Matching Blood to Your Work: FightWrite™
If you are a writing a fight scene, it’s likely that you will be writing a bit of blood as well. Blood loss doesn’t just impact the character who lost it or the character who drew it. The blood you write impacts the reader as well. How you write it can give life to your work, or, it can just plain kill it. In order to avoid the latter, it’s a good idea to make sure your blood and work match.
(Fight Writing Inspiration: FightWrite™)
The Blood Should Match the Genre
How much blood you put in your scene should agree with your audience. If you are writing a middle grade book, it’s probably best not to have Rorschachs of blood on every page. In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, blood is an important symbol, yet Lewis mentions it only nine times. The amount of blood present remains unsaid. Lewis simply makes its existence part of the scene. It makes an impact without creating a distraction.
If your book is YA or adult contemporary, you have more wiggle room. However, even in those genres, the amount of blood should fit the injury if the blood is, in fact, the result of an injury. And, sometimes it’s not. In The Shining, young Danny sees blood all over the walls of a hotel suite as an omen of injuries not yet inflicted. The amount blood and how it is presented matches the supernatural horror genre and the age of the audience for which it’s intended.
The Blood Should Match the Injury
If the blood in your scene is the result of an injury, the severity of the two have to agree. A broken nose will not result in a pint of blood lost, unless the injured character has a clotting issue. Keep in mind as well that it’s hard to know the actual amount of blood you are seeing. A fist-sized circle of blood on a non-absorbent surface is about a tablespoon and a half. You don’t have to write that, it’s simply for you to be able to picture it in your mind. If you imagine your character losing a pint of blood, imagine about thirty fist sized circles which would be in the ball park of around 30 inches by 30 inches square.
Whenever you add outside moisture to blood, it exaggerates the blood’s appearance. Add a single drop of blood to a cup of water and it may create a pink hue in the whole thing. If blood mingles with sweat, it will thin and cover a greater surface area. Fighters look like they have lost more blood than they actually have because their blood mixes with their sweat.
The Blood Should Match the Body
If your character’s body does not bleed as a normal human body, that reality needs to be firmly established in the natural course of events. For example, in season two episode 10 of “Star Trek,” we find out that Vulcan blood is green when Dr. Spock’s father needs a blood transfusion. In further episodes when Spock bleeds, the audience understands why the stain of it isn’t red.
If your character does not bleed, present its life source. Every being flows with life in one way or another. If the character is an android, it will likely have a blood-like substance that not only promotes function but adds warmth and a fleshy give to the exterior. If your character is a robot, it may “bleed” oil or sparks. If a character doesn’t have a tangible life source, it still must be able to sustain injury or be beaten. (Wow, my nerd is really showing here.)
The Blood Should Match the Body Part
Though the body is full of blood, not all areas bleed the same. A cut on the forehead will bleed far worse than the same exact sized cut on the arm. Blood flowing from a chest wound may have frothy bubbles in it. A cut to an artery will result in a spray that coincides with the heartbeat. If there is no heartbeat, there is no spray. And a cut to abdomen may not bleed much at all as the intestines protrude and put pressure on the wound. Gross. I know. While not all of these details are necessary to a scene, they can add a touch of realism.
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The Blood Should Match the Character
Seasoned fighting characters will react differently to blood than those not accustomed to it. Also, the type of fighting in which a character engages will greatly impact the type of wound a character is accustomed to inflicting and amount of blood that are used to seeing.
Drawing blood on an opponent can embolden a seasoned fighter. If the blood drawn is their own, that character may fight harder or feel discouraged and lose the fight before it’s even over.
If the character drawing blood has an unhealthy mental condition, the sight of blood can excite them like a drug making them feel euphoric. If the character isn’t a fighter, how blood affects them will depend upon their personality, occupation, and the time period in which they live. Some people faint at the sight of blood and that is beyond their control. Their brain detects an emergency and protects the body by bringing the head level with the heart. And unless your character can float, bringing the head level with the heart is a function of passing out.
The Blood Should Match the Time Period
How much blood you write and how characters respond to it will be greatly impacted by the setting of your work. Today, a bucket of blood may be evidence of a heinous crime. One hundred years ago, it might have been evidence of what was for dinner. If your story takes place in historical or in modern war-torn areas, as well as areas with few resources and access to medical care, blood will be a way of life. Everyone, from a young age, will likely know how it looks, feels and smells. That isn’t to say that the sight of it may not be devastating under certain circumstances. It is to say that, sadly, and quite often, devastation will likely be a common part of life that you simply carry and keep going.
Above All, The Blood Should Serve the Story
One of the golden rules in writing is to serve the story. That means that when you edit, keep only what propels the story. The first rough draft is for you, the writer. You can peck out anything you want as long as you keep the words coming. Once you get to the editing and subsequent drafts, the focus shifts from what you want to what the story needs. What the story needs is to keep the reader on tinter hooks until the end. Anything that could impede a reader from turning a page has to go. Sometimes, that means chopping away some of the gore.
Any blood in your work should propel the story, not repulse its audience. Yes, sometimes blood is intended to shock. But that shock should be a voice from the fight, making the reader keenly aware of the barbarism of the battle and the pain it inflicts. A character’s response to blood should show how the character processes trauma or, worse, how they don’t. Blood should foreshadow or allow the theme to bleed throughout the work. The blood should match the work. Above all, the blood you write in your work should impact the reader not distract them from the reading.
Until the next round with FightWrite™ on the WD Blog, get blood on your pages.
Struggling to choose a fighting style for your character? The struggle is over. The way your character does battle isn’t up to you. It’s up to the story. The time and place of the work, the society in which your character lives, their inherent and fostered traits and the needs of the story will determine how your character responds to aggression.