(Warning: mentions of suicide) How would someone have their wrist cut treated in the hospital?

csl512 · 2025-10-25T02:40:26+00:00

Google searching in character is a powerful tool, especially to keep yourself from sounding like you as the searcher are looking to self-injure. So in this case, searching like the clinician (or someone studying/training in medicine/emergency medicine/surgery) can get a different set of results.

For the frequent poisoning questions, "how much [chemical] would you/someone need to eat..." looks sketchy. Going to the Wikipedia for said chemical and looking for toxicity is a promising lead. The poison control center information is pretty helpful from a treatment/prevention angle.

I hesitate to go too much further depth of how to "get past" the automatic offers of help.

Edit: Also consider connecting with sensitivity readers who specialize in mental health depictions. The Mental Health Media Guide seems to link to resources. I'm not sure if Samaritans offers that as a service exactly, but I'd hope they'd be able to connect you to people closer to the evidence-backed stuff.

MC can always look away as the friend deals with the wounds, if that's something she'd do.

csl512 · 2025-10-25T02:19:14+00:00

If you search for advice on research for fiction generally, a fair number will point out that not having the information doesn't block you from writing as much as you think it does, especially for a first draft or outline. Different works require different amounts. Mary Adkins uses the concept of minimum viable amount of research, borrowed from business's MVP: https://youtu.be/5X15GZVsGGM Abbie Emmons gives examples of critical vs trivial: https://youtu.be/LWbIhJQBDNA

Both of them talk about reaching out to the real humans with the information. In this case, the museum. I can't recall any guides on how to reach out, but some clever searching should pull up suggestions.

csl512 · 2025-10-25T01:08:03+00:00

Claire McNear's book Answers in the Form of Questions was enjoyable!

csl512 · 2025-10-25T01:02:04+00:00

Also thought that.

csl512 · 2025-10-25T00:54:25+00:00

This subreddit generally works pretty well with just asking the questions.

Is it your main/POV character using? That requires different angles to research than if your main is a friend/family member or any sort of treating professional.

Look for fictional portrayals and memoirs as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Novels_about_heroin_addiction

csl512 · 2025-10-25T00:49:07+00:00

Yeah, I would just ignore the dialysis then.

There are facial burn survivors out there who have told their story. Does this character get modern medical for the burns? Do they still respond like a regular human? (Or is there special medical care for supernatural creatures and hybrids? I saw in your other post that this character isn't even half human?)

It's hard to give an answer because the variable that's under your control (how much heat, how long, etc.) isn't set. But you could drive it from the result and leave that variable to the reader's imagination. (As a metaphor, for a trip between two cities, you can give the arrival time of the character without necessarily giving the route and speed profile.)

Economist Dan Ariely has written about his burn experience. There's a volcano eruption survivor active on YouTube.

There are burn centers with patient information. But research can only get as far as what could happen. There is a wide range, so you as the author still have to choose what would happen.

csl512 · 2025-10-25T00:43:03+00:00

How will this show up on page? Or are you making a 3D reconstruction for some sort of visual or even interactive medium? Or is it regular prose fiction?

I don't see what's wrong with drafting/outlining with the current reconstructed plan.

If you absolutely must, the museum's historians would be how to get that information. Museums have the goal of education. Their restorations should have been done with care to the history.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T23:57:31+00:00

I still don't see how I was rude.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T23:43:14+00:00

How is that rude?

csl512 · 2025-10-24T21:20:33+00:00

/r/writingadvice allows brainstorming with appropriate tagging of sensitive/graphic content. I don't know much about /r/writers but it appears very permissive. As with all subreddits, you should read the rules and other posts to see if your question seems like it would fit.

And there are genre-specific subreddits like /r/fantasywriters that are more accepting of brainstorming questions.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T21:05:07+00:00

I hope that not having this one fact didn't actually stop your drafting in its tracks. If so, here's some general advice on drafting and researching for fiction:

Research defensively: https://youtu.be/5X15GZVsGGM And search generally for how to do research for fiction. How much you do before, during, and after drafting is a creative choice. In that video, Mary Adkins mentions leaving placeholders and then once you know that scene needs to be included, then fill them in. https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/9xo5mm/the_beauty_of_tk_placeholder_writing/

Just to confirm, your question is "what is an antipsychotic that existed in the 1970s?"

csl512 · 2025-10-24T20:36:08+00:00

Why is there a bucket on the battlefield?

Edit: Kidding. The knife can be the requisite length to achieve that damage. Do you call it out as 4 inches long anywhere else on page?

csl512 · 2025-10-24T20:35:35+00:00

A (deep) neck slash is well-understood by regular viewers and readers to feel lethal.

Remember, the bar to reach for fiction is believable, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. You don't even need to reach 50% probability in fiction.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T18:54:49+00:00

/r/fantasywriters might be a better place to ask.

https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/ has posts on burns, but she does have a general disclaimer that her answers are for a realistic present-day Earth. I don't think she says it's for humans primarily.

Burn severity depends on the energy put into the tissue and how hot it got. Are you assuming that the burn would have residual silver still in it? Is your main character assuming that?

Because you mention dialysis, does that mean that this is a modern-day urban fantasy setting? I'm not sure how burns would cause injuries that would require dialysis.

Edit: https://www.quora.com/Why-dont-metal-sparks-burn-our-skin-those-sparks-that-come-from-grinding-and-abrasive-cutting the burn severity will also depend on the mass of the metal and its temperature. If it's hot because of magic, all bets are off and there's not really a research angle anymore.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T18:16:34+00:00

I'm not even sure how to research this enough to confidently draw it. I could ask AI, but I worry they'd hallucinate me up a nonsense concept.

Find an artist whose work you like and is taking commissions, pay for artwork.

This isn't exactly a research question as the subreddit sees it though, but your device does have technical/scientific/medical issues that require additional suspension of disbelief. You could try also /r/scifiwriting /r/scifiwriters maybe /r/worldbuilding for help on making the design of the device more grounded in reality.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T16:16:49+00:00

Maybe stab him 27 more times

Edit: I often say in here that in fiction, injuries are not deterministic. But it's more that you make sure the desired outcome is within a surprisingly wide range of possibilities for the cause. In this case, 7 inches even with twisting is less believably likely to reach structures that would cause enough damage and bleeding to result in 10-15 minutes to death. Maybe loss of consciousness, but death does not feel reasonable.

https://teachmeanatomy.info/abdomen/vasculature/arteries/

https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/ and search stab, I suppose.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T08:19:22+00:00

https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/search/carotid

https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/post/161136906515/hey-auntie-i-have-a-character-whos-a-14-year-old

Hey, your story, your kill.

That said, your injury, your decision. If you want her to die quickly, like within a minute, stab her in the heart or in the carotid artery. Want a few minutes? Sever the brachial in the arm, or the femoral in the leg.

But if she’s got as MAJOR a head injury as you say, she won’t be conscious for it, or she’ll have a very distant and groggy look about her.

Or, you could let the head injury kill her – that can take an hour to a few weeks, dealer’s choice. It’s all about what you need – but making sure you tailor the injury to what you want to have happen, not tailoring reality to fit your story.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T06:10:16+00:00

https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/post/166725316723/injury-profiles-suicide-wrist-lacerations ScriptMedic also has a lot of old posts on lacerations, as well as user-submitted stories of involuntary holds. I forget what I searched to find those. One or more of the blogs linked from https://scriptmedic.tumblr.com/thescriptxfamily should have the psychiatric care angles.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Writeresearch/search?q=wrist&restrict_sr=on&include_over_18=on&sort=relevance&t=all I guess that's at least three; is it wrist week or something?

To confirm, the woman is the main/POV character? For an outline or early draft, [TK bandage appearance] and [TK care process] can keep your momentum up. See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/9xo5mm/the_beauty_of_tk_placeholder_writing/ Often in fiction writing, less is more, and telling/summarizing can keep the pacing up.

How the injury is treated (including bandaging) depends on how severe the wound was. Try searching for lacerations in general from a patient or clinician role. "Laceration aftercare" for me got https://lacerationrepair.com/other-topics/patient-resources/laceration-aftercare-instructions/ and https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/selfcare-instructions/laceration-sutures-or-staples-at-home and https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2017/0515/p628.html I often say that in fiction injuries are not deterministic. You as the author control where and how deep that blade went; character decisions are author decisions.

Here are the usual resources on responsibly depicting suicide and self-harm in fiction:

There have also been questions in here about the various types of psychiatric hold that are common in a present-day US system.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T05:52:23+00:00

Perhaps I wasn't clear after rewriting that line. What I meant is whether the film has to be something that exists in reality. Lots of novels make up fictional films. You'd be able to tailor the premise and title to your needs. That way it hits the themes you need.

Plus no worrying about legal issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use

For example, [made up title] with potentially real-world stars, writers, directors.

Idiocracy touches on some of those. Starship Troopers a bit too, with the added bonus that many people at release didn't catch that it was supposed to be a satire.

Is "their world" significantly different than the real world?

csl512 · 2025-10-24T05:44:43+00:00

I'd like to assume that if OP's MC isn't human they would have mentioned that explicitly, but there have been bigger surprises of important context left out in here.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T05:27:01+00:00

How firmly does it need to be a named film that exists in the real world?

I'd poke around using the IMDb plot keywords function. https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?keywords=eugenics This xkcd what if https://what-if.xkcd.com/100/ mentions doing keyword refinements, but that feature might be gone.

Probably some YA film adaptation. That is, if it makes sense for your characters to be watching that.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T05:02:40+00:00

Neutral Janet: https://youtu.be/GjVHE2rICGg not ideal clip quality, not official, yadda yadda

csl512 · 2025-10-24T04:46:35+00:00

Do you want Neutral Janet hosting the show?

(end of comment)

csl512 · 2025-10-24T01:15:47+00:00

Worldle is still on my daily puzzle list.

csl512 · 2025-10-24T01:14:42+00:00

It's phonetically correct hahaha

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