forum I need,,, help,,, about stabbing and fight scenes
Started by @kat_i_am
tune

people_alt 42 followers

@kat_i_am

OKAY FIRST OF ALL
I have no idea how to actually write a fight scene and I have draft one but it's TRASH so if y'all could drop your tips for writing fight scenes, it would be greatly appreciated

Then do y'all have research/notes to share on abdominal stab wounds? I think my boy Jackson could def be dead from this wound to the middle abdomen (though slightly to the side of the spine) that is bleeding PROFUSELY all over the ballroom floor and probably onto the Queen's dress. I've done some research and decided yes, this is potentially deadly, but if anyone has more stuff that would be fantastic!

Please and thank you!

Deleted user

My main tip is to not let your character going on fighting like normal after being stabbed. It’s something that many writers do and in my opinion it is kinda stupid. I mean, if it was really bad they probably wouldn’t even be able to continue since they would be kinda paralyzed by the pain.

And don’t add a super detailed description of the scene/set or anything like that, cause your character probably won’t really have the time to look around to notice all those things.

Also I found this post on how blood loss affects people, would that help?

@HighPockets group

Here's something I found:

Stab wounds: These are usually deep cuts by a knife or a sword or another sharp object. They need to be treated, as they are prone to infection, and they should be bandaged. If the bleeding is excessively bad, a common way to stop the bleeding is to get stitches or cauterize the wound. Cauterization is the process of burning the wound in order to seal it up. Think of lightsabers in Star Wars. No one bleeds when they’re cut because the “blade” of the lightsaber cauterizes the wound as it cuts. Your characters might have to stitch someone or cauterize someone in an emergency situation.

@cue-nervous-humming

http://www.abdominalsurg.org/journalSpring2010_5.htm
I found this study a hospital did on abdominal stab wounds. To summarize what they found out, of the 96 patients who they treated, 52 had to get surgery ASAP but all of them survived, 40 survived without getting surgery at all and 4 were going to not get surgery but developed complications and so they were operated at a later date.
None of these patients died.
So i guess it depends on where your character is at and how quickly he can get medical attention.
What most patients who did go into surgery during the study had in common was that their vital organs were somehow damaged during the attack.
So another important point is what the stab wound actually hit. The pain in itself is always manageable, but the question is which organs inside the stomach were affected. The likelyhood of death is different depending on whether your liver or your small intestine was cut up. For any injured organs it's vital that they're sewn back together/moved back to the right locations if they were displaced by the stabbing.

Now to some of my own pointers.
Jackson is bleeding a lot. That means an artery/vein was probably hit, fixing that would be a top priority. Cauterizing or stitching would be ideal, as @JynnieHas11Protons already suggested. (an aside: an interesting further point from the study was that only one of 96 patients was mentioned to have been suffering from "heavy bleeding" which means not all stomach wounds have to bleed profusely)

Now for pain: the stomach has many, many layers inside it and depending on which layers whatever object that stabbed him went through, the pain will be different. The external peritoneum (layer protecting the organs inside the abdomen) is filled with nerve endings and hurts a lot when stabbed, while the internal peritoneum, which covers the organs themselves, has a lot less nerve endings. Which is why a deep cut (to the stomach! Dont quote me on this for other organs i didnt research those) doesn't necessary feel much more painful than a shallow one. Weird, right?

As for continuing to fight with the wound/the pain: it's true that in books authors let their characters get away with much too much fighting after injuries that should be fatal or at least incapacitating (as @IHaveADamProblem pointed out). But all legends have some basis of truth, so while a full blown battle with huge wounds isn't very likely, the body does have the tendency of shutting down responses to pain in situations of intense stress. Basically the nerves do send strong signals of distress and pain to the brain, but the brain just decides to override them/ignore them subconsciously. It's part of our biology that's suposed to give us a chance to run away before we have to deal with the pain that comes from actual injuries. This is a bit further explained in this link: https://redditblog.com/2015/11/08/how-come-we-dont-feel-pain-until-hours-or-minutes-after-some-injuries/
So i don't know how much stress jackson was under when he got stabbed, but i'm sure it wasn't insubstantial. So this is a fact you could use if you want to, bearing in mind that it is still a risk to be a bit unrealistic because this phenomenon really isn't always what happens, and things like blood loss are also a thing…
Anyways hope any of this is helpful to you…

Edits were for my terrible spelling, clearing up some of my vaguer wording and giving credit where credit is due to the other awesome answers in the thread :)