A summary of how people die (and don’t) in swordfights

valerie1972:

This is a really good article about how quickly people actually die from cuts and punctures inflicted by swords and knives.  However, it’s really really long and I figured that since I was summarizing for my own benefit I’d share it for anyone else who is writing fiction that involves hacking and slashing your villain(s) to death.  If you want the nitty gritty of the hows and whys of this, you can find it at the original source.

…even in the case of mortal wounds, pain may not reach levels of magnitude sufficient to incapacitate a determined swordsman.

Causes of death from stabs and cuts:

  • massive bleeding (exsanguination) - most common
  • air in the bloodstream (air embolism)
  • suffocation (asphyxia)
  • air in the chest cavity (pneumothorax)
  • infection
Stabbing vs cutting:
  • Stabbing someone actually takes very little force if you don’t hit bone or hard cartilage.
  • The most important factor in the ease of stabbing is the velocity of the blade at impact with the skin, followed by the sharpness of the blade.
  • Stabbing wounds tend to close after the weapon is withdrawn.
  • Stabbing wounds to muscles are not typically very damaging.  Damage increases with the width of the blade.
  • Cutting wounds are typically deepest at the site of initial impact and get shallower as force is transferred from the initial swing to pushing and pressing.
  • Cutting wounds have a huge number of factors that dictate how deep they are and how easily they damage someone: skill, radial velocity, mass of the blade, and the size of the initial impact.
  • Cutting wounds along the grain of musculature are not typically very damaging but cutting wounds across the grain can incapacitate.

Arteries vs veins:

  • Severed veins have almost zero blood pressure and sometimes even negative pressure.  They do not spurt but major veins can suck air in causing an air embolism.
  • Cutting or puncturing a vein is usually not fatal.
  • Severed arteries have high blood pressure.  The larger arteries do spurt and can often cause death due to exsanguination.

Body parts as targets:

  • Severing a jugular vein in the neck causes an air embolism and will make the victim collapse after one or two gasps for air.
  • Severing a carotid artery in the neck cuts off the blood supply to the brain but the victim may be conscious for up to thirty seconds.
  • Stabbing or cutting the neck also causes the victim to aspirate blood that causes asphyxiation and death.
  • Severing a major abdominal artery or vein would cause immediate collapse, but this takes a fairly heavy blade and a significant amount of effort because they are situated near the spine.
  • Abdominal wounds that only impact the organs can cause death but they do not immediately incapacitate.
  • Severing an artery in the interior of the upper arm causes exsanguination and death but does not immediately incapacitate.
  • Severing an artery in the palm side of the forearm causes exsanguination and death but does not immediately incapacitate.
  • Severing the femoral artery at a point just above and behind the knee is the best location.  Higher up the leg it is too well protected to easily hit.  This disables and will eventually kill the victim but does not immediately incapacitate.
  • Cutting across the muscles of the forearm can immediately end the opponent’s ability to hold their weapon.
  • Cutting across the palm side of the wrist causes immediate loss of ability to hold a weapon.
  • Stab wounds to the arm do not significantly impact the ability to wield a weapon or use it.
  • Cuts and stab wounds to the front and back of the legs generally do not do enough muscle damage to cause total loss of use of that leg.
  • Bone anywhere in the body can bend or otherwise disfigure a blade.
  • The brain can be stabbed fairly easily through the eyes, the temples, and the sinuses.  
  • Stabs to the brain are more often not incapacitating.

The lungs as targets:

  • Slicing into the lung stops that lung from functioning, but the other lung continues to function normally.  This also requires either luck to get between the ribs or a great deal of force to penetrate the ribs.
  • Stabbing the lung stops that lung from functioning, but the other lung continues to function normally.  It is significantly easier to stab between ribs than to slice.
  • It is possible to stab the victim from the side and pass through both lungs with an adequate length blade.  It is very unlikely that this will happen with a slicing hit.
  • “Death caused solely by pneumothorax is generally a slow process, occurring as much as several hours after the wound is inflicted.”
  • Lung punctures also typically involve the lung filling with blood, but this is a slow process.

The heart as a target:

I’m just going to quote this paragraph outright with a few omissions and formatting changes for clarity because it’s chock-full of good info:

…[stabbing] wounds to the heart the location, depth of penetration, blade width, and the presence or absence of cutting edges are important factors influencing a wounded duelist’s ability to continue a combat.

  • Large cuts that transect the heart may be expected to result in swift incapacitation…
  • …stab wounds, similar to those that might be inflicted by a thrust with a sword with a narrow, pointed blade may leave a mortally wounded victim capable of surprisingly athletic endeavors. 
Essentially, the heart can temporarily seal itself well enough to keep pressure up for a little while if it’s a simple stab.  The arteries around the heart, while they are smaller and harder to hit, actually cause incapacitation much more quickly.

(via valerie1972)

Source: realfighting.com

amazonpoodle:

There is one very specific aspect of what’s going down in fandom right now that just boggles my mind, and that is very simply that even if I put aside my personal opinion on issues of the fandom-mainstream fourth wall and/or appropriate creator-fandom interactions, one of the first things I ever learned in my first writing class was that what I write does not belong to me.

So it was 2003, right? I was fifteen years old, almost sixteen, and I was taking an intensive fiction-writing class during the summer, for funsies, like the gigantic nerd I was (am). My class was given a new short-story assignment each week, and at the end of the week we each made enough copies of our story for the entire class and spent a full day editing and critiquing.

When it was my turn to have my story raked across the coals – and I think it’s worth noting, just so you understand that fifteen-year-old-me had uncommonly strong feelings about what she’d written, that my first short story was an extremely painful account of how my dad had died less than six months earlier, thinly disguised as fiction – this is what I, like every other teenager in my class, had to do:

I sat in a circle made up of professor, T.A., and about fifteen people my age (some of whom I liked and/or respected, and some of whom I sincerely believed had the reading comprehension and original thinking ability of banana slugs), and let those seventeen separate people talk to me and to each other about what I’d written. They went through this story that plugged directly into my heart (and which, by the way, nobody knew had any basis in reality), and talked about my grammar, my word choice, my plot arc, the humanity of my characters, how believable the story was, the subtext they read there, their speculations about what I’d been trying to say, and their recommendations for improvement…

…and I wasn’t allowed to say anything unless somebody asked me a direct question. No arguing. No corrections. 

That was really fucking hard, okay? Aside from being hella humbling, it was excruciating. I had people telling me they didn’t really buy that the main character would act that way; or that such-and-such sequence of events didn’t make sense, narratively speaking; or that they really liked such-and-so antagonist; or that they found this symbolism unnecessarily convoluted or that subtext evocative. And it was my job, as a writer who had completed a text and given it away, to listen to what they were saying and take notes of my own and keep my mouth shut, even as part of my brain was shrieking stuff like, OF COURSE THE MAIN CHARACTER WOULD ACT THAT WAY BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT I ACTUALLY DID! THAT IS THE ORDER THINGS ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN! THAT PERSON MADE MY LIFE A LIVING HELL AND I THINK IT’S FUCKING SICK THAT YOU LIKE THEM! I DIDN’T PUT ANY SYMBOLISM OR SUBTEXT IN THIS STORY, IT IS LITERAL AS FUCK!

But I did it, okay, and I got exactly what I wanted, which was a) some goddamn catharsis, b) what would eventually become a pretty fucking baller short story and c) to learn as much as I could about my own weaknesses and strengths as a writer.

Once you have written something and somebody else has read it or had it read to them or performed it or seen it performed, that thing does not belong to you anymore. This is Writing 101, guys. This is Creative Anything 101. This is SO BASIC. People will ask questions you think are irrelevant; they’ll fixate on details you threw in there on a whim; they’ll berate the characters you love and overidentify with and put the most effort into portraying, and they’ll love the characters you created as villains or cannon fodder. They’ll miss what you thought was the most beautiful part of your story, or the most important part. They’ll see symbolism that you think is bullshit and subtext that goes directly against what you intended to get across. They’ll see some oppressive bullshit you sure as fuck didn’t mean to put in there. They may even imagine things about you and what you were thinking and what you were trying to say. They will MAKE SHIT UP. And here’s the thing: they won’t be wrong. 

It is not a good writer’s business to wade into a discussion of something they’ve created to ~correct~ people. Once you are done writing something, it stands on its own whether you want it to or not. You don’t get to get mad at your beta and/or your audience for not reacting exactly the way you wanted. If you find yourself feeling like you have to explain or correct something after someone’s made their own analysis of it, your first reaction doesn’t need to be “they probably read it wrong” but could possibly stand to be “maybe I wrote it wrong”. What you find yourself wanting to add or correct in the discussion is something that should have spoken for itself in the text. By all means, answer questions when they are put to you directly! But you can’t (and shouldn’t try to) chase down every copy of your text in the whole world and correct the notes people have made in the margins. That would be ridiculous.

So aside from the fact that I think that creators walking into fandom and throwing their weight around re: fans’ opinions of dialogue, characterization, plot arc, the actors’ talent, or anybody’s overall intentions is bullying, disrespectful, and almost sublimely missing the point of what fandom is, it’s also a fucking neon green sign of hubris, immaturity, and POOR AUTHORSHIP. 

(via unbadgr)

Source: amazonpoodle

evelynatthecircus: “ lauraharrisbooks: “ Beyond this, consider how these professions might vary depending on who the customers are - nobles, or lower class. Are they good at their job or just scraping by? Do they work with lots of other people or on...
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evelynatthecircus:

lauraharrisbooks:

Beyond this, consider how these professions might vary depending on who the customers are - nobles, or lower class. Are they good at their job or just scraping by? Do they work with lots of other people or on their own? City or village?

For younger characters:

  • Apprentice to any of the above
  • Messenger/runner
  • Page/squire
  • Pickpocket
  • Shop assistant
  • Student
  • Looks after younger siblings

(Images all from Wikimedia Commons)

Also consider:

Candlemaker
Ferryman
Factor (looks after business for an employer in another city)
Tiler
Cutler
Beekeeper
Apothecary
Interpreter
Furrier
Moneylender/Banker
Winemaker
Tinker (small trader who repairs stuff)
Nightsoil collector
Customs officer

Also a bonus for animal related professions:
Fowler (supplies game birds for eating)
Warrener (catches rabbits on your land for you to eat)
Ostler (looks after your horses)
Falconer (looks after your falcons)
Cocker (looks after your fighting cocks)

(via monere-lluvia)

Source: lauraharrisbooks

giancarlovolpe: “ thefuturethattheybring: “ bookandslugclub: “ Resource Dump: Creating Characters! Primary Characters • Your Hero: Top Ten Rules • 10 Traits of a Great Protagonist • 4 Steps to Creating a Truly Active Protagonist • 20 Tips for...
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giancarlovolpe: “ thefuturethattheybring: “ bookandslugclub: “ Resource Dump: Creating Characters! Primary Characters • Your Hero: Top Ten Rules • 10 Traits of a Great Protagonist • 4 Steps to Creating a Truly Active Protagonist • 20 Tips for...
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giancarlovolpe: “ thefuturethattheybring: “ bookandslugclub: “ Resource Dump: Creating Characters! Primary Characters • Your Hero: Top Ten Rules • 10 Traits of a Great Protagonist • 4 Steps to Creating a Truly Active Protagonist • 20 Tips for...
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giancarlovolpe:

thefuturethattheybring:

bookandslugclub:

Resource Dump: Creating Characters!

Primary Characters

  • Your Hero: Top Ten Rules
  • 10 Traits of a Great Protagonist
  • 4 Steps to Creating a Truly Active Protagonist
  • 20 Tips for Creating Relatable Protagonists
  • How to Center your Story
  • How to Create Unforgettable Protagonists
  • 25 Things You Should Know About Protagonists
  • Creating Memorable Characters
  • Creating Strong Female Protagonists
  • Creating Dynamic Protagonists
  • How to Create Characters
  • Inner Dialogue - Writing Inner Character Thoughts
  • 25 Things a Great Character Needs
  • 5 Ways to Create 3D Characters

Secondary Characters

  • 10 Secrets to Creating Unforgettable Supporting Characters
  • How to Write Effective Supporting Characters
  • Question to Ask (& Strengthen) Your Minor Characters
  • 5 Tips for Developing Supporting Characters
  • Techniques for Creating Great Secondary Characters
  • 5 Steps to Dazzling Minor Characters
  • 3 Ways to Create Stupendous Supporting Characters
  • Creating Memorable Secondary Characters
  • 5 Archetypes for Supporting Characters
  • Your Map to Creating a Memorable Minor Characters

Names

  • Top Ten Tips
  • 8 Tips for Naming Characters
  • 7 Rules of Naming Fictional Characters
  • Name that Character!
  • 6 Creative Ways to Name your Character
  • Naming your Characters
  • A Guide to Naming Characters
  • Female: 1 | 2 | 3
  • Male: 1 | 2 | 3
  • Alien: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
  • Surname: 1 | 2 | 3 
  • Unisex: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Traits

  • List: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
  • Developing Character Traits
  • How to Create Good Personalities for your Characters
  • Develop Memorable Personalities
  • Give your Character Personality
  • How to Create a Character’s Personality
  • How to Make Sure your Character’s Personality Shines
  • 5 Building Blocks of your Character’s Personality

Appearance

  • Appearance Generator
  • Your Character’s Physical Appearance
  • How to Describe a Character’s Looks
  • Describing a Character’s Appearance
  • Character Description Resource
  • Examples of Physical Characteristics
  • Describing the Physical Attributes of your Characters
  • How Great Authors Describe Character Appearance
  • Ultimate Guide to Nailing your Character’s Appearance
  • Describing Clothing and Appearance
  • Character Appearance Help
  • Character Description Resource
  • Describing People: A Person’s Physical Appearance
  • Describing the Physical Attributes of Characters

Speech

  • Talking About your Character: Speech
  • Variety in Character Voices
  • All your Characters Talk the Same
  • How to Create Distinctive Character Voices
  • How to Create Characters Who Don’t Sound like You
  • The Art of Voice in Fiction
  • Create Varying, Yet Realistic, Speech Patterns
  • The Art and Craft of Dialogue
  • Writing Character Voice
  • Creating Differences in the Speech Patterns of your Characters
  • Style: Person and Speech
  • Dialects: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Backstory

  • Building Better Backstories
  • Basic Tips to Create Better Characters with Tragic Backstories
  • How to Write a Backstory
  • Writing Characters Using Conflict and Backstory
  • Backstory Description Generator
  • Questions to Create Character Backstory
  • How to Weave in Backstory to Reveal Character
  • Nail your Character’s Backstory
  • How to Write Backstory Without Putting your Reader to Sleep
  • How to Write a Killer Backstory

Diversity

  • How to Make Young Adult Fiction More Diverse
  • Writing People of Color
  • A Few Tips and Resources for Writing Characters of Colour
  • Writing Characters of Colour Tastefully
  • Writing With Colour
  • 7 Offensive Mistakes Well-Intentioned Writers Make
  • Writing Characters of Colour
  • Describing Characters of Colour

Gender

  • Female: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
  • Male: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
  • Transgender: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
  • Non-Binary: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Sexuality

  • Main Character Sexuality
  • On Writing LGBTQ Characters: 1 | 2
  • Writing Gay Characters
  • Guide to LGBT YA
  • Avoiding LGBTQ Stereotypes
  • Writing Bisexual Characters: 1 | 2
  • Writing Asexual Characters: 1 | 2
  • Pansexual & Demisexual Characters
  • How to Write Gay, Bisexual and Pansexual Characters

Introduction

  • Introducing a Character
  • Introducing your Main Character
  • Do’s and Don’ts for Introducing your Protagonist
  • First Impressions
  • How to Introduce a Character
  • How Not to Introduce a Main Character
  • Introducing the Protagonist

Development

  • Character Development
  • 9 Ingredients of Character Development
  • Characterisation 1 - Character Development
  • How to Develop a Character for a Story
  • Character Development
  • Character Development Drives Conflict
  • Developing your Characters and Making them Interesting

Relationships

  • How to Write Strong Character Relationships
  • Character Relationships
  • 3 Keys to Developing Character Relationships
  • The Secret Behind Great Character Relationships
  • 3 Tips for Character Relationships
  • Building Believable Relationships
  • Sibling: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Platonic: 1 | 2 | 3
  • Romantic: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Strengths

  • Identifying your Character’s Strengths
  • Character Strengths and Weaknesses
  • Introducing the 24 Character Strengths
  • Character Strengths and Virtues List
  • Strengths and Weaknesses
  • A Balance of Strengths

Flaws

  • 123 Ideas for Character Flaws
  • DarkWorld RPG Flaws List
  • Character Flaws
  • Ten Ugliest Character Flaws
  • The Four Types of Character Flaws
  • On Giving Flaws and Weaknesses
  • Character Flaw Index

Goal

  • Why your Character’s Goal Needs to be 1 of these 5 Things
  • Goals Define the Plot
  • Goal Setting for You and your Character
  • How to Explore you Character’s Motivation
  • 4 Ways to Motivate Character and Plot
  • Motivation

By Genre

  • Fantasy: 1 | 2 | 3
  • Sci-Fi: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Romance: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
  • Thrillers: 1 | 2 
  • Horror: 1 | 2 | 3

Heroes

  • Your Hero: Top Ten Rules
  • How to Write your Own Hero Story
  • What Makes a Great Hero?
  • Creating Heroes and Heroines
  • Write a Story about a Hero
  • How to Create an Antihero that Readers Love
  • Heroes vs. Anti-Heroes
  • Create a Super Hero
  • How to Create a Brand New Iconic Hero or Villain
  • What Makes a Hero

Villains

  • How to Create a Credible Villain in Fiction
  • How to Make a Purely Evil Villain Interesting
  • 9 Evil Examples of the Villain Archetype
  • How Not to Create a Villain
  • Creating Villains People Love to Hate
  • 3 Techniques for Crafting a Better Villain
  • Basic Tips to Write Better & More Despicable Villains
  • Writing Tips for Creating a Complex Villain
  • How to Create a Great Villain

Do’s & Don’ts

  • Do’s and Dont’s of Writing a Good Character
  • How to Create a Character
  • Characterisation Dos and Dont’s
  • Female Characters of Do’s and Dont’s
  • Do’s and Dont’s of Dialect

Helpful Writing Blogs

  • fuckyeahcharacterdevelopment*
  • writeworld
  • referenceforwriters
  • thewritingcafe
  • aquestionofcharacter *
  • writingwithcolor
  • fuckyeah-char-dev
  • dailycharacterdevelopment

Clichés

  • Characters and Cliches
  • Top 10 Character Cliches
  • 7 Lazy Character Cliches 
  • 10 Most Cliched Characters in Sci-Fi
  • Four Worst Character Cliches
  • Female Character Cliches
  • Character Cliches to Avoid
  • The Cliche Character Test
  • How Cliches Can Help You Make Great Characters

Templates

  • How to Create a Character Profile
  • Writing Character Bios
  • Character Sheets and Character Creation
  • Gender/Sexuality Generator
  • Extremely Detailed Character Template
  • Writer’s Resource: Character Template
  • Character Description

 I’m always a slut for for new characters

Reblogging for future reference 

(via unbadgr)

Source: bookandslugclub

jebbyfish: “ So you want to make an OC?: A Masterpost of Ways to Create, Develop, and Make Good OCs! i made this masterpost in hopes that it helps you in making your own OCs ah;; it can also apply to developing RP characters i suppose! if you’d like...
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jebbyfish: “ So you want to make an OC?: A Masterpost of Ways to Create, Develop, and Make Good OCs! i made this masterpost in hopes that it helps you in making your own OCs ah;; it can also apply to developing RP characters i suppose! if you’d like...
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jebbyfish:

So you want to make an OC?: A Masterpost of Ways to Create, Develop, and Make Good OCs!

i made this masterpost in hopes that it helps you in making your own OCs ah;; it can also apply to developing RP characters i suppose! if you’d like to add more resources then go for it sugar pea (´ヮ`)!

How to Write Better OCs:

Character Development:

Diversity

Mary Sue/Gary Stu

Villains

Relationships

ARCHETYPES

NAMES

APPEARANCE

DETAILS

again, this is to help inspire you or help establish your OCs! i hope you get a lot of info and help from this ahh ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

(via oceank1ng)

Source: spacetravels

monere-lluvia:

Writing Traumatic Injuries References

alatar-and-pallando:

So, pretty frequently writers screw up when they write about injuries. People are clonked over the head, pass out for hours, and wake up with just a headache… Eragon breaks his wrist and it’s just fine within days… Wounds heal with nary a scar, ever…

I’m aiming to fix…

(via monere-lluvia)

Source: alatar-and-pallando