I could show the torturers experiencing symptoms, show their resolve begin to crumple and contrast that with a defiant, unyielding victim.

 They’re also a good pick if the victim needs to get plot-relevant information from the torturer. Because they create more opportunity for them to talk.

 The time frame can also be a really important consideration. Tortures like starvation, solitary confinement and sleep deprivation take days.

 Beatings can take a few minutes. And although this can mean a hospital stay it’s also perfectly possible for a survivor to be up and walking around (in pain but carrying on regardless) within a few hours.

 So things like solitary might be a better fit for a plot that requires a character to be captured for a longer period. Whereas something like the beating example could serve as a really shocking incident because the character was only missing for ten minutes. And yet has these huge, lasting and frightening symptoms.

 There are other considerations obviously: physical recovery times vary as do the chances of things like physical disability. Some tortures are more in keeping with a particular time period or setting. Deviating from that isn’t ‘wrong’ but I think narrative reasons for particularly big deviations add to a story.

 These are the main factors I can think of at the moment but you have got me thinking. It might be worth putting together a masterpost on this at some point if I have more thoughts.

 I hope that helps. :)

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[scripttorture]

Can some of the effects of long term imprisonment that's mostly isolated from other people be avoided or lessened if the prisoner had for example a bored guard who'd regularly talk to them during their imprisonment? Would the difference between a quick talk and a few hours of conversation be large? I'm talking imprisonment for at least a few years in okay conditions (not underfed, clean, shower facilities are present, but not protected from seasonal indoor temperatures)?

Prison guard talk anon here, just adding that the reason they can talk at all is because the prison lacks the proper funding to really be bothered about a guard sometimes talking to a prisoner. How unrealistic would this scenario be?

Talkingto someone regularly, including bored guards, could result incompletely avoiding any symptoms.

Itseems to depend on a combination of the time spent interacting withsomeone, the quality of that interaction and the individual toleranceof the person imprisoned.

Ithinkthere probably is more research that could help you narrow downspecific time frames if you’re interested. Social isolation is thegenerally used term. Experiments tend to involve purposefullyexcluding someone from a group over short periods. I’m not hugelyfamiliar with the field outside of a prison context.

Butbased on what I do know- yes the difference between a quick chat anda couple of hours is huge. It can make the difference betweensomething ‘counting’ as isolation or not.

Thedefinition that gets used most often is that a prisoner has an houror less of human interaction a day. A lot of these people are gettingvery short chats. That’s not enough for most people.

SoI think the question then becomes what is? And I’m honestly notsure. While I’m aware of experiments that test how we react torejection and exclusion, I haven’t found anything that gives aclear cut off point for when isolation becomes harmful.

Weknow that an hour or less is hugely harmful. But that doesn’t tellus what a healthy level for most people is.

Personaltolerance is going to mean the healthy interaction time will probablyvary a lot between people.

Shalevstresses that the quality of interaction is also extremely important.Positive interaction seems to have the biggest effect on our wellbeing.

I’massuming that the guard and prisoner in this story get on well andthese conversations are generally very positive.

I’dlike to stress that I’m guessing here but I think 3-6 hours ofpositive interaction a day would be a good range for your story.

Ithink anything less than three hours is unlikely to prevent symptomsfor most people and anything more than six seems impractical giventhe set up.

Asfor how likely the guard having the time and inclination to talk is-

I’mnot an expert on prisons, so what follows is from general knowledge.I think it depends on how you’re seeing this prison. There’s abig difference between what normal procedure and underfunding mean inthe USA or UK and what it means in Nigeria or Indonesia.

Idon’t think a guard in a modern Western prison would be able to dothis even if the prison was underfunded. Because underfunded in theWest doesn’t tend to mean less prisoners. It tends to mean lessguards with less training and less support being put in more and morestressful situations. It means people being expected to deal with abroad range of crisises they weren’t trained for withoutappropriate staffing levels.

Itbasically means incredibly stressed and overworked guards.

Inmodern non-Western prisons….things can be a lot more varied.Overcrowding tends to be a major problem globally. But the guards inthese situations seem to have less oversight and would probably havemore freedom to choose what they do day to day (for good or ill). Inthat kind of setting the guard would be able to choose to spend timewith the prisoner more easily but the chances of the prisoner beingalone in a cell are lower.

Theanswer to that though is to use the fact this is fiction and create ascenario where this interaction is possible. If you wanted to youcould explicitly discuss the factors that make this possible in thisparticular prison.

Theprisoner’s isolation and the guard’s relaxed attitude suggest theprison isn’t overcrowded and their aren’t a lot of demands on theguard’s time. A prison in a remote area that was built and staffedto hold a much larger population than it does (perhaps because a moremodern facility has been constructed elsewhere) could work. I thinkcutting down on oversight isn’t a great idea because thattends to encourage abuse. Instead I’d suggest having the guard’ssuperiors be aware of what he does and not consider it worthstopping. Less a case of ‘we don’t care what you do’ and more acase of ‘well there isn’t really any work anyway, we don’t wantto fire anyone and what you’re doing is harmless.’

Itwould probably be a good idea to make it obvious in your story thatthis is not how prisons generally function. A lot of abuse goes on inprisons. Both guards and prisoners are rarely given the support theyneed. They’re often structured in ways that...make keeping such alarge number of unwilling people even more stressful anddehumanising.

Idon’t think there’s anything wrong with imagining a prison thatis ‘better’ than what we currently have but I think it requiresthinking through the implications of how it’s constructed. Megamindis clearly trying to imply that this prison isn’t so bad when itshows the title character’s cell, painted with happy cartoonishscenes. But the fact it’s an isolation room with a centralrestraint chair undermines what the authors seem to be aiming for.

Soif the guard has the free time to interact with the prisoner take thetime to think about why that is. And if you want this to be a….lessbad environment, make sure the reason isn’t because abuse isgoing on elsewhere.

Ifyou’re OK with it being a bad environment then think about what theguard is avoiding and think about whether you consider that avoidancemoral. Think about whether the prisoner considers that moral.

AndI think that’s all I’ve got. I hope it helps. :)

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[scripttorture]

I'm writing a thing with a character who's been restrained sitting down, arms more or less straight out and elbows at 90 degrees with his hands cuffed to the wall just above head height. His heart rate is (magically) elevated during this time to a level equaling strenuous exercise, and he's given half-hour breaks between sessions to rest & rehydrate. Under these conditions, I was wondering the upper time limit of these sessions that wouldn't leave him with lasting physical injuries.

OK well the closest real life equivalent would probably be a standingstress position which tends to have an upper limit of 48 hours at a stretch.Anything longer and victims start dying of kidney failure due to the massivemuscular damage these sorts of tortures cause.

 But that’s not a perfect analogy because of the character’s elevatedheart rate.

 I’d expect any physical injuries to be similar to what stress positionscause though so I’m just going to run through those quickly.

 Now stress positions generally speaking are a ‘clean’ torture. Theydon’t leave obvious, lasting external injuries. Thatmakes it harder to ‘prove’ torture occurred and if that’s relevant to yourstory I have a Masterpost on clean tortures here.

 So the restraints themselves can cause injuries. In the position you’vedescribed with little weight on the restraints I think your character wouldavoid any permanent damage entirely. But abrasions, small cuts and bruisesaround the restraints are possible.

 Damage to the joints are also possible but in this sort of scenario it’sunlikely to be disabling. It’s more likely to manifest as a sort of chronicpain and soreness, and this is by no means guaranteed.

 Over longer periods of time (ie 24 hours) stress positions start tocause swelling in the extremities (where depends on the position but usually thefeet are affected). This is caused by muscle damage. Basically as the musclecells are put under prolonged strain by keeping the position they die. Whenthey die they rupture, releasing a lot of fluid and large proteins into theblood stream.

 The fluid tends to accumulate at the extremities. It causes painfulswelling and in some cases causes ulcers as the swelling basically overwhelmsthe skin’s ability to stretch and it ruptures. Ulcers can scar but so far as Iknow they don’t affect mobility later and the swelling dies down in a few dayswith rest.

 For the sort of colour change a character would see think of the sortsof colours you’d see in bruising for the swollen area and a pale, ashen drainedlook for the hands since they’re raised above his head.

 I also think it’s worth stressing that the long term psychologicalproblems any kind of torture causes are….well ultimately torture causes permanentbrain damage and the result is the long term psychological symptoms we see invictims. That’s not something character can avoid but I appreciate that for thesake of writing we often put those responses in a separate box from the otherphysical injuries.

 Going back to your scenario Ithink that the character’s elevated heart rate would reduce the amount of timehe could be ‘safely’ kept in this position. It would probably increase the rateof deaths by heart attack- which might be a detail you can use if this is acommon torture in your setting.

 I’d suggest 24 hours as an absolute maximum but I think that after 24 hours the character would need muchlonger than half an hour to recover.

 I think after 24 hours he’d be physically exhausted and probably unableto walk unaided. I think he’d need almost another 12-24 hours before he couldbe put back in the device again.

 That’s generally more in line with the way stress positions are used: along period in the position (~48 hours) followed by a long period of rest (12hours or so).

 If keeping the half hour recovery time is important to the story I thinkyou’d need to reduce the amount of time the character is in the restraints eachtime. Something like an hour would be more reasonable.

 Doing it that way you’d also need to remember that the effects anddamage are cumulative, after a total of over 24 hours (24 repetitions) thecharacter would need a longer period of rest to avoid risking…well sudden deathbasically.

 You may well have already done it but just in case here’s a link to mypost on the common psychological symptoms of torture which should help youwriting the longer term effects on the character.

 You might also find Ronald Searle’s war drawings depicting forcedexercise and stress positions helpful in terms of describing what yourcharacter is going through.

 I hope that helps. :)

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[scripttorture]

I have a character that gets captured by the big bad before the mc arrives to have the final confrontation. I'd considered having direct action torture, but I think he might be restrained and threatened with torture. Would hands tied behind the back be considered a stress position? If he was kept like that and standing for 30-60 mins what sort of limits in movement would he have for the next hour or so after release? Thank you for this great blog!

It depends on howthey’re tied and wouldn’t necessarily be a stress position.

 So to me ‘tied’ canmean anything from thick rounded rope, to wire, to those awful plastic zipties. Any of these can dig in enough to reduce circulation, causing painfulswelling in the hands and (if left too long) formation of large blood clotswhich can lead to strokes, heart attacks, amputation and death.

 That’s only a risk ifthe character is tied really really tightly but cutting off circulation can beused to torture.

 You mentioned stresspositions specifically. With the character’s hands tied behind their back moststanding stress positions would be difficult. A possibility is somethingapproaching an arm lock: a system of ropes that would raise the character’shands forcing them to bend over and then stand on their toes. The positionwould keep most of the muscles in his arms and legs tensed and I’d qualify itas a stress position.

 After an hour of thathe’d be in pain and might have awful pins and needles in his hands. But he’d beable to run, walk and move his arms normally and sensation/movement in hishands would come back in a few minutes.

 But I think what you’redescribing with ‘just’ having his hands restrained behind his back wouldn’tfunction as a stress position.

 Keeping someone inrestraints like that long term might constitute a restraint torture but thatgenerally means using restraints that keep the victim hunched over, or unableto lie down properly. Having the character’s arms trapped behind their backmight make them feel a lot more vulnerable but in terms of causing pain orproblems it’s actually one of the safer restraint methods so far as I know.

 As long as the restraintsdon’t cut off the character’s circulation, or outright fracture/break hiswrists as some handcuffs can, then I think he’d be able to use his handsnormally on release. The time period is short enough that I think his recoverywould be very quick, even if he is kept in a stress position.

 I hope that helps. :)

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[scripttorture]

How likely would someone survive being skinned alive? They probably wouldn't live for very long but would they stay conscious through the entire process?

I checked with @scriptmedic and @scriptveterinarian about this one.

The skin is a prettyessential organ. Without it we die. Generally of shock (cardiovascular and/orthermal), dehydration, sepsis or a combination of previous.

In the long term (ieseveral days) it’s impossible to survive completely losing this organ.

I haven’t found anyclear indication of how long someone being skinned would live for. I suspectthat they’d probably die while being skinned or very shortly afterwards. 

But the amount of time it would take to skin an animal the rough size of a person varies hugely depending on how experienced the person doing the skinning is. Carcasses that are skinned in abattoirs can be skinned in minutes, but they have the head and hooves removed first and the process is mechanised. ScriptVet told me they’ve skinned large dogs (for autopsy) in under an hour. I’d estimate the time frame to be anywhere between 1-5 hours depending on how good the torturer is at skinning things and how much skin is being removed. 

This is a pretty rareform of torture and as a result I don’t have many accounts to turn to. Theaccounts I do have are historical ones that I would describe as ‘dubious’. Theyall seem to be part of propaganda pieces show casing the depravity ofsomebody’s enemy. That tends to make me doubt whether the type of torturedescribed occurred.

Note that that isdifferent to doubting whether tortureoccurred.

So this is abest-guess. I think someone who was completely skinned would probably be deadwithin 9-12 hours if they survived the process of being flayed. I think they could easily be dead before they were completely flayed. 

That gives you a lot of scope for deciding when the victim dies in your story. If the exact time is important you have a pretty wide range that’s within the realm of realism.

We don’t currently havea way of predicting if/when a torture victim will lose consciousness because ofpain. In this scenario that’s not theonly factor: shock and blood loss also play a major role.

I’d suggest that thecombination of the three means it would be quite unlikely for someone to remainconscious (or indeed alive) through the entire process.

I’m sorry I couldn’tfind any more information for you. The rarity and the degree of horror this wastreated with make it really difficult to make out the facts.

As a broad suggestionthough if you want the victim to survive for longer (they would still die dueto…essentially organ failure because skin is an organ) I think skinning onlythe torso could give them longer. It would also be physically less tricky todo. Their life could also be extended by keeping them in a humidifiedtemperature controlled environment.

If you want the victimto survive you’ll have to reduce the amount of skin cut away significantly.Cutting out smaller sections of skin might be a way to do this, with repeatedremoval of, say, 2cm2 circles over a large region of the body. Thevictim would be at high risk of infection but it would be possible for them tosurvive and they’d be more likely to remain conscious throughout.

I hope that helps. :)

Edit: A reader brought a recent reblog of this to my attention. Essentially it was someone saying that skin isn’t necessary for survival and that a character could realistically survive with all of their skin removed. 

I’m not sure if they misunderstood the question or if they just think they know better than the doctors I consulted when answering this but they’re wrong.

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[scripttorture]

What would be the general amount of and severity of symptoms of someone who was kept and tortured for around a day or two as opposed to a week or so? How significant would the difference be?

I’m afraid that isn’t something we know at the moment.

The nature of the subject means that there’s often a lack of good scientific research. We know in general terms that the longer someone is held the more severe their symptoms are likely to be and that people who are held for longer tend to have more symptoms. We know that multiple traumatic events generally lead to both more, and more severe symptoms, but torture by definition generally means multiple traumatic events.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that the average waiting time to see a specialist is around ten years. 

Which means that there’s a significant period of time for a victim’s symptoms to change before they get anywhere near the kind of treatment that might lead to participation in research.

We also know that people’s symptoms are highly individual. People with very similar backgrounds can go through identical mistreatment and have hugely different symptoms at differing severity.  

Essentially? It all seems to be dependent on so many factors that we can’t really predict it very well. And the ethical problems surrounding research as well as the frankly inhumane amount of time it takes to get treatment means we’re not likely to find out any more detail soon.

For writing purposes I generally suggest between 3-5 symptoms following a single instance of torture and I generally don’t distinguish between whether the character is held for a day or a week (unless it’s something specific where the timing makes a difference). I feel like that’s reasonable based on the accounts I’ve read and doesn’t risk playing down the effects of torture.

My best guess is that in the sort of time frame you’re talking about it would be difficult to distinguish individual differences from differences caused by the length of time held. I think the number of different torture techniques used and how invasive they are would probably also be hugely important factors. 

Sorry I don’t have a more definite answer. 

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