creative writing piece on drowning

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drowning - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

I've almost drowned in water and in air, it's the same either way if your lungs can't take in the oxygen. People have a weird and sick way of romanticising forms of death. It's all ugly. It all hurts. Very few ways to go aren't. A massive stroke is among the kindest, my Grandmother was lucky enough to go that way. It's far better to see drowning as it is and have empathy for those who die that way than fail to see the pain and suffering they endured. We are born to survive and thrive, to live and love, the end is the end, the last word on the last page, yet the beauty is the story that came before.

Drowning is a bitch of a way to go. Panic, fear and more panic. At least it was that way for me. I thought I was dead, or about to become dead. My hair floated upward and the sunlight was getting further away. That's when my brother's hand found my arm and he pulled me upwards and to safety. You remember stuff like that.

The first time her head bobs beneath the waves Sasha isn't worried. She's dived before, she isn't scared of a little water over her head. After only thirty seconds more she is sinking again, her legs tired and struggling to bring her back toward the sun-speckled surface. She can't hear the music and chatter from the lake-side beach anymore and her hair rises like seaweed upwards, rippling in the currents. With super human effort she breaks the surface again, gulping at the summer air and then with barely a splash she is under again. This time she sinks faster and the panic has her heart hammering against her ribs. Nobody is looking, no-one has seen, she isn't a small child under her mother's watchful eye anymore, she is a teenager and a competitive swimmer. When she can no longer hold her breath the cold water rushes in, all illusions of surviving are gone. Soon the oxygen deprivation takes away her thoughts and she will have to wait for the divers to return her to her loved ones.

In the movies drowning is loud and splashy, someone yells and waves their arms, they dip below the waves and come up in dramatic fashion while those on shore scramble to rescue them. I've been a lifeguard since my teens and I can tell you that that particular scenario has never happened. Drowning is quiet, their movements are subtle, they rarely make any noise at all. One minute their head is bobbing above the water and then it is gone. So if you're not any good at "spot-the-difference" this isn't the job for you. Someone can go in the time it takes you to check a text from your man. Last summer we lost two men on my watch, young, twenty something, more bravado than sense. I was there when they pulled their lifeless bodies up the sand, water-logged and blue. So I tell my guy, there's nothing macho about drowning, always tie a float to your leg when you swim out, gives you something to hold onto if you get a cramp.

I have held my breath in a pool before, this isn't like that. This is like having a gun to my head and being told not to let my heart beat. Of course it will beat. And just like the heart must go on my lungs will inhale whether it is air or briny water. In the moment that the coolness rushes in I know I am already dead. In moments I will float like the sea weed, nothing more than flesh and bones ready to decay in the currents. I want to be saved, I want a rescuing hand to tow me back to life, to the world I know...

When I fall beneath the waves I expect to come back up, and I do. But each chance to breathe becomes further apart, each breath less than the last. Before I go under that final time I know I have been kissed by the sun for the last time. The current takes me down and I strain for the light that dims above.

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Writing Saved Me from Drowning, and Other Tales of Creativity

It’s hard to write with your feet on the ground when you’re meant to fly..

I sat in a plastic chair with a spiral notebook in an old house-turned-classroom hugged between California oaks and the glory of the Pacific. I’d written some half good, mostly bad poetry for years and cut my teeth on the five-paragraph essay. But this creative writing class opened up like the ocean; it exposed all the waves of unknowing, all the skills I didn’t possess.

Like feeble first steps, I faltered, fell down, and tried again. But I produced sentimental, tie-it-up-with-a-bow stories—the type one imagines freshmen at Christian colleges would produce, the type that someone who’d prided herself on her intellect was loath to own. The only cure for sentimentality is, of course, immersing oneself in the concrete, learning to listen well, and allowing oneself to fail and get up again.

Instead of failing and practicing, I became good at writing about writing. It was safer there. I clutched professorial remarks about following up on a reference letter for a job as a critic. I didn’t consider myself a writer, but I could write about writing. I could slice apart a Shakespearean sonnet, tease out setting and atmosphere in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, and properly cite my research in MLA format.

So a few years later, my husband and I flew away to a new home in Scotland where we walked the ancient streets of London and Edinburgh for seminary and a PhD. Our time there smelled like milky tea, the hops brewed on the west end for Scottish ales, salty and malty vinegar and chips, and always, the dusty and slightly dank pages of books in libraries and archives.

Something rose up in me as I watched my PhD supervisor dance through vast swathes of knowledge, holding books gently like babies: this is what I want. I want to flit between ideas, making connections like improv comedy. I want to race alongside the thoughts of dead theologians, literary critics, and colleagues. I wanted to fly.

But instead of flying, I fell flat to the ground, into the stuff of earth, into my body and the bodies of others.

I became a mother. Suddenly what I ate (or didn’t) mattered. In secret and unseen places, a child was knitted together and I desperately wanted to parent perfectly. After nine months and more than a day of labor, my body would not do what it was supposed to do: birth a baby. So the doctor prepped me for surgery, wrenching my intestines aside to deliver my son. My body had failed me.

My husband held him, bathed him. I wallowed in my first maternal failure. There would, of course, be millions more. And there would be more babies.

One son arrived quicker than we anticipated—both in relation to his older brother and delivery time. He came flying into the world a few minutes after we arrived at the hospital. We conceived our third son in Eastern Europe, dashing our dreams of international work and forcing us, again, to stay small, to stay put—to birth babies and college ministries.

And our last baby, a girl after three boys, she would be the joy. She would carry the name of my PhD supervisor. She, too, I knew, would fly.

But what of me? I was learning what it meant to be a body, but I’d lost my mind a bit in the process. After ten years, my PhD diploma that sat rolled up in a brown paper tube with Scottish postage on it. There was a beauty in pouring oneself out again and again in milk and blood. But something was missing and I wondered if it would ever return. Could I capture light and graceful sentences when I was covered in spit up for yet another year?

My creativity had turned into sleep schedules and feeding schedules, watching what my children ate and how it affected their behavior. Trying desperately to help them to read, imagine, play, believe, all the while the daily stuff of earth began choking me.

I had no story for a liturgy born from the body, for words that started and stopped, for grace that could drip, drip, drip even amongst dirty diapers and endless laundry. I felt guilty. So many women longed for babies and my cup runneth over.

But I was drowning.

So, a few years into motherhood, with four children aged six and under, I sat on our old greenish couch and began writing into the ether. I started a blog. There was no pressure: no grade, no one telling me what I’d forgotten, no one reading or looking over my shoulder. My husband bought me a Wordpress theme and a domain name and booked me a seat on a plane to a writers conference—all to find that girl who longed to fly.

A writing conference felt like extravagance because my time away meant a host of people watching my children, my husband reordering his work schedule, and so much prep work just to leave. It meant money that could be used to fix the car.

In the space of a conference, I began to dream of a creativity measured in book deals, business cards, and invitations to events. Things that would warrant the reshaping of our life, the things that might mean I would come back to life.

I’d learn how to market creativity: I’d be the mommy blogger, I thought, but the smart one, the one with a PhD. So, I put on my heels and made friends. My little ones didn’t need me at a writers conference. Amongst writers, editors, and friends I could take in all of the ideas, shuffle them like cards, and have a quiet moment to simply let them take form.

I didn’t have to manage anyone’s emotions or bodies. And my wings unfurled.

What started as a conversation at that writers conference grew into a book in the swirling confusion where all good things are created—in passion and darkness. At a moment of creation, there is only presence. The book began with my own story, the intoxication of my own sentences, my small efforts to reclaim the creativity of a scared and drowning woman who had neither the words nor the resources for an ordinary life. I endeavored to craft my own extraordinary while I lived my ordinary one.

But in the book’s gestation, it took on its very own life, as both babies and books are apt to do. I’d walk my suburban walking paths to learn how to be in my body, to be present to my children and my neighborhood, and I knew that I would learn how to love a place only as I felt the concrete ground beneath my feet.

I never considered myself a writer. But here I was putting words I created together, step by step. Here I was maternally sheltering and gathering ideas. At times, it felt like flying, but often it felt like plodding bleary-eyed at 5:00 a.m. to write the most infantile words and ideas. But these were baby steps. It was okay to fail, so long as I’d show up.

As I arranged my words, the book became less about me, or business cards, or invitations to events. The book became about my reader—all of the named and nameless faces in the suburban tract homes down my hill. Running along my neighborhood’s path, I crested the top of a hill and raised my hands to the sky broken up by power lines. I realized that my words, if they were to have any power, could not be for me alone. I could never be their only subject.

Stories, if they are true, must always be broken open and given.

I needed this book not only to save me from drowning, I needed it to also speak hope and life for neighborhoods like mine where other people spent their days drowning too. Neighborhoods that have become so inward-turned that we have lost compassion, kindness, and holy imagination for a world made new. I needed a God who would wake all of us from our torpor and give us life. So, I prayed for this book, for my place, and for my own self-absorbed heart.

As Finding Holy in the Suburbs approaches its due date this fall, I’m sure this new creation will surprise me again. As its vernix is scrubbed off, I’ll suddenly realize what I’ve created looks both exactly like and not at all like me.

And isn’t that the way? For, ideas, books, and children take on a life of their own. This is the gloriously mundane way we experience life: by giving up, by giving away, by sticking tirelessly beside people, places, and things. Perhaps faith is always found in the paradox, in the failures, in the delightful turns of both a phrase and of our stories. As we’re tied to the stuff of earth, we’re flying.

Cover image by Bob Lamotte .

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Write that Scene

May your writing spirit live on forever

How to Write a Beach Scene

SHARE THIS SITE WITH YOUR FELLOW WRITERS!

At first, focus on the overall atmosphere.

» A. To start your story, describe the weather, the crowd and their activities.

I. Begin with the weather but ease your way into describing what the five senses are experiencing. Describe the feel of the sand between the character’s toes, the brightness of the sun in their eyes, the sounds of the waves, the sounds of children playing in the sand, the taste of the ocean water. Here are some words you can use:

C. Smell: Seaweed/saltwater Feel: Humid sea air Gritty sand Cool water

II. Use metaphors, similes and color to breathe life into your scene. The ocean is an aqua blue, the sand is pale yellow, and the sun is a fierce, hot yellow. The sky is a gorgeous light blue with big, fluffy white clouds. Here are some phrases you can use:

C. Long golden sands with the waves lapping on the shore.

D. First thing that hit him/her was the salty air.

Listening with both an open heart and ear, Jonah heard the waves crashing against a nearby rock. This rock had been the go-to place for him as a kid. He used to jump off of it and into the water, or sit on it and read his favorite book.

But it didn’t end there. The one thing that made Jonah always returned to the beach wasn’t only because of those reasons. It also had to do with the feel— the emotion he got whenever he looked out far into the ocean. He would forget all forms of agony, pain, regret and frustration. A strong since of peace and calm resided over him always. Only the beach made him feel such things.

With the infinite blue sky above promising sunshine, and the big, fluffy white clouds adding a touch of ecstasy.

Something interesting should happen, no doubt.

» A. A bit of mystery and action is always a good thing.

I. Maybe the character moved to another part of the beach and it’s a lot louder or quieter? Or maybe there’s music, dance and a party.

Example 2:

Then it happened. Just like that! No thinking, no pauses: Jonah jumped into the water, screaming. Carolyn looked his way immediately. Running quickly to save him, she blew her whistle for back up and used her binocular to find the fallen body. Jonah saw her every move through his squinted eyes, however he knew in order to make it look realistic, he had to go under water. So he did and in the water below, he pictured Carolyn rescuing him and kissing him…. uh, I mean… doing CPR.

» B. How does the environment affect your character and what’s happening to them? Use the background to emphasize the character’s emotions rather than describing them.

I. Be sure to give vivid imagery. Allow your reader to continue to see what is going on, in order for the scene to have a realistic feel. What I mean by that is, while you’re talking about the drama, mystery or action events that unfold, every so often add in the “normal stuff” that happens around the character. These can easily become a symbolic meaning. Here are a few “normal, symbolic meaning stuff” to give you an idea:

C. Playful seal take a ride in a wave = happiness, childlike mindset, freedom, endless joy

D. A whale surfacing to get a breath can be seen. = revelation, secrets unfold, epic adventure lying ahead

E. Fishermen’s lines hanging off the pier into the water in hopes of catching dinner. = a new start, overwhelming beginnings, hope for the future, determination to improve one’s circumstances

F. The sunlight starting to fade = dreams are lost, stuck in darkness, forbidden love

G. Surfers exit the sea, and build bonfires in the pits and you smell marshmallows burning in the fire. = treasuring the here and now, aspiration ideals about life and upcoming events, finding happiness in the simplest of things

In other words, relate it back to what is going in the story. If your character is talking to a guy she likes, insert a part in your scene about a seal talking a ride in a wave. If your character is feeling miserable and is walking on the beach feeling lonely, insert a part in your scene about them seeing the left overs of children’s sand castles. Come up with your own if you like. Example 3:

Jonah had been knocked out — he really drowned himself without realizing it. The hot and heavy daydream about Carolyn saving him made him forget to come up for air. By the time Jonah work up, he saw seaweed piled in heaps in various spots on the beach. There were no children and broken shells lined the water line which was filled with debris.

“What, where am I?” Jonah said. Carolyn hovered over him. “Did I go to hell?” Jonah stood up. “There’s no way because you’re here. Tell me, what happened, Carolyn?”

Identify the main purpose of this scene. Don’t let it linger on without meaning.

» A. Connect all that you can in this scene with your plot. Enhance the characters, bring in new revelations, and/or establish a long-lasting setting that will take place throughout the entire novel.

I. What significant thing happens during this scene? Is it someone that your character meets? Something they find? What important event unfolds and how does your character handle it? II. What is the next step? If the scene’s purpose was for your character to meet someone, then are they going to leave the beach and go somewhere else to have a more serious, maybe private conversation? If not, the beach can be their go to area where they meet in secret, far, far away from the rest of the world. III. Does the ocean or animals on the beach have any relevance? Or does this scene on pertain around human beings and their behaviors toward one another? Animals can potentially save your character if they are about to drown. Animals can be in danger and your character tries to help them, and, in the process, they meet the love of their life or a true friend that wants to help this animal too. Hint: it could be the lifeguard.

Example 4:

Carolyn spoke with such elegance. This was the first time Jonah heard her speak. “Your heart stopped beating and I had to do CPR on you. The ambulance is on its way so hang in there, okay.”

“Wait, Carolyn,” Jonah tried to speak as best as he could, “before they take me away, I want to say I love you so very much.”

» B. Exit the scene in style, and leave hints about if the character will return or not.

I. One of the best ways to finish a beach scene is to show how the scenery, setting and/or environment took effect on your character. For instance, did your character have more peace after visiting the beach or feel anger. Then, connect it back to your plot. Whatever trials and tribulations your character faced throughout the book, take from your simple beach scene and incorporate into the story.

Let’s say at the beach your character finally learned how to swim. Then maybe later on in your book have the character save someone who is about to drown, or join a swimming competition. Another example is if your character met someone. Maybe that special someone can later be of importance to your protagonist

II. What is the most important image/memory that both the character and reader should take from this scene? It could be as small as the walk on the beach to as big as learning how to swim, finally. You decide. And, with that image/memory, have your character reminisce about their time on the way back home. Give them a short dialogue or monologue, saying how their time was well spent. (Unless, of course, they had a miserable time at the beach).

Example 5:

Carolyn giggled. “I know,” she said, “before you woke up you were mumbling to yourself. I know everything. All about your crush, all about your fake drowning attempt.”

“And you’re not mad at me?”

Carolyn shrugged. “I was. But I guess I forgave you.”

Jonah closed his eyes and smiled. “See, this is why I love you. I don’t know you very well but your awesome personality shines through.”

“Don’t be corny,” Carolyn said.

“No, I’m being serious. When the ambulance comes to take me away, will I be able to see you again?”

Carolyn nodded. “Of course. You can always find me here.”

“Right, I almost forgot. Silly me. You’re a life guard.”

Carolyn turned red. “Um,” she said softly, “not just a life guard.” She pointed down. “I’m also a mermaid. The ocean is my home.”

Jonah looked down at the large, purple fin he had been resting on. Surprised to see that it was real and in no way a trick, he fainted once again. This time, he had a very vivid dream that only he will ever know about.

** !You might have to scroll down the textbox with your mouse!

Jonah hadn’t been to the beach since his first semester of college started. It had been a long couple of months but he survived nonetheless. And, instead of going to a frat party to drink himself silly, he wanted to revisit the place where he first fell in love with life. Could it have been the dazzling sand that sparked in the golden sunlight, or the hungry seagulls beating their wings against the ambush of wind. Listening with both an open heart and ear, Jonah heard the waves crashing against a nearby rock. This rock had been the go-to place for him as a kid. He used to jump off of it and into the water, or sit on it and read his favorite book.

As the memories poured in, Jonah headed over to the rock where he knew a flood of happiness would follow him. The best stress relief wasn’t popping pills or smoking a joint with his buds, nah… it was the peaceful serenity of the beach. The smell of saltwater traveling up his nostrils, releasing a spell-like hypnotic trance on him. Yes, it was the gritty sand against his bare feet, the tall, hard rock positioned appropriately against his butt as he read a book. But it didn’t end there. The one thing that made Jonah always returned to the beach wasn’t only because of those reasons. It also had to do with the feel— the emotion he got whenever he looked out far into the ocean. He would forget all forms of agony, pain, regret and frustration. A strong since of peace and calm resided over him always. Only the beach made him feel such things. With the infinite blue sky above promising sunshine, and the big, fluffy white clouds adding a touch of ecstasy.

Though, all of this fantasizing buildup went out his mind the moment he saw Carolyn, the life guard. She was ten years older than him, but ever since Jonah could remember he had a major crush on her. Watching her sexy body climb up in her high chair with the binoculars in one hand and a whistle around her neck, gave Jonah an idea. A devious idea. The other beach goers meant nothing to him; he wanted her to notice him one way or another…. even if it meant fake drowning. Then it happened. Just like that! No thinking, no pauses: Jonah jumped into the water, screaming. Carolyn looked his way immediately. Running quickly to save him, she blew her whistle for back up and used her binocular to find the fallen body. Jonah saw her every move through his squinted eyes, however he knew in order to make it look realistic, he had to go under water. So he did and in the water below, he pictured Carolyn rescuing him and kissing him…. uh, I mean… doing CPR. Jonah had been knocked out — he really drowned himself without realizing it. The hot and heavy daydream about Carolyn saving him made him forget to come up for air. By the time Jonah work up, he saw seaweed piled in heaps in various spots on the beach. There were no children and broken shells lined the water line which was filled with debris.

Carolyn spoke with such elegance. This was the first time Jonah heard her speak. “Your heart stopped beating and I had to do CPR on you.The ambulance is on its way so hang in there, okay.”

Carolyn giggled. “I know,” she said, “before you woke up you were mumbling to yourself. I know everything. All about your crush, all about your fake drowning attempt.”

7 thoughts on “ How to Write a Beach Scene ”

this really helped my grades thank’s

You’re welcome Claudia. Spread the word, fellow writer! 🙂

This is good but sadly not what I need rn

Hello :P, can you give us an idea of what you were looking for?

This helped me a lot . Thank you . can you help me with the picture description please

i love this website it helped me so much

This is a really good website, thank you!

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Sacha Black

Books, Business and Bad Words

#Writespiration 73 Write About Drowning

posted on December 30, 2015

Here’s Mine:

They say the worst bit of drowning is the ‘knowing’. The panic that grips your ribcage, the penetrating fear that slices through every cell in your body as you realise you’re trapped underwater and this time there’s no escape.

Bill said I’d never find the cave, “This is one step too far, Marty. I know you’re good lad but, you ain’t that good. That’s almost 600m down. Even if you make it, which you won’t, You’ll never get back up without running out of air. Think of the pressure on your body, Son,” he shook his head, “you’d have to be a merman to swim like that.”

He explained that once I opened my mouth and sucked in ice cold water I’d be fine. It was a fast death by all accounts. My eyes would bulge under the weight of water and lack of oxygen, but because I’d already be out of air I’d die real quick.

The water was ice cold against my skin but when I swallowed, it burnt like the blazing roar of a fire pit. It coursed down my throat and into my lungs, but my water-strangled scream only made the icy flames lick into my mouth faster.

My eyes blew up, just like he said they would, only I wasn’t dead. I felt every second of the squeezing that threatened to explode my sight. I kicked and slashed at the ropes I was caught in one last time. But it was too late.

Grey glittered across my vision and time trickled away into a slow, infinite expanse. If it hadn’t been for the heat in my lung it would have been calming. Maybe this wasn’t it. Maybe there was life after.

I don’t know how long I was there, seconds stretched as fish skittered past lazily, barely paying me attention, like there was nothing new about a person thrashing in ropes this deep in the ocean. As if a thousand men before me had been caught in these same ropes. All I could think was that it was almost like a trap, which was ridiculous.

My legs slowed and eventually stopped. The heat in my chest disappeared and blackness drifted over me. I glanced at the dark hollow of the cave opening once last time. I’d die knowing Bill was wrong, this was a hideous death, but I’d made it to the cave at least.

Something slithered past my side, as the grey dotting my vision turned black my leg was yanked, hard. My body freed, too late. A flash of an enormous green tail filled my splintered vision. Then I passed out, feeling the impossible sensation of a hand gripping mine. And then, there was nothing.

And now to last week’s Writespiration and the stories you had to write in 120 seconds.

First up Helen , with a dark story. Something tells me this is part of a longer story, and I for one, am desperate to read it:

Darkness fell.

It was always when the locksmith got more calls. After dark.

When people didn’t like to be outside so much. Not anymore. He remembered the summer nights of his youth, sitting outside, drinking and laughing with friends, then stumbling home in the light of streetlamps.

Then the council started turning the lights off at midnight, leaving the streets black. And things started to emerge.

Hidden things. They had always been here, building their strength, yet staying secret.

Until the dark came. And they knew the time was right.

Next up Kim , with an educative poem, click her name to have a look at an ancient Assyrian lock.

Locksmithery

is an ancient craft:

the first locks were found in Nineveh and Egypt;

Romans wore keys on their fingers,

showing off their wealth,

rich enough to keep their treasures

under lock and key.

is a mysterious craft:

magical, when you think of thieves and burglars

skeleton keys and picking locks,

and the locksmith

a sorcerer’s apprentice.

Next, Dylan with some amazing dialogue and

“So let me get this straight. I put this pointy thing…” “Key.” “This key into that hole.” “Yes.” “And twist it?” “Yes, until you hear a click.” “and when I hear a click I can open the door?” “Exactly.” The big man looked from under his bushy white eyebrows, his ruddy face a mixture of concentration and disbelief.” “Sounds too much bother. I think I’ll use the chimney as normal.”

Next up Judy , with her

My front door is mocking my fury The windows are loving my pain The curtains are twitching with laughter I have locked myself out AGAIN! I’ve called out a locksmith to help me He’ll be coming soon with a key I hope he makes it quite snappy I’m busting to go for a wee!

Last but by no means least, Jane . who has written a sad but true story that so many have experienced.

That’s how they operate, bailiffs. They come with the police and a locksmith so you can’t keep them out. Your door swings open and a guy in a suit barges in with his clipboard and his writs, and the coppers stand either side so you can’t put your fist in his face. And the little bloke in the blue overalls packs up his tools and peers over their shoulders. His hard, beady eyes squint at you as if you’re something in a zoo. Then, as soon as he’s squared things about getting paid with the bailiff he’s off to his nice cozy place in the suburbs with a drive and a garage, and a bomb proof front door, and a wife and kids.

The bailiff goes round and notes down all the stuff he’s keeping back to put towards paying the arrears. The good stuff. The rest, most of it, his boys dump outside on the pavement. All I can do is watch. My fists clench and unclench, and I wonder if prison for assault would be worse than the street. But you get a record then, no hope of ever finding a job with a record. And there’s Jessie.

I stand outside, not watching, not feeling anything. The apartment’s a squalid place. I won’t shed any tears over it. But it kept the rain off and even without any heating it was warmer than outside. I had already put the important papers in a bag, with the photos of Mam and Dad, the kids when they were little. I tell myself the rest doesn’t matter. The things the bailiff wants, the TV, the stereo, they’re worth nothing. Not really.

He’s leaving with his little list. His boys are boarding up the apartment door. On the pavement, the breeze lifts the corner of a sheet, paper rustles, poverty stares at me from a dozen cardboard boxes. The neighbour from the floor above comes out, looks away when he sees all my bits and pieces lying there, spread out, like the innards of a butchered pig. He was about to light a fag but he catches sight of me and changes his mind. He’s off before I can touch him for the price of breakfast. Jessie whimpers and nudges my hand with her nose. I try to smile at her, but she knows, and licks my hand to cheer me up.

“Come on, old lass,” I say. “It’s finished here. This is the past now.”

Jessie pricks her ears and wags her tail uncertainly.

“Let’s go find us a future.”

I don’t know what Jessie says, but it sounds as though she’s up for it.

Reader Interactions

December 30, 2015 at 11:26 am

I love your story, Sacha! But you can’t leave it there! What happened next? Blackness? I don’t believe it—there was something. Your homework for this week— write a sequel for next Wednesday.

December 30, 2015 at 11:56 am

Pahaha! Thanks Jane what a lovely thing to say! I’ll think about it, actually I was half connecting it to a bit of back story to my novel so maybe I will work it up a bit more ? thank you for saying such a lovely thing ?

December 30, 2015 at 1:28 pm

Do post it if you do. I’d like to read it 🙂

January 5, 2016 at 9:22 pm

damn, I forgot my challenge, right – I need to add that to my to do!

January 5, 2016 at 9:54 pm

You have about twelve hours to finish it…

January 5, 2016 at 10:51 pm

hahaha, erm… am I allowed an extension?! :p

January 6, 2016 at 9:23 am

As long as you stick to it. Friday long enough?

January 6, 2016 at 9:35 am

You’re really making me do this aren’t you?!

January 6, 2016 at 10:08 am

January 7, 2016 at 7:36 pm

lol. Ok. I need the weekend at least. The issue I have is, this is connected to quite a fundamental part of a plot point for the second book in my series. So it does need writing. I will write it. I’m all scared now, incase its rubbish, I might email it to you instead of posting it!

December 30, 2015 at 11:34 am

I already have a drowning story as you know – perhaps I need to think of another one…? 🙂

December 30, 2015 at 11:57 am

Ohhh you do. Hmm, why not, especially as you can enter that one into comps. What about another kind of drowning?

December 30, 2015 at 12:51 pm

I think I might have something… 😉

December 30, 2015 at 7:25 pm

Okay, here goes. I do wonder at my mind, sometimes 😉

She gasped for air, her hands clutching and sliding on skin as she fell. Her eyes closed as she sank down, softness and warmth all around. She managed another breath, her senses reeling, consciousness receding as things went dark and all that was left was sensation. There was no more air, her body buffeted, prey to forces beyond her control. She could not cry out, her mouth sealed, stars bursting behind her closed eyelids. Then light returned and with it breath and she was cold all over. Trembling, she reached out her arms, wanting oblivion. It came with another kiss and she was gone, drowning once more.

Hope that still fits the brief – when I thought about ‘drowning,’ for some reason this came to mind 🙂

January 5, 2016 at 9:28 pm

WOW Helen – this is stunning. My favourite line is: stars bursting behind her closed eyelids.

Thats a cracking line. Thank you for participating. 😀

January 6, 2016 at 2:09 pm

Thanks Sacha – you’re too kind 🙂 Some great entries here, your prompts are obviously inspiring us!

January 6, 2016 at 2:10 pm

Well that’s a lovely thing to say! I agree though – some awesome pieces – all thanks to you guys talent ?

December 30, 2015 at 1:23 pm

Hi Sacha! I have a story about drowning but it might be too long. See what you think: http://writinginnorthnorfolk.com/2015/12/30/drowning-in-time/ 🙂

December 30, 2015 at 2:03 pm

Yes, I go with Jane! Amazing and calls out for more! It really made me feel all that you described… oh what a horrible feeling….

January 5, 2016 at 9:38 pm

Thank you Erika – what a lovely thing to say 😀 <3 I shall have to write on!

January 5, 2016 at 9:57 pm

I would appreciate it ☺

December 30, 2015 at 2:35 pm

What a talented bunch… some amazing writing from last week! Your drowning story made me shudder. You already know how I feel about that. No need to say more here. I have an idea for a story. Also, Conor has a drowning experience in Lough Lugh when he finds the first treasure.

January 5, 2016 at 9:42 pm

He does – it was horrific – in a really good way!

December 31, 2015 at 12:15 am

It was the fourth pint when Derrick understood, for the first time, the reason why it was called drowning your sorrows. As he stared at the glass of lager he imagined he saw Colette reflected in the surface, tears on her cheeks as she covered her mouth with her hand to hide the horror of what she had just witnessed. It was his life flashing before him – that’s what happened when you went down for the third time, wasn’t it? It was that fateful moment when she realised the truth. He studied the face of the only women he had ever loved. How could the surface of frothy beer be so life-like? How…? Derrick’s head jerked back as Colette’s fist met his temple. On the floor he winced as her stiletto pierced his aorta. ‘You lying fucker,’ were the last words he heard as the blood entered his lungs, drowning him far more effectively than any amount of shit beer.

January 5, 2016 at 9:48 pm

WOAH……. Geoff – that ending! WHAT THE ACTUAL. I love it when you do that – I thought it was going one way and then boom… stiletto to the throat. AWESOME entry. <3

January 6, 2016 at 1:02 pm

Thanks Sacha. I enjoy doing grim sometimes. Mind you you’ve nailed grim with your lipstick entry

January 6, 2016 at 1:04 pm

Haha! Thanks – it’s funny I said this to Jane but I had absolutely no idea where it was going till the end. And thank you for being kind – always humbling when someone I respect so much says something lovely

December 31, 2015 at 1:23 am

Dammit! I forgot to post my locksmith piece. So…drowning. I’ve got that covered. On all sides. 😉 Love your flash but want to know what’s what with the life-saving sea creature. ?

January 4, 2016 at 3:16 am

Lady of the Lake

At the end of the dock, Phoebe dipped her toe in the lake. Her grip on the post so tight, it left indentations in her palms. She watched the still water. No girls floated by in bikinis, sunning themselves. No guys ran down the dock and jumped high in the air shouting “cannonball!” No children sat in the sand, slathered with sunscreen, digging with plastic shovels.

Everyone was out walking, searching, calling. Looking for Phoebe’s sister, Kaia. They wouldn’t find her. She was gone. Drowned. Of this, Phoebe was certain. She hadn’t let go until Kaia sank.

January 5, 2016 at 7:50 pm

Wow, Sarah! I love that piece!

January 5, 2016 at 10:52 pm

Yes – one hell of a story – with a wicked awesome twist at the end.

January 5, 2016 at 11:21 pm

I know! I loved it!

OMG. i fucking LOVE this – the ending – OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGg I want to know what happened. Please could you write more.

January 5, 2016 at 10:24 pm

Thank you. Maybe someday… 🙂

Today is some day…

January 6, 2016 at 12:05 am

Thanks. ❤️❤️❤️

January 5, 2016 at 9:51 pm

lol – it’s part of the back story to a character in my novel – well the second novel to the first ever one i finished.

January 5, 2016 at 10:22 pm

Write more. Your fans need you! ❤️

January 5, 2016 at 10:23 pm

Like I said… can you write what happened after the ending please! your fans are waiting

December 31, 2015 at 3:58 am

Your story was so visceral! I loved the sensations – chilling. And of course, I have to know what happens next!

January 5, 2016 at 10:06 pm

I am blushing. Thank you Diana <3 I think I do need to write on with this one – its a bit of character history for one of my characters in a novel! Thank you so much for reading it.

January 1, 2016 at 1:11 pm

Alan was drowning. He was drowning fast and there was nothing anybody could do about it. The moment the water first hit his lips he could feel the drowning sensation all over his body. Panic set in and nothing he could do would stop him from drowning. Not even the call from his wife mattered!

“ALAN!”

He put his glass of water down as soon as he heard his wife slam the front door.

“YES!” he screamed at the top of his voice.

The writers block had finally given way and he was drowning in words again.

January 5, 2016 at 10:25 pm

CRACKING piece Hugh. LOVE the ending so much!

January 2, 2016 at 1:49 pm

Here’s my story. https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/2016/01/02/flash-fiction-not-drowning/

January 5, 2016 at 7:54 pm

You have sparked off a great idea for a story with this one, Sacha, but I just havent had time to write it this week. So instead, here is a little excerpt from my first book, in which Conor has a drowning experience…

Conor felt himself flying backwards through the air, much as his wheelchair had done before him. He landed with a loud splash somewhere in the middle of the lake. The coldness of the water forced him to exhale. He felt the water close over his head, as he plummeted down, down through the icy water. He looked up, and saw the surface way above him. How can this tiny patch of water be so deep? When he looked down, all he saw was a black void. No sign of the bottom. Is this how my life is supposed to end? The pressure was building up in his lungs. He needed air. In a few seconds, he would have to take a breath, it was a reflex he knew he couldn’t override. But he was afraid. Will it hurt to breathe in water? Then he remembered a promise made to him in a dream, and he felt the warm tingling rush of magic inside. Lugh, are you here? I have come to join you. “I am always here for you, Conor,” replied Lugh, swimming along beside him and smiling. The silvery whiteness of his hair lit up the gloom of the water. “Have courage, it’s not much further.” I can’t hold on any longer. I have to breathe. “Not just yet. We are very nearly there.” Conor felt his feet scrape the bottom, his body landing gently on the lake floor. “Take it!” said Lugh urgently. What? “Reach out with your hands. It’s your only chance.” Conor scrabbled around in the silt. His hands closed around something hard, narrow and flat. Is this it? “Yes. Take it, and all will be well.” Conor grasped the object and tugged feebly to dislodge it from the sucking mud of the lake bed, but it was too late. He opened his mouth and took in a big gulp. Much like his first ever breath, the pain and the shock of it convulsed his body. As his consciousness drifted away he was vaguely aware of someone, or something, pulling him by the hair. Far away, someone was saying his name. Then there was nothing.

January 5, 2016 at 10:53 pm

Yep – just as horrifying as the first time I read it! :p bloody awesome Ali <3

January 5, 2016 at 11:22 pm

Lol! Thanks. But not as awful as yours… in a good way haha!

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Not Quite Dead: A Writer’s Guide to Serious Injuries and Calamities

Sometimes I want to make it seem like a character might die — but hey, guess what! She makes it! A lot of fiction writers, especially those who write fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, and Westerns, like to write about surviving almost fatal injuries.

Pin or bookmark this post for future reference if you like this kind of plot point! I will probably add to it as I get more ideas. This post is not for the squeamish, though, so please don’t read through it if you think it might upset you. I’m just trying to save you some Googling time so you have more writing time.

I’ve included links to what seem to be credible sources. In a few cases, I haven’t linked to the source because it’s so upsetting or it contains disturbing images, which you won’t find here.

Please note that this post is for WRITING PURPOSES ONLY and is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE, which I am COMPLETELY UNQUALIFIED TO GIVE. I am just a lady who looks things up on the Internet.

With all of these, I am assuming that the injury is happening to a relatively healthy, non-elderly person. If you have suggestions or additions, please let me know. If you are a medical professional and believe something needs to be changed, let me know that, too!

Blood loss (for any reason.)

After your character loses about 2 pints of blood, he is likely to go into shock . If he’s not losing blood at too fast of a rate, he will likely not go into the kind of severe shock that would kill him. He can believably survive a loss of up to 3 pints without a transfusion. It’s very likely he’ll pass out, be cold to the touch, and have a weak pulse, so your other characters might have a scary moment or two of thinking he is dead before they realize that he’s still breathing.

Bear in mind that if your character is cut in the jugular vein, the brachial artery in the armpit, the femoral artery in the thigh, or one of the aorta, he is likely to bleed out too fast to be saved.

Head and face wounds bleed like crazy, because there are are a lot of blood vessels close to the skin , which can make minor head and face injuries seem worse than they really are.

Cauterizing a wound might help him from bleeding out, but he also might get an infection that kills him . Until he can get stitched up, pressure and bandages are usually a better idea.

Gunshot wounds.

Your character can survive a shot in the arm or the leg unless she gets hit in a major artery. Chances are great that she will survive a gunshot wound in the torso with prompt medical attention unless she was shot through in the heart (cue Bon Jovi) or, again, in a major artery that makes her bleed out quickly.

Only 5% of people survive a gunshot wound to the head, but with time, some survivors make surprisingly good recoverie s. Here’s a good overview of the recovery of Gabby Giffords , a United States Congressperson, from this injury.

Sometimes people even survive multiple gunshot wounds .

Starvation.

Let’s look at some real-life examples. Gandhi was pretty skinny, and he survived a hunger strike of 21 days. It’s possible that he sustained internal damage that I don’t know about. David Blaine starved himself for 44 days (he did have water), and I have not been able to find any mention of permanent damage. (He did damage his liver trying to break the record of holding your breath underwater.)

So your guy can probably go 3 weeks without food and be all right eventually, assuming he has some water. But you can’t have him sit down to a steak dinner afterward! His system won’t be able to take it. Here’s a report about feeding David Blaine after his long fast.

Food poisoning (E. coli infection.)

Your character is not at all likely to die, unless he is quite old, but he may have an awful week.

About 70% of fire-related deaths are caused by smoke inhalation rather than burns. Smoke and heat both rise, so your character has a better chance of surviving if she stays low. She can cover her nose and mouth with a hand, her shirt, or a wet rag if possible, and she can hold her breath for short amounts of time.

Here’s a comprehensive article from the New England Journal of Medicine on probability of death from burn injuries. Britannica.com says: “Most people can survive a second-degree burn affecting 70 percent of their body area, but few can survive a third-degree burn affecting 50 percent. If the area is down to 20 percent, most people can be saved.”

Here’s an account of someone who survived the tragic Station Nightclub Fire of 2003 that killed 100 people and injured over 200 more.

Electric shock.

An electric shock can cause both internal and external burns . It might make your character confused or knock her unconscious. A strong shock, such as from a high voltage power line, can cause ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest, but if your character is immediately treated with a defibrillator, she can probably survive.

About 90% of people survive being struck by lightning, but they may sustain nerve damage, ruptured eardrums, muscle twitches , memory loss, and personality changes . The late neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about the fascinating story of a man who was struck by lightning, had a near-death experience, and afterward developed a deep love for music and music composition.

Plane crashes.

Your character’s odds of being killed in a plane crash are incredibly low : 1 in 29.4 million. Airplane crashes are exceptionally rare, and when they do crash, most people survive it .

If you want your character to survive an unusually terrible plane crash, here are two stories that might inspire you: a French teenager who was the lone survivor of an airplane crash in the ocean (heartbreakingly, her mother was on the plane), and the sole survivor of a tragic Russian plane crash that killed a hockey team.

Explosions.

There are all kinds of bombs and explosions. Here are three survival stories: a bakery owner whose oven exploded, causing significant property damage ; a survivor of Daesh’s horrific attack on a metro station in Brussels , and the survivor of the explosion of the commercial spaceship Virgin Galactic.

Here’s an article on two simple rules to survive a bomb blast in a building.

According to the Center for Disease Control, “The human body can survive relatively high blast overpressure without experiencing barotrauma,” but your character’s ears will probably be ringing, and she will probably have injuries from glass and debris .

Venomous snake and spider bites.

A black widow spider bite will almost certainly not kill your character, but it will cause excruciating muscle cramps. Here’s a firsthand account of a teen bitten by one (related content may contain upsetting images.) Without antivenin, symptoms may last for several days.

Most people survive bites from pit vipers in North America — rattlesnakes, copperheads, and water moccasins. Here’s some information about first aid and treatment , and here’a a good firsthand account about a bad rattlesnake bite and its treatment . Some snake bites are worse than others, depending on how much they latch on and how much venom they get into a person.

Suffocation.

Suffocating a person with a pillow is frequently depicted in TV and movies as a quick process, but it really would take 3 to 5 minutes. Your character would likely still be alert after one minute (assuming he doesn’t have a heart attack in response to being smothered.) He could fake being unconscious, wait for his attacker to let up, and then spring on him.

Strangulation.

Your character only has a short window of time for survival here. Compressing the two carotid arteries on either side of the windpipe can make her black out in 20 to 40 seconds, and can kill her in 2 to 4 minutes. That’s because those arteries carry most of the blood to the brain.

Near hanging.

Hanging is a form of strangulation, unless the sudden pressure on the neck causes cardiac arrest , or unless the neck gets broken (decapitation is also a possibility.) If your character is being hanged, he may lose consciousness at around 10 to 13 seconds and go into convulsions at about 15 seconds. If his friends are rescuing him, they have a very short window to cut him down.

Almost drowning.

Your character can probably hold her breath from 30 to 90 seconds (assuming she hasn’t trained to hold her breath for longer periods), and she can probably stay conscious underwater from 90 seconds to 2 minutes. Even after your character is unconscious, she will probably be all right if someone drags her out and performs CPR on her within four minutes. After four or five minutes, she begins to run the risk of brain damage.

Here’s something pretty cool, though — if the water’s really cold, she may be under longer and still suffer no brain damage. She should be treated for hypothermia , though.

Note that usually, drowning doesn’t look like drowning — people do not and cannot wave their arms and yell for help. EDIT: People who have almost drowned should be taken to a hospital. You can read about dry drowning here .

Hypothermia and frostbite.

Here are tables from the National Weather Service that show how much time it takes to get frostbite in cold temperatures and hypothermia in cold water. Weirdly enough, according the linked article, “hypothermia can occur at any temperature lower than normal body temperature. Factors like body fat, age, alcohol consumption, and especially wetness can affect how long hypothermia takes to strike.” Depending on what you’re writing this article on preventing cold stress while working outdoors might also be useful.

Now, let’s talk about…

A Few Ways Your Character Might Seem to Be Dead.

Deep hypothermia can sometimes make a person seem dead .

People who have ingested tetrodotoxin , the poison in pufferfish, have sometimes seemed dead and then made a complete recovery. (A variation of it is used as a way to fake a death in the movie Captain America: Winter Soldier .)

There are some other rare cases in which people come back to life after seeming quite dead. Here’s the Wikipedia article on Lazarus syndrome.

I hope this list helps you when you want your character to cheat death. If you don’t want to miss future reference posts for writers, follow my blog — you can subscribe below. Thanks for stopping by, and happy writing!

90 thoughts on “ Not Quite Dead: A Writer’s Guide to Serious Injuries and Calamities ”

Thanks Bryn! This is some useful information- I’ll definitely be coming back to check this list again I’m sure ?

Thanks, Zara — thanks so much for reading!

My heroine just survived a near-strangulation, and what I learned is that after the event is over, it is possible for the throat to swell closed in response to the trauma. Sadly, if a person does not receive medical treatment within an hour after the event (because she thinks she’s fine now) she has a significant chance of dying later.

Sophie — ah, that is good to know, the forensics site didn’t mention that! I will find a source and update soon. Thank you so much! (Thanks for the kind words, too!)

Here are some of my sources (and I realize that I was mistaken – death can actually occur up to days afterwards!) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4413082/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19999960 https://www.evawintl.org/Library/DocumentLibraryHandler.ashx?id=540 see “Clinical Presentation” section http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/nurse-s-notes-strangulation-conversation-continued/article_8fff526e-06be-11e4-bc06-001a4bcf887a.html

Ahh thank you! (PS I hope you know I believed you! I like to share sources if I can… though a couple of the sites were just too gory to link to, haha.)

I drive my family nuts – if you can’t show me your source, don’t bother trying to convince me of something 😉

(super late comment here lol) But I work with female clients involved in the criminal justice system and I have a client whom survived a horrifically bad abusive situation where the father of her youngest son had very nearly killed her by strangling her. She now has permanently damaged vocal cords, so her voice is always raspy and quiet (literally sounds like she has laryngitis, but permanent). That could be another thing to potentially add to this kind of situation for more depth.

And thank you for this information! (Forgot my manners ?)

Thank you for this awesome post. It’s already come in handy. \o/

I’m a new follower of yours, and I have to say I’m loving your blog. <3

Hi Karen! Aw thank you so much, I’m so glad you like it. Thanks for following!

Great information, Bryn. Thank you so much for this.

Thank you for reading, Artemis! Always nice to see you 🙂

Incredible list – as usual! You are my go to resource.

Aw Lexi, that’s so nice! Thank so much.

Great post! I love researching this stuff. As a clinical dietitian, I have to say people can suffer permanent damage to the heart, kidneys, and bones. Unfortunately, I have seen the death of an otherwise healthy young woman due to the effects of self-induced starvation – anorexia. Here is a resource describing the effects of starvation (self-induced) on the body: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/eating-disorders/anorexia-nervosa/features/anorexia-body-neglected https://www.mccallumplace.com/health-risks-of-anorexia.html

Michelle, thank you! I’ve had a hard time guesstimating about how long before internal damage occurs… probably because it varies so much from person to person! This is really helpful information. Anorexia is so heartbreaking… thank you for doing the work that you do.

Thanks for the list! I’ll come back to it if I ever need o put my characters through something nasty. But since you’re (also) making this list for the more speculative genres like fantasy and sci-fi it might be useful to add something about magic and futuristic technology on it. For example: two of my characters only survive a terrible injury (a spear to the stomach and a magic wound respectively) because they could be magicay healed. And some kind of magic or a special futuristic machine can be used to make someone seem dead, think of voodoo, for example.

Yeah, that’s a good point, Kiete.. with scifi and fantasy you can survive things that ordinarily no person would survive!

Thanks Bryn! This is a wonderful resource! I’ll certainly be referring back to this.

Thanks for reading, Yvonne! 🙂

From what I read about drownings is that most drownings are ‘dry’ drownings, i.e. no water actually ends up in the lungs: the airway simply gets blocked or goes into spasm. Your character can probably survive that quite well.

A ‘wet’ near-drowning, however, where water enters the lungs, is likely to be fatal without treatment after rescue. In the case of salt water, osmosis makes the lungs flood with fluid, and in the case of fresh water micro-organisms from the water starts growing in the lung, again upsetting the fluid balance and causing the lung to fill with fluid.

And I agree on the cold-water drowning: Trauma medicine say nobody is dead until they’re warm and dead.

Fascinating list! Thanks

Niel, always so good to see you!

From what I’ve read, “secondary drowning” is possible but rare . You bring up a great point: in a story with a contemporary setting, the almost-drowning victim should get checked out by a doctor if possible. (That is actually true of pretty much everything on this list!)

Thanks for the kind words!

Finding this was pretty timely! I just shot a minor character in the shoulder last night, and I wanted to make sure he’ll go into shock, but live to fight another day. Your advice on blood loss will be very helpful.

Thanks for the tips and links! I’ve shared this article with my writing association; I think a lot of us will keep coming back to this.

Be very careful with shoulder wounds (torso). Also please be careful with what you mean about shock. Medical shock is a very dangerous thing, and if caused by a bullet in the shoulder, quite likely fatal. Shock is caused by low blood pressure, and if that’s caused by a bullet in a shoulder, that means it’s hit the brachial artery or worse, the subclavian artery or vein. In any of those cases, unconsciousness is almost immediate and death certain without immediate massive medical intervention. Even if those major arteries and veins are missed, the shoulder is full of the nerves for the arms and upper torso. Most (the vast majority) of people would collapse, screaming with pain from any deep-penetrating shoulder wound, or from anything that breaks the collar-bone.

Excellent list and my research has found the same. I hasten to emphasize something you said: prompt medical treatment is usually the key. However, any near death wounds will often leave permanent effects such as brain damage, disabilities, crushed larynx (inability to speak),… The results aren’t binary: alive and fine vs. dead. As for types of death (this is getting long): the details of how it happens is crucial. Burns: the secondary effects, especially infection, are often the cause of death, even from otherwise quite surivable burns. Plane crashes: breakup or loss of control at altitude: very few, if any, survive. Crash on landing or takoff, you are quite right – most survive. Concussion: death can occur hours later even after the character says “I’m fine.” Hanging: without a drop, as you say, 8-13 seconds of hideous pain. (Or a little longer if a sheet or large diameter rope is used, and that’s how most suicides occur.) The “classical” execution style drop is supposed to break the neck. The window of opportunity for rescuing the character ends when the lever is pulled. Even a short-drop will so damage the neck that even if the victim is rescued within the 15 seconds before brain damage starts, he/she will need immediate medical aid in order to survive. Bullets: the weight and speed of that bullet is important: a .22 pistol sub-sonic shot is very survivable (assuming, as you said, no vitals are hit). However, a depleted uranium supersonic hit (even in the arm) will almost certainly kill and very quickly too. Swords, axes and spears: you might want to check out the Battle of Visby: a large fraction of the deaths were from penetrating shoulder wounds – those wounds that TV and movie heroes routinely shrug-off.

I love all this information! Very good to know 🙂 I was wondering if you or anyone else might know about how far someone can fall and still survive? I know there are various factors such as: debris, injuries sustained etc. but one of my characters is going to have a severe fall. I need to know if she can fall from a pretty good height and not die on contact. Thanks for all the other info too!

I’m no expert but I know some numbers. Firstly, training (and/or luck) is crucial within the 10 to 20 feet range. WWII army parachutists hit the ground as if they had free-falled 11 feet (3.3 m). At that drop, landing on open flat fields, they (extremely fit young men) would break an ankle or leg if they landed badly. Training meant that they didn’t land badly, but many enough did break limbs in training. At 15 feet drop, most people, even those with training, will usually injure themselves, and some will die. At 20 feet, surviving is problematic. Landing on a loose un-compacted surface (but NOT a manure pile or mud-swamp) is the best, especially if it allows you to slow down over many feet distance. Water helps too but how you land is crucial: a 20 foot (or less) belly-flop can kill but a 90 foot controlled dive by an experienced expert won’t even injure. And no, landing up to your waist in manure or snow only helps some. It’s much better than landing on concrete, but after watching Frozen, I calculated Anna’s deceleration into the snow. That should have been a very messy instant trip to the morgue. And BTW, it’s not the “hit” that usually does the damage although lacerations fom pointed/sharp ground can and will injure or kill (see below). More importantly (usually) the distortions from the decelerations break bones, rip flesh and scramble the brain,… (so “hitting” a flight spell would be bad: ie the movie version of Hermione’s spell). However, remember that fluke chance can help (some) or hurt (a lot). I remember about a decade ago hearing about a primary-school girl somewhere in the USA. She almost died from tripping over her own feet. She landed on a pencil (or pen) that pierced her heart. She only survived because the teacher knew to NOT remove the pencil, and the ambulance responce was good.

Thanks Chris! I really love your examples (Note to Self: Watch Frozen). I want my character’s fall to be in a warehouse of some sort, probably on concrete, My story is supernatural so she will end up alive supernaturally but once she hits the concrete, she has to be able to survive for at least a few minutes. Thanks for all the info!

Great post! As a fellow writer, I frequently have need of this information (though not human, my characters do have similar dispositions towards injury) and I LOVE the diversity of death/near-deaths you’ve listed. I have bookmarked it 🙂 Thanks!

Very good post. We’ve used electric shock to treat snake bites in our cattle and the neighbor’s dogs. (We do it with jumper cables, but I’d have to get more information from my dad since I’ve never witnessed it.) In all but one case with a dog, the animals had a complete recovery, even though some had been on death’s door before the shock treatment. We’ve had enough luck with this sort of treatment, that, if one of us got bit by a rattlesnake, we’d certainly try shocking it before going to the hospital. (We’re in a very rural area.) I found this website that has some info on it. http://venomshock.wikidot.com

Thought you would find this interesting. Did you know that you should not ice bites? I forget if this is just for snake bites, but with certain types of venoms, cold makes the poison travel quicker. This could make things more dramatic for your characters.

I did not know that, and that is really good to know. Thanks, Madelyn!

I promise to be short this time. One of the things impressed on us during first aid training was the smell. More than one instructor for recerts has said that what hit them on their first “real-life” accident scene was that smell: vomit, blood, sweat, urine, feces. So to make those scenes come alive in your writing, don’t forget those smells, if applicable. However, be reasonable: you don’t want to “gross out” your readers too much.

Excellent post!

Oh thank you so much J. Kathleen. Thanks for reading!

Greetings! I’ve been following your site for a long time now and finally got the courage to go ahead and give you a shout out from Porter Tx!

Just wanted to say keep up the excellent work!

Hi Jane! Oh my gosh, thanks so much for following. And for the kind words! It’s great to hear from you! 🙂

Hello, Miss Donovan! I’m a big fan of your posts, but would it be alright if you could add something to your ‘drowning’ section? If your character passes out underwater and nearly drowns to the point people need to use CPR, they should probably go to be checked out by a doctor. After someone is nearly drowned, there is the possibility they will experience what’s called ‘dry drowning.’ Basically, water builds up in the lungs after they’re out of the water. It’s difficult to spot and usually happens several hours or so after the incident. Anyway, thank you so much for the list! I have a feeling it will be extremely helpful.

Hi Amanda — thank you so much for the reminder. I meant to do this after another comment and it just slipped my mind! I will get to it 🙂 Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for reading!

Just happened to read this via Pintrest. I am not a writer but love reading mystery and suspense novels. One thing I have been taught by people in the first aid business…not teachers but those who use it on a regular basis is that more then likely when CPR is administered rib bones will be broken.

Hi Naomi — welcome to the blog! It’s so funny you should mention that… I just got certified for CPR this month! Our instructor told us that a broken rib was a definite possibility, though it didn’t usually happen… I think the bottom line is, most people would rather be alive with a broken rib than, you know, not alive. 🙂

I agree! I got this info from two people who work in the Canadian military and use first aid and interventions higher than that but are NOT doctors. So just thought I’d pass it on. Not doing anything will leave an already dead person…dead. So ya you can’t really do much wrong if they are dead in the first place.

What about arrow wounds? Are they similar to shots?

Great website! I suggest this website on bow and arrow injuries, https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/battle-wounds-never-pull-an-arrow-out-of-a-body/

Thank you. Some of that information about arrow wounds will be very useful in one of my stories.

Thank you so much for sharing the link!

Found this post on Pinterest, of all places, Bryn. Good, helpful, interesting stuff. Thanks!

Thanks for this post. Seems like there is always a great deal of research required if we want to be believable, and TV/movies certainly are not a valid resource (Frozen, as noted, and I have to think that the dwarves in The Hobbit wouldn’t all just walk away after that tremendous fall in the Goblin cave – yet none were even scratched!).

Right now I’m working on trying to believably kill someone instantly (must be by knife or breaking their neck). It’s amazing how much conflicting information is on the Net, so finding something that seems truly authoritative is a challenge.

– Deandra

Oh you’re welcome, Deandra! And yeah, I am always noticing in TV and movies when there’s no way a character could’ve walked away from the ordeal they just went through.

There certainly is a lot of conflicting information out there. Also, there is one thing that rarely gets mentioned, probably because few people want to think about it: the fact that many deaths aren’t immediate. A friend of mine, his office mate broke his own neck playing sports – and survived. He was lucky that none of the nerves were severed. Many suicide jumpers survive for a while – they aren’t lucky. Very few poisons act quickly. A knife in the heart amounts to a massive heart attack. The most merciful I’ve been able to find are those that unconsciousness almost immediately and therefore don’t cause prolonged pain, like beheading, drop-hanging, anything that causes blood prssure in the head to go to zero, like cutting the carotid, or failing that, a massive heart attack or severing any major artery like a spear/sword/bullet in the chest or shoulder (brachial artery) or even the femoral artery in the leg. Death can still take a while, but at least the victim is already out cold. Wounds in the abdomen are chancy. They can kill quickly, or they can take hours, just depending on what exactly was damaged and how badly. From what I understand, death from low atmospheric pressure (plane depressuraization at altitude) is fairly merciful, not because it’s quick, but because there is little pain.

Yes a lot of TV shows, movies and books get it wrong, I guess that is because they go with the old adage, “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.” I have done a lot of research on injuries, such and spinal cord injury and cortical blindness, because I required there to be damage to my poor sods who survived, and scars, don’t forget them … unless you not to worried about the truth getting in the way. 😉

I have a hundred and twenty-eight year old question. I am writing of an accident that happened to my great grandfather in 1891. He was alone, returning home on horseback. He was bringing home two wild mules he had purchased from a ranch about 15 miles away.The newspaper account written, was by his own mother, after his death. She said he lived for (two months) after he was “dragged, causing severe injuries internally – chest and kidneys most acute. He has spit blood, and at times has vomited the same, ever since.” He was in a great amount of pain, and also given a “strong mixture of coffeeberry and whiskey for medicinal purposes”. His mother goes on in the article to say that all the family knew during this time that he was declining. He was 31 years old. My grandpa was only a year old when this happened to his father. He also told me his that his father’s dead horse layed on him all night until his family found him the next day. I am writing about this accident, but I’m courious, how could he live two months? With your knowledge of accidents and injuries, do you have a guess as to what might have been going on?

Your great grandfather evidently died of internal injuries.

The spleen is not an essential organ, so if it gets ruptured by itself it does not cause death. But an interruption of blood supply to the spleen might lead to necrosis, which could cause a general decline in wellbeing before death.

Or it might just be a infection.

“Mixture of coffeeberry and whiskey” sounds like a terrible medicine to give to a mortally ill man: today we would call it “Red Bull and Vodka”. But then it was probably all they had.

Niel! Hey there 🙂 Thanks for jumping in there! I tend to agree with what you’ve said.

The frustrating thing for me about researching injuries in general is that there is so much variability. You see people take a long time to die from injuries that seem like they would be quickly fatal, and sometimes even in centuries past, people would survive terrible things. Niel brings up a great point in particular about infection. It can still be an issue with surgeries and professionally treated wounds today, but it was much more of a problem in the past.

That you mention infection is important. Some studies of historical warfare have suggested that until recently, disease, starvation, and infected wounds generally killed more soldiers than while actually on the battlefield fighting the enemy. So whether the hero(ine) gets infected is a crucial point. If you didn’t take care to keep it clean, or if it didn’t fit you well enough, your own armour could kill you.

Hi Chris! Wow, I never thought of the irony of being killed by your own armor!

Hi, I’m am still in middle school, and I am working on a novel that I hope to publish. Your blog has helped me so much, thank you! I will definitely come back to your blog in the future

Hi Hannah! That’s awesome that you’re working on a novel, and I wish you the best of luck with publication. So glad you like the blog. Thanks for the kind words!

That’s awesome! I’m working on a novel as well, and I’m in high-school- maybe someday I can read yours! Good luck!

Interesting post. I have a character in my upcoming novel who got shot in the abdomen with an arrow (its 1872 and the majority of my characters are Native American). I had learned somewhere else he had a small chance of surviving this, and I think I may have to have him going to shock on the lengthy trip to the doctor after reading your information.

That sounds great, Ellen! Having your character go into shock is going to add even more realism, I bet.

This is such a brilliant and helpful post, thank you! But I notice you didn’t include stab wounds – what are the ins and outs of those? Thanks!

Many (most) stab wounds kill from blood loss. As Bryn says, if it hits an artery or the heart, death can be quick. In fact it can be so quick that the person is dead (or at least unconscious) before “they hit the ground”. Or it can take hours (see Bryn’s section on blood loss and shock. Most people badly underestimate the consequences of shock.) Deep stabs to the torso (including the famous TV trope – “only a shoulder wound”) are almost always fatal unless medical aid is available. If you know what you are doing (medical knowledge needed – or sheer stupid luck) there are small spots that are less dangerous, but infection is still a problem. Hit the lung or even open the chest wall (so most stabs above the diaphram that manage to get through the rib cage – which is harder to do than most people think) will collapse a lung quickly or slowly. Below the diaphram, there are the liver, stomach, kidneys, spleen, intestines, and while you can function with damage to those for a while (possibly many hours), medical aid will become essential eventually. So again, an abdomen stab really depends on whether it hits a major blood vessel.

One thing to remember, any stab (or other wound) that severs a muscle or tendon will incapacitate the limb. Doesn’t matter how heroic, how motivated the character is, that limb just won’t function. Sever a major nerve bundle, and the same thing, and the pain will be excruciating. Again, it doesn’t matter how heroic the character is – his/her body just won’t function, and it would be heroic indeed just to stay conscious given that amount of pain.

Chris, thank you! This is awesome. I really appreciate it!

This is one of the most helpful posts I’ve read. I have a question relating to the last post. Is it realistic, given the lack of medical knowledge during most of the medieval period, to consider that a knife wound that severs a muscle or tendon or a nerve bundle might, over time, heal? Or will the character have lost the use of that limb forever? What about a punctured lung? Thanks.

I would like to know that too, and would like to hear from anyone with medical knowledge. Medieval medicine being so bad (although it was better than many give it credit for), it almost boils down to whether those things will recover on their own. In every subject it seems to depend on how bad the injury is and also on the character doing the right things – to whit, not making the injury worse.

Severing the achilles tendon was from ancient times a known nasty way to cripple someone for life, and the same seems to apply to any fully severed tendon. Partially severed tendons can heal, so long as the character doesn’t stress the injury. Damaged nerves can regrow, but if the sheath is severed (which from a stab wound is almost a given) then by all reports, full recovery is highly unlikely and even partial recovery is chancy. And I know from personal experience that the recovering person -must- exercise their muscles and flexibility in the regions “downstream” of the injury, otherwise even once the nerves do heal, some mobility will have been lost. However, perhaps other nerve pathways might be able to take over in some cases? In both cases (nerves and tendons), the recovery time is months at best.

As for muscles, I had no idea, but a quick internet search found the following:

“Muscle is actually an incredibly regenerative tissue…[details on how deleted]… Obviously, there are limitations to muscular regeneration. The muscle tissue seems to require signals from our nervous system, and injuries that are too large fail to heal correctly. Often, in cases like this, a fatty tissue forms in place of healthy striated muscle.”

A medical researcher whose research was on that subject said: yes – very true. So without surgery, I doubt a fully severed major muscle could completely recover.

Punctured lungs, again that depends on how bad it is. A small puncture can heal – so long as the person rests. If the lung collapses, the character will probably die. However again, it isn’t an all or nothing proposition. If they do beat the odds and survive without medical aid to remove the trapped air, there will be permanent lung capacity problems. I knew a woman who lost a significant fraction of one lung but, with 20th C medical help, survived. Any strenuous activity – at all – caused her to gasp for air almost immediately.

Thanks, Chris! That does seem to answer my questions.

This was sooooo helpful!!! I’m working with a lot of injuries as a fiction writer, so it’s always great to be able to have reliable sources I can turn to. Thanks!

This list! What can I say? As a newbie writer, it was vital that I ran across this. Thank you for sharing it. I even used it as a reference for my own blog. In fact, I can think of two other articles you’ve written that have saved me. Ever grateful, Deja.

Deja, aw thank you! I’m so glad it was helpful!!

Thank you!! I am a bit of a wuss at times, and my next novel has my heroine interacting with a highly sadistic serial killer. I do not look forward to all the research I’ll need to do concerning the myriad ways a person can get hurt. Here’s hoping that with this list and the wonderful comments, I can lower my risk of the inevitable Internet gross-outs.

I know this thread is a few months old now, but I just finished the first draft of a project that made me think of this discussion. The protgonist’s team wins in the end, but not without losses. During the climax, I wanted the antagonist to attack two of protagonist’s close friends with a rapier and poinyard, leaving one as a parapalegic and the other to die after a few days. I figured that after disarming them, he’d stab them in the back – severing the spine. So I checked with a friend who is a neurosurgeon and has spent time in emergency wards. Not on, she said. The spinal cord is too well protected and if you did somehow manage to break the spine with a blade, death would be fairly quick. However, she did point out that a deep abdomen stab would do for the slow death. Without antibiotics it would be nasty and inevitable. Having the antagonist throw the friend out a second story window and have them land on a garden wall or the like (I went with a sturdy chair the end) would do for the broken back. And yes, prompt medical help is necessary for the parapalegic to survive – she almost dies from shock.

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Awesome site! Thank you! I bookmarked it for future reference. Any chance you have anything on head injuries? I have asked some of my nursing friends so I think I’m good but wouldn’t hurt to compare notes with another author. 🙂

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My character has been gang raped. I know, dreadful both physically and emotionally. Have you done any research on this topic with respect to the extent and kind of injuries that could be expected from such trauma, and the amount of time it takes before all evidence degrades too badly to be viable in terms of providing DNA evidence, etc? Some of this information might seem rather evident but I suspect some is not. Anything you can share?

Any information about radiation burns?

I recently discovered your blog and I just want to say a very big THANK YOU! It has been a godsend! I sincerely appreciate all the work you do here; it’s so thorough and helpful, it almost makes writing a novel seem less daunting…almost! But get a load of this crazy lady over here who’s challenged herself to write two – at the same time! (Completely different genres, as if that makes it seem simpler! *facepalm*) I may soon find this to be a fool’s errand, but the Pisces in me is intrigued by the ‘What if…’ and I think it would make for a cool backstory if I actually pulled it off.

Thanks again and hope you’re doing well! x

Hello Bryn, I fond your blog, because I receive some mails with people asking about my old posts. One I wrote was: “Why we must to kill some characters”. Many asked me, how??? So, I answered them based on my own experience. But I try to read, time to time, another people ideas, and this is a good reference. In my case, I have a “almost” drowning in one of my chapters. The event happened in a river. You must to remember, not how they could die, but think if they are available to get some help, or medical atention later. In my story the guy was alone, and was in 1576… I made my work and I searched information based on that kind of deaths in middle times, (or near). I fond a tesis which was wroten by a doctor, how wants to knows what happened on “drowning”. His methods, was drowning cats and dogs on real!!! He made several experiments with those animals, keep them under water X time (then he kill them to made autopsy to check what happend time to time on their bodies), so he kill more than 40 animals. But, not happy with that, he try to drown himself (of course just for seconds). The conclusión (based on that time) was: The person which suffer a drowning, got several collapses, and even inconscience time to time, to wake up and try to breath “again”, but that elipse was really painful, the person suffer inmobility on arms and legs, when his lungs “cant breath anymore”. Water can go to lungs, and he can try to trow up, but under water he can´t. At end, he just faint and then… he breaths and get the “golden” to dies. All process can be really quickly, the full death can be between 4-6 minutes. (the first 1-2 they can try to go out the water), but if you sink, dead can be easily 2-4 minutes suffering with all those things I wrote here. Sadly I dont keep the link, or even the name of the doctor, but read about that was one of the most painful things I did, because sadly a cousin dies by drowning in a pool when he has just six years old. Just knows, so puntual, how much a person suffer with that… was devastated to me. Luckly for my “character”, he saves him self miraculosly (is part of the story), but he suffer all the post sympthoms of that. Pain on chest, head, eyes. Hard to breath, backpain, irritability, lost of memory/time, hypothermia, muscular cramps, etc. My advise is, you must to understand how works medical services on the time of the event, if the character can get access on time or not. If the story is not on “modern time”, the succesful to recover are less. In past, people dies for influenza, flu, births and even for a poisoned open wound (with oxidated iron for example), remember the posibilities when “antibiotics” doesnt exist. So, simple things can kill someone. I made an apologize if I was a bit confuse, english is not my native lenguage.

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Your post is very good. Starvation as fasting (religious sense) 40 days is not uncommon,and can be endured if the person is of normal weight. If the person is overweight maybe a week or two longer. Much beyond this will result in organ damage. During long fasts the person will grow weaker have less energy and may require more sleep. A careful diet is required when breaking a long fast.Too much food too quickly will cause great harm also note many of the prisoners released from Nazi concentration camps died because American GIs shared their food with them, so the careful diet not kept can kill.

Thank for sharing, Bryn. Take care. 🙂

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I’m writing a character who falls from a cliff, and nearly dies. What I want is for him to not like be permanently paralyzed, but like near that and take probably years to recover completely, HOWEVER I haven’t been able to find any references to refer to for this particular incident. Is there any way you can help me with this? What would it be like to fall from a cliff and survive?

This is SO HELPFUL!!!! I’m so thrilled I found this!!!! Thank you!!

Some of my thoughts on death dying and surviving. first as an EMT in my younger days, there are only five signs that a victim is truly dead and no first aid is necessary. gross decomposition, decapitation, Lividity, rigor mortis, burned beyond recognition. There is a condition called Internal Decapitation in which a few people survive reasonably well. The spine is severed but the spinal cord is not permanently injured. The spine can be repaired. As a side note, there is a legend that Antoine Lavoisier, who discovered and named Oxygen, was guillotined on May 8, 1794, as a final experiment, promised to blink his eyes as long as possible, it was about 16 sec.

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Writing Prompts

150+ Story Starters: Creative Sentences To Start A Story

The most important thing about writing is finding a good idea . You have to have a great idea to write a story. You have to be able to see the whole picture before you can start to write it. Sometimes, you might need help with that. Story starters are a great way to get the story rolling. You can use them to kick off a story, start a character in a story or even start a scene in a story.

When you start writing a story, you need to have a hook. A hook can be a character or a plot device. It can also be a setting, something like “A young man came into a bar with a horse.” or a setting like “It was the summer of 1969, and there were no cell phones.” The first sentence of a story is often the hook. It can also be a premise or a situation, such as, “A strange old man in a black cloak was sitting on the train platform.”

Story starters are a way to quickly get the story going. They give the reader a place to start reading your story. Some story starters are obvious, and some are not. The best story starters are the ones that give the reader a glimpse into the story. They can be a part of a story or a part of a scene. They can be a way to show the reader the mood of a story. If you want to start a story, you can use a simple sentence. You can also use a question or an inspirational quote. In this post, we have listed over 150 story starters to get your story started with a bang! A great way to use these story starters is at the start of the Finish The Story game .

If you want more story starters, check out this video on some creative story starter sentences to use in your stories:

150+ Creative Story Starters

Here is a list of good sentences to start a story with:

I’ve read about a million stories about princesses but never thought I could ever be one.
There was once a man who was very old, but he was wise. He lived for a very long time, and he was very happy.
What is the difference between a man and a cat? A cat has nine lives.
In the middle of the night, a boy is running through the woods.
It is the end of the world.
He knew he was not allowed to look into the eyes of the princess, but he couldn’t help himself.
The year is 1893. A young boy was running away from home.
What if the Forest was actually a magical portal to another dimension, the Forest was a portal to the Otherworld?
In the Forest, you will find a vast number of magical beings of all sorts.
It was the middle of the night, and the forest was quiet. No bugs or animals disturbed the silence. There were no birds, no chirping.
If you wish to stay in the Forest, you will need to follow these rules: No one shall leave the Forest. No one shall enter. No one shall take anything from the Forest.
“It was a terrible day,” said the old man in a raspy voice.
A cat is flying through the air, higher and higher, when it happens, and the cat doesn’t know how it got there, how it got to be in the sky.
I was lying in the woods, and I was daydreaming.
The Earth is a world of wonders.
The fairy is the most amazing creature I have ever met.
A young girl was sitting on a tree stump at the edge of a river when she noticed a magical tree growing in the water.
My dancing rat is dressed in a jacket, a tie and glasses, which make him look like a person.
In the darkness of the night, I am alone, but I know that I am not.
Owls are the oldest, and most intelligent, of all birds.
My name is Reyna, and I am a fox.
The woman was drowning.
One day, he was walking in the forest.
It was a dark and stormy night…
There was a young girl who could not sleep…
A boy in a black cape rode on a white horse…
A crazy old man in a black cloak was sitting in the middle of the street…
The sun was setting on a beautiful summer day…
The dog was restless…”
There was a young boy in a brown coat…
I met a young man in the woods…
In the middle of a dark forest…
The young girl was at home with her family…
There was a young man who was sitting on a …
A young man came into a bar with a horse…
I have had a lot of bad dreams…
He was a man who wanted to be king…
It was the summer of 1969, and there were no cell phones.
I know what you’re thinking. But no, I don’t want to be a vegetarian. The worst part is I don’t like the taste.
She looked at the boy and decided to ask him why he wasn’t eating. She didn’t want to look mean, but she was going to ask him anyway.
The song played on the radio, as Samual wiped away his tears.
This was the part when everything was about to go downhill. But it didn’t…
“Why make life harder for yourself?” asked Claire, as she bit into her apple.
She made a promise to herself that she would never do it.
I was able to escape.
I was reading a book when the accident happened.
“I can’t stand up for people who lie and cheat.” I cried.
You look at me and I feel beautiful.
I know what I want to be when I grow up.
We didn’t have much money. But we knew how to throw a good party.
The wind blew on the silent streets of London.
What do you get when you cross an angry bee and my sister?
The flight was slow and bumpy. I was half asleep when the captain announced we were going down.
At the far end of the city was a river that was overgrown with weeds.
It was a quiet night in the middle of a busy week.
One afternoon, I was eating a sandwich in the park when I spotted a stranger.
In the late afternoon, a few students sat on the lawn reading.
The fireflies were dancing in the twilight as the sunset.
In the early evening, the children played in the park.
The sun was setting and the moon was rising.
A crowd gathered in the square as the band played.
The top of the water tower shone in the moonlight.
The light in the living room was on, but the light in the kitchen was off.
When I was a little boy, I used to make up stories about the adventures of these amazing animals, creatures, and so on.
All of the sudden, I realized I was standing in the middle of an open field surrounded by nothing but wildflowers, and the only thing I remembered about it was that I’d never seen a tree before.
It’s the kind of thing that’s only happened to me once before in my life, but it’s so cool to see it.
They gave him a little wave as they drove away.
The car had left the parking lot, and a few hours later we arrived home.
They were going to play a game of bingo.
He’d made up his mind to do it. He’d have to tell her soon, though. He was waiting for a moment when they were alone and he could say it without feeling like an idiot. But when that moment came, he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Jamie always wanted to own a plane, but his parents were a little tight on the budget. So he’d been saving up to buy one of his own.
The night was getting colder, and the wind was blowing in from the west.
The doctor stared down at the small, withered corpse.
She’d never been in the woods before, but she wasn’t afraid.
The kids were having a great time in the playground.
The police caught the thieves red-handed.
The world needs a hero more than ever.
Mother always said, “Be good and nice things will happen…”
There is a difference between what you see and what you think you see.
The sun was low in the sky and the air was warm.
“It’s time to go home,” she said, “I’m getting a headache.”
It was a cold winter’s day, and the snow had come early.
I found a wounded bird in my garden.
“You should have seen the look on my face.”
He opened the door and stepped back.
My father used to say, “All good things come to an end.”
The problem with fast cars is that they break so easily.
“What do you think of this one?” asked Mindy.
“If I asked you to do something, would you do it?” asked Jacob.
I was surprised to see her on the bus.
I was never the most popular one in my class.
We had a bad fight that day.
The coffee machine had stopped working, so I went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea.
It was a muggy night, and the air-conditioning unit was so loud it hurt my ears.
I had a sleepless night because I couldn’t get my head to turn off.
I woke up at dawn and heard a horrible noise.
I was so tired I didn’t know if I’d be able to sleep that night.
I put on the light and looked at myself in the mirror.
I decided to go in, but the door was locked.
A man in a red sweater stood staring at a little kitten as if it was on fire.
“It’s so beautiful,” he said, “I’m going to take a picture.”
“I think we’re lost,” he said, “It’s all your fault.”
It’s hard to imagine what a better life might be like
He was a tall, lanky man, with a long face, a nose like a pin, and a thin, sandy moustache.
He had a face like a lion’s and an eye like a hawk’s.
The man was so broad and strong that it was as if a mountain had been folded up and carried in his belly.
I opened the door. I didn’t see her, but I knew she was there.
I walked down the street. I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty.
I arrived at my parents’ home at 8:00 AM.
The nurse had been very helpful.
On the table was an array of desserts.
I had just finished putting the last of my books in the trunk.
A car horn honked, startling me.
The kitchen was full of pots and pans.
There are too many things to remember.
The world was my oyster. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
“My grandfather was a World War II veteran. He was a decorated hero who’d earned himself a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart.
Beneath the menacing, skeletal shadow of the mountain, a hermit sat on his ledge. His gnarled hands folded on his gnarled knees. His eyes stared blankly into the fog.
I heard a story about a dragon, who was said to be the size of a house, that lived on the top of the tallest mountain in the world.
I was told a story about a man who found a golden treasure, which was buried in this very park.
He stood alone in the middle of a dark and silent room, his head cocked to one side, the brown locks of his hair, which were parted in the middle, falling down over his eyes.
Growing up, I was the black sheep of the family. I had my father’s eyes, but my mother’s smile.
Once upon a time, there was a woman named Miss Muffett, and she lived in a big house with many rooms.
When I was a child, my mother told me that the water looked so bright because the sun was shining on it. I did not understand what she meant at the time.
The man in the boat took the water bottle and drank from it as he paddled away.
The man looked at the child with a mixture of pity and contempt.
An old man and his grandson sat in their garden. The old man told his grandson to dig a hole.
An old woman was taking a walk on the beach . The tide was high and she had to wade through the water to get to the other side.
She looked up at the clock and saw that it was five minutes past seven.
The man looked up from the map he was studying. “How’s it going, mate?”
I was in my room on the third floor, staring out of the window.
A dark silhouette of a woman stood in the doorway.
The church bells began to ring.
The moon rose above the horizon.
A bright light shone over the road.
The night sky began to glow.
I could hear my mother cooking in the kitchen.
The fog began to roll in.
He came in late to the class and sat at the back.
A young boy picked up a penny and put it in his pocket.
He went to the bathroom and looked at his face in the mirror.
It was the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness. We once had everything and now we have nothing.
A young man died yesterday, and no one knows why.
The boy was a little boy. He was not yet a man. He lived in a house in a big city.
They had just returned from the theatre when the phone rang.
I walked up to the front of the store and noticed the neon sign was out.
I always wondered what happened to Mary.
I stopped to say hello and then walked on.
The boy’s mother didn’t want him to play outside…
The lights suddenly went out…
After 10 years in prison, he was finally out.
The raindrops pelted the window, which was set high up on the wall, and I could see it was a clear day outside.
My friend and I had just finished a large pizza, and we were about to open our second.
I love the smell of the ocean, but it never smells as good as it does when the waves are crashing.
They just stood there, staring at each other.
A party was in full swing until the music stopped.

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How do I write a scene when a character wakes up from being unconscious?

Often I read about people waking up after being unconscious or asleep in a story. Some authors write the characters as being confused, and it taking a second to remember what was happening before. I'm wondering if this is a real reaction, or just a way to add details. Are there any other details can I add besides the environment around them?

creative-writing

1 Highly related: Help with describing an unconscious character . – Laurel ♦ Commented Jan 19, 2023 at 2:07

You can use it for characterization as well as storytelling.

I think one of the most important factors for how the character wakes up and what they do are who they are (personality, neuro divergence, habits, psychology, etc.) Another is what happened to them before.

It sometimes happens that when I wake up I'm in a limbo zone between sleep and wake, where the connection between my conscious and unconscious mind seems extra strong, and some thoughts I've had during this time have been very profound. Your readers will likely have had this experience as well and might put extra emphasis on what the character thinks during this time.

For instance, I'm a person that likes puns. I'm also a person that has problems with sleep. And time is also a problem. Oversleeping is not unheard of. So the morning the first thought through my head was "this will bend adly" was rather characterizing for me. (And yes, I made that backward talk up then an there... or rather, it felt like my unconscious did...) What I did after having that thought (laughed and wrote it down) is also pretty characterizing.

Showing how the character's morning routine looks is another way to characterize. Do they jump out of bed to do pushups while the coffee brews, do they moan and snooze the alarm or something in between?

Depending on how the character lost consciousness the reaction to waking up can be different. For instance, do they remember where they were when they lost consciousness? Are they waking up in an unusual place? Sometimes it can be enough to fall asleep "upside down" in bed to wake up really confused (that is also really characterizing, who does that?) You can get similar effects from forgetting you're in a hotel room and not at home.

I have no experience of waking up from surgery, but I've had surgery, so my guess is that one predominant experience after surgery might be pain first of all.

I've woken up from sleep after a night of drinking more than once and pain can be pretty high up there as well (though more of a headache). I guess you could have a blackout about going to bed and wake up confused, but otherwise, it pretty much works like regular sleep (+ possible headaches and dehydration).

Losing consciousness due to other reasons (crimes or accidents) might work like getting blackout drunk. It's pretty obvious that if you're a woman and, after a night at the bar, wake up on the floor in your apartment with no memory of how you got there, your wakeup is going to be harrowing at best.

At what point in the sleep cycle you wake up (deep sleep or REM sleep) can also have a profound impact on how clearheaded you are. If you wake up to an alarm and it's the same time every day, you're likely to be totally clear and aware as soon as you wake up (or even before the alarm goes off), even more so if you use a sleep app.

If, on the other hand, you're out of sync and get woken up during deep sleep, you could be very groggy and confused and need some extra time to figure out where you are. In extreme cases, I've felt like I was drunk. (i.e. so unstable I had to support myself against things to not trip—bouncing between the walls so to speak...)

I guess a final factor would be how urgent you need to visit the bathroom. You're not likely to spend much time smelling the roses if you're seeing yellow submarines...

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Not Waving but Drowning

By Stevie Smith

Stevie Smith’s ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ is a tragic account of a dead man whose cry for help is mistakenly regarded as a mere greeting.

Stevie Smith

Nationality: English

She published several collections of prose .

Key Poem Information

Unlock more with Poetry +

Central Message: Our perception sometimes overlooks reality.

Themes: Death , Disappointment

Speaker: A dead man (probably, in his afterlife) who died of drowning.

Emotions Evoked: Abandonment , Confusion , Disgust , Frustration

Poetic Form: Narrative , Quatrain

Time Period: 20th Century

Stevie Smith’s ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ is a macabre poem dealing with the pain of being misunderstood or being misinterpreted.

Poem Analyzed by Emma Baldwin

B.A. English (Minor: Creative Writing), B.F.A. Fine Art, B.A. Art Histories

‘Not Waving but Drowning’ is regarded as the best poem English poet Stevie Smith ( Bio | Poems ) wrote among others. This piece was first published in the year 1957. It was part of a collection that goes by the same title. What’s in the title? The title is oddly humorous and piercingly perceptive. It echoes the pain of being misunderstood. The movement of one individual’s hands above the surface, neck-deep in water, is sadly understood as a mere gesture of merrymaking by the onlookers. Are the observers at fault? Or, it is something to do with the situation the person is actually in. These questions linger in the reader’s mind while reading this ambiguous poetic tale.

Let's explore some of the thought-provoking details present in this poem by Smith. These details may seem minute, but they are significant in analyzing and grasping the scope of the text.

The Title and the First Line: Firstly, try to find a similarity between the title and the first line. Notice the wordings used at the very beginning of both. There is a sense of negation in both of them. Is it somehow tied to the overall theme of the poem?
Who the speaker really is: There's no way to clearly draw the line between the speaker and the narrator . It seems the poetic persona and the “dead man” of the poem are one and the same.
Meaning of “Too cold”: This phrase first appears in the second stanza and then, laid differently in the last stanza. Think how the meaning of this phrase slightly varies due to the change of speakers.
Diction or Word Choice: It is worth noting the way Smith wrote this piece. Her choice of words is indeed simple, free from any complexity. The text may sound too simple, but that is not the case. It contains layers of meanings.

Explore Not Waving but Drowning

2 Structure and Form
3 Analysis, Stanza-by-Stanza

‘ Not Waving but Drowning ’ by Stevie Smith ( Bio | Poems ) describes the emotional situation of a speaker whose true tribulations go unnoticed by all those around him.

The poem begins with the speaker stating that there is a dead man who is not really dead. He is not dead in that his story has more to offer to the world. His death came at the hands of apathy and neglect. The speaker knows this to be true as he is struggling out in the ocean waters and no one realizes it. He is trying frantically to get someone’s attention but all the onlookers believe him to be “waving” rather than “drowning.”

In the second stanza, the speaker critiques the emotionless reactions of the beachgoers and acquaintances he’s met in his life by describing their words regarding the dead man. They see him, attempt to recall something about his life, and then declare him dead without further ceremony. They believe that it must have been “too cold” for him and that his heart gave out.

The speaker continues to tell her listeners that it has always been “too cold” for him. He has always been too far out to sea to make people understand him, especially now when he needs understanding the most.

The Poem Analysis Take

Expert Insights by Sudip Das Gupta

First-class B.A. Honors Degree in English Literature

There’s another interesting poem written by American poet Billy Collins that is ‘ The Art of Drowning .’ Compare and contrast Collins’ ‘The Art of Drowning’ with Smith’s ‘Not Waving but Drowning.’ After a close reading of both texts, carefully observe a painting by Piter Brueghel entitled Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (or read William Carlos Williams' ' Landscape with the Fall of Icarus ,' a poetic take on the painting). In this way, you can have a better understanding of what this drowning actually means, literally and metaphorically . This theme of drowning (or the act of drowning) has its own spot in a great many pieces of art. Each artist used this motif differently to convey their messages. For instance, Smith does not give the same message as Collins does. But, somehow they are all connected. The act of “drowning” metaphorically signifies any kind of tragedy that is interpreted by society either as an accident or a foolish attempt to end one’s life.

Structure and Form

‘ Not Waving but Drowning’ by Stevie Smith ( Bio | Poems ) is a three-stanza poem that follows a rhyme scheme that slightly deviates as the poem progresses. In the first stanza, the lines rhyme , ABCB , the second, DEFE, and the third, GBHB. The “B” line words are all unified by a “-ing” end rhyme . This is not the only way in which they are related though, Smith has chosen to use the exact end words, in the same order, in these lines. The second line of both stanzas ends with “moaning,” and the fourth with, “drowning.”

The choice to rhyme every other line in ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ lifts the very dark tone of the poem to something that is slightly more lighthearted. The rhymes allow the reader to enjoy the reading of the poem, without being too distressed by the dark subject matter . On the other hand, the contrast between the rhyme scheme and the discussion of death and unintentional neglect only draws more attention to the most somber elements of this piece.

Analysis, Stanza-by-Stanza

Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning.

The speaker begins the poem, ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ with a line that is meant to hook a reader and convince them to continue through the short stanzas. Smith writes, “Nobody heard him, the dead man.” This is a phrase that, when read literally, seems obvious. Of course, a reader might think, one is unable to hear a dead person. However, in the case of this poem, there are other factors at work.

The muteness of the person is not what is really at stake. The poet continues on, and throughout the following stanzas, a reader will be presented with a critique of the listener and observer. It is the beachgoers and watchers of a scene who are at fault.

The second line works similarly to the first. It is equally as shocking— especially when read after the first. A reader will hold two lines of thought at this point, one, is this person dead? And if not, why did the speaker say he was dead? It is revealed that the dead man is “still…moaning.” Although he is dead, in a location the speaker is yet to reveal, he is still making sounds. It is his death itself that is speaking. The loss of life has something to say on the man’s behalf, and the onlookers are not listening.

In the third and fourth lines it becomes clear that while the speaker is not a direct participant in this scene, she is in the vicinity and has access to the “dead man” through the line of sight or omniscient understanding. The speaker is suffering in a way she feels the dead man, who is perhaps on the beach, did as well.

He is in the ocean and is on the verge of drowning. He is attempting to flag down the people on the beach but they either do not see him or interpret his frantic movements as “waving” rather than “drowning.”

In these last two lines, the speaker moves into the first person , referring to herself as “I.” She also addresses, “you.” This could refer to a single person, or more likely, a collective body of people who are unable to see her/him and understand the distress she/he is in.

Poor chap, he always loved larking (…) They said.

The second stanza continues the narrative of the woman in the sea and the man who has already died and washed up on the beach.

This stanza is told from the perspective of the onlookers but relayed from the speaker’s perspective. She is able to hear their words and relays them back in a way that shows an underlying apathy and distaste for the dead. The people on the beach do not do much more than pity the dead man.

They call him, “Poor chap,” and are able to remember a very general fact about him, that he “always loved larking,” or simply having a good time. This is something that could be said about almost everyone. Their words show no understanding or true sadness.

They state flatly that the man is “now…dead,” and that his death must have occurred because the water was “too cold for him.” They believe or at least express the belief, that he must have had a heart attack. They look no deeper into his life or death than what their first guesses give them. The speaker is criticizing them for this, she believes there is much more to this person than they are seeing. This is due to the fact that she is about to suffer a similar ending. She can see herself in his place.

Stanza Three

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (…) And not waving but drowning.

In the final four lines of the poem, the speaker’s emotions begin to come through. She is re-enacting what she believes the dead man must have been thinking as he died, and in turn, what she is thinking now.

The speaker is fretting over the situation that she is in, and wishing that somehow she had managed to find a way to make those around her understand what she is/was going through. She states that not only is the water, or this day, too cold, but it “was too cold always.” Her life, her emotions, the reactions she got from her family, friends, and peers— all of it was too cold.

Although she is suffering deeply out in the water, the dead man is still “moaning” on the beach. His death, which represents the death and final climax of neglect, is hovering in the background, ready to take the drowning speaker.

In the last line, the speaker repeats the phrase that was used to end the first stanza and becomes the title of the poem. She is not living a life she enjoys any more than she is happily swimming in the ocean, she is “not waving but drowning.”

Poetry + Review Corner

20th century, disappointment, abandonment, frustration, being yourself, individuality, life struggles.

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This was so helpful! I have a mock tomorrow and, I feel a lot more reassured after reading this analysis. Thanks 🙂

No worries – good luck with the exam.

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Baldwin, Emma. "Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/stevie-smith/not-waving-but-drowning/ . Accessed 17 September 2024.

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Jayesh Sinha Member

A question about drowning.

Discussion in ' Research ' started by Jayesh Sinha , Jul 30, 2020 .

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); It is an important plot point in a story that a person drowns and I need some specifics cleared up. So let me explain the events without going into reasons for why these characters do what they do. '1' jumps in a lake to commit suicide, while '2' and '3' are near the lake. Neither knows how to swim. So 2 runs off to get help, while '3' takes a rowboat to where '1' is drowning. Now '2' takes a while to return with the help, and when he does he finds that '1' is lying on the bank of the lake and '3' is sitting next to him. The angle is that '3' was able to pull '1' onto the rowboat and brought him ashore, but even so, '1' had too much water in his lungs and died. When the doctor who comes with '2' checks on '1', he pronounces '1' has already drowned and dead Does this scenario seem plausible? If '1' drowned, then will '3' still have been able to bring him to the shore? Will '1' have necessarily sunk to the bottom of the lake upon drowning. If that is so then '3' would not have been able to bring the body to the shore. It is pivotal that it be believable that '3' brought the body of '1' to the shore after '1' drowned. Does this chain of events make sense? That '1' drowned but hadn't sunk underwater to the bottom yet, and '3' was able to get him on the boat. If not, how to fix this. Regards

Vandor76 Senior Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); It is not only plausible but unfortunately it happens in reality. A drowning person holds his breath as long as he can but at a point the breathing reflex takes over control and he tries to breathe underwater, eventually filling up his lungs. At this moment he is already doomed (without help) but still conscious (even if only barely) and tries to keep himself on the surface. If he is rescued now, his life may be saved by putting him in a position where his head is at the lowest point and pushing hard against his back (pushing water out from the lungs). There is not much time for this, because when you start this process his brain might be already without oxygen for minutes.

hankas New Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); I would like to add just one minor detail. It is not that easy to pull a drowned person onto the rowboat. The rowboat may flip. A safe way is to use a rope and pull the drowned person back to the shore, but how do you tie a rope on a person who does not want to be rescued and who is possibly unconscious?

OurJud Contributor Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); It's an interesting question and one I can't answer for sure. The getting them back to shore element I wouldn't have a problem with. You don't say where your POV is, so providing it's not with characters 3 and 1 (the drowning and rescuer) then you don't need to worry about how they got them back to shore. Now to whether or not a drowned person would sink or float. All I can say is that if the movies are to be believed, they float. Think of all those Westerns where we see a defeated baddie floating down the river. Now this may be because they died of a gunshot, but I've seen countless scenes in Westerns that feature two people fighting in a river, and one of them drowns the other before releasing their corpse and watching it float away with the current.

Hammer Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); I can offer some first-hand experience with this... Last year I was sitting in a riverside pub with a neighbour when someone sprinted past talking on the telephone - at first we thought he was a pretentious twat, but quickly realised that he had seen someone "fall" from a nearby bridge (a suicide attempt as it turned out) so we immediately got onto my boat and went to assist. My neighbour (in his seventies) was unable to lift the (unconscious) man onto the bathing platform but was able to hold him steady whilst I kept the boat from running aground and blocked a bridge arch so that the man wasn't hit by an unwitting boat coming downstream. Some lads in another pub, opposite, launched an inflatable and came to help - they were able to manhandle the man onto the dinghy and get him to shore to await the emergency services; so - yes, depending on the boat, it is possible to hoick an unconscious man out of the water, but you need strength or numbers. Our man was floating; I believe that humans will float for a while, get waterlogged and sink, then inflate as they start to decay inside and bob back up. I know what's worrying you, but, no, our beers weren't too warm to drink when we got back.... (and the emergency services were able to keep the man alive - his father turned up and thanked us all profusely, it wasn't the poor guy's first rodeo apparently)

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Hammer said: ↑ [...] so we immediately got onto my boat [...] Click to expand...

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); OurJud said: ↑ As I'm sure we all would Click to expand...

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Hammer said: ↑ One would hope... Click to expand...

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); OurJud said: ↑ No, I was trying to humorously highlight the way you casually dropped the fact you have a boat in there, but I don't think I pulled it off. Click to expand...

Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Hang on. If 2 and 3 are already on the lake, how does 2 get to shore? Do they row to shore, 2 hops out and 3 rows to where 1 is? Because that doesn't seem like a natural reaction. The natural thing to do is for both to row to 1, pick him up and then row to shore and call the emergency services.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Naomasa298 said: ↑ Hang on. If 2 and 3 are already on the lake, how does 2 get to shore? Do they row to shore, 2 hops out and 3 rows to where 1 is? Because that doesn't seem like a natural reaction. The natural thing to do is for both to row to 1, pick him up and then row to shore and call the emergency services. Click to expand...

Cdn Writer Contributor Contributor

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Interesting. I don't see how person #3 is going to pull person #1 out of the water and into the boat. Person #1 is going to be a limp, dead weight made heavier because their clothing is water logged. This could be addressed if person #3 loops some type of a rope harness around person #1's torso. It's not going to be perfect but.....the only other solution I see is for person #3 to hang on to person #1 themselves which brings up another problem..... being as this is a rowboat, how exactly does person #3 row back to shore while holding on to #1? **There have been documented reports of mothers pulling vehicles off their trapped kids, maybe some type of superhuman strength can kick in and help person #3 with the rescue but..... Hmm, take a look at the movie "Hacksaw Ridge" for how Desmond (last name???) was able to rescue so many injured soldiers. It's possible. People have won medals of honour and valour for doing impossible stuff.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Hi all, Thx a lot for your replies. I would like to address some of the points raised. 1) Yes it is a typo that 2 and 3 are 'on' the lake. They are near or by the lake. 2) 2 and 3 decide that rather than two non swimmers trying to rescue someone drowning, one of them may as well run to get from the town, which is very much running distance. 3) I see the main problem is not whether the person would sink or not. The fact that a person could drown and still be afloat seems plausible. The main issue is whether the person doing the rescue would be able to pull the body back up on the boat or not. What if the person who is drowning is a frail woman. Wouldn't that make the task easier for the person doing to rescue to haul them out of the water and onto the boat.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); the relative size and weights are certainly relative - as a 100kg ex rugby player I could almost certainly pull a frail 50kg body on board. The other way round... unlikely. There are lots of other variables; a "hard" rowing dinghy will tip alarmingly with the weight of two people (rescuer and rescued) on the gunwale, possibly taking on water and going down like a stone. A narrow, canoe-style boat would almost certainly do this. A flat-bottomed boat like a punt has a degree of form stability so won't tip as much, an inflatable boat still has a degree of buoyancy even when completely submerged. IMHO your scenario is certainly possible and believable; your primary task is to make the rescue so compelling that the reader isn't thinking hmm, is that even possible , he or she is simply rushing on with the story and crossing their fingers that the rescuee is ok.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Since the drowned person is going to die anyway, why not make the rescuer fails to pull the drowned person on board and has to use a rope and drags the person to the shore. So it may be possible to save the person but given the circumstances the rescuer has done his best.

Maggie May Active Member

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('funpub_e5b9f04a394c556d1d0d8cd4e57bcd33'); }); Does 2 or 3 have any training in rescue? First thing you are taught is NEVER get close to a drowning person. They will pull you down with them. You grab something for them to hold on to, such as an oar. 1 if they drown before 2 gets there, would sink at first. Until the body releases gases and then depending on the water temperature the body will float for a few days. Knowledge from a brief stint as a volunteer with search/rescue group. I agree it would be very difficult to drag a limp body into a boat. Might be able to tie the body to the boat and pull in or they don't die until they reach shore.

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Craft Essays
Teaching Resources

What Happens When You Drown

A month after your suicide, when I’ve quit fearing a return to routine would mean I never loved you, I restart my daily swims at the university aquatic facility.

The facility has two pools. Fitness , eleven-feet deep, where recent high school swim stars flash down cool-water lanes, chlorine-bleached hair tucked under bright swim caps. Leisure , four-feet deep at most, where professors emeriti freestyle with saggy arms, buzzed nineteen-year-olds aim an inflatable ball at a hoop, and soft-bellied mothers soak with swim-diapered infants in water near the temperature of a womb.

Before you died, I chose fitness and swam for forty minutes without stopping. Today, I choose leisure, slow-motion stroking down a lane roped off next to the hoop. I can put my feet down mid-lane when I start crying, and the warmth eases grief pains in my chest.

I use the breaststroke, the stroke you taught me, your teenage sister, fifteen years ago, after you took swimming lessons at age seven. In the pool, I think about the way my body mimics yours that day in a West Virginia lake, your suntanned hands parting brown water, your bitten-off toenails seeking purchase in the mud. I breaststroke with my head up, snapping turtle style, since no one taught you to plunge your head underwater.

After twenty minutes, I give up. I paddle to the edge and cling to the pool deck, knees between my torso and the concrete wall. You never saw this pool, but I see you in water. In the lake at seven, in our grandparents’ wood-framed aboveground pool at ten, your legs pockmarked from mosquitoes. In another university pool, the first time you tried to go to college, when you watched movies from an inner tube with a can of Coke. In the Atlantic Ocean, two years ago at Myrtle Beach, when you defied the shaggy-haired guy in the lifeguard chair and floated toward Portugal on a bodyboard.

When I climb out, I find myself standing in front of a chart taped to the shiny tile wall, warning swimmers about a way they can drown. I’ve read it before, idly curious, but now I study the steps: hyperventilation, O 2 drops, unconsciousness, drowning. Each panel features a dark-haired Caucasian man, drawn thin enough and young enough to resemble you at twenty-two. I imagine your black hipster glasses onto the young man, even though you didn’t swim in glasses, and your glasses were on your nightstand when you died.

In the first panel, the young man stands open-mouthed on the pool deck and “overbreathes,” from exhaustion or on purpose, gasping in O 2 , forcing out CO 2 , throwing off the balance in his bloodstream. In the second panel, he cavorts under blue water as his O 2 drops, legs kicking and arms outstretched. If he hadn’t overbreathed, his rising CO 2 levels would have triggered an automatic breath, sending him choking to the surface. Since he did overbreathe, his CO 2 levels can’t climb high enough to signal danger while he’s awake. Third, his CO 2 rises higher, and unconsciousness sets in suddenly. His limbs droop, his head points toward the bottom. In the final illustration, the young man is underwater, belly up, lungs full of water from a breath he took while unconscious, and I can tell from his face that he’s dead.

Dripping onto the pool deck, goose-pimpled arms squeezed across my chest, I feel closer to you than I have since you died. I know you didn’t drown; you hanged yourself in your closet. And unlike that clueless cartoon man, you knew what you were doing, or at least understood the orders your brain gave you in a post-manic moment of despair. But still, you died from a lack of oxygen, and this chart gives me a window into the last moments of your life.

One reason your death hurts so much is I feel shut out. You can’t tell me about it under buggy porch light on our parents’ deck, or even call me, storytelling between puffs on a Marlboro. And now here it is in front of me. Hyperventilation, O 2 drops, unconsciousness, drowning. The cartoon young man crouches in his closet, leather belt looped around the closet bar and his neck. O 2 drops, CO 2 rises. I watch you in the chart until my hair stops dripping and my swimsuit is nearly dry. __

Sarah Beth Childer s is the author of the essay collection Shake Terribly the Earth: Stories from an Appalachian Family . Her essays have also appeared in Pank, Colorado Review, Quiddity, Guernica, and elsewhere. Originally from Huntington, West Virginia, she now lives and writes in Stillwater, Oklahoma, where she teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA and PhD programs at Oklahoma State University, serves as the nonfiction editor of the Cimarron Review, and enjoys Oklahoma’s six-month outdoor swimming season.

Photo by Elizabeth Fackler

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Now I know what he felt back then. And why he wrote that song.

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It’s the kind of piece I’m going to read over and over again.


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What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)

Creative writing begins with a blank page and the courage to fill it with the stories only you can tell.

I face this intimidating blank page daily–and I have for the better part of 20+ years.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of creative writing with tons of examples.

What Is Creative Writing (Long Description)?

Creative Writing is the art of using words to express ideas and emotions in imaginative ways. It encompasses various forms including novels, poetry, and plays, focusing on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes.

Bright, colorful creative writer's desk with notebook and typewriter -- What Is Creative Writing

Table of Contents

Let’s expand on that definition a bit.

Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries.

It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.

In essence, creative writing lets you express ideas and emotions uniquely and imaginatively.

It’s about the freedom to invent worlds, characters, and stories. These creations evoke a spectrum of emotions in readers.

Creative writing covers fiction, poetry, and everything in between.

It allows writers to express inner thoughts and feelings. Often, it reflects human experiences through a fabricated lens.

Types of Creative Writing

There are many types of creative writing that we need to explain.

Some of the most common types:

Short stories
Screenplays
Flash fiction
Creative Nonfiction

Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Short stories are like narrative treasures.

They are compact but impactful, telling a full story within a limited word count. These tales often focus on a single character or a crucial moment.

Short stories are known for their brevity.

They deliver emotion and insight in a concise yet powerful package. This format is ideal for exploring diverse genres, themes, and characters. It leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Example: Emma discovers an old photo of her smiling grandmother. It’s a rarity. Through flashbacks, Emma learns about her grandmother’s wartime love story. She comes to understand her grandmother’s resilience and the value of joy.

Novels (The Long Journey)

Novels are extensive explorations of character, plot, and setting.

They span thousands of words, giving writers the space to create entire worlds. Novels can weave complex stories across various themes and timelines.

The length of a novel allows for deep narrative and character development.

Readers get an immersive experience.

Example: Across the Divide tells of two siblings separated in childhood. They grow up in different cultures. Their reunion highlights the strength of family bonds, despite distance and differences.

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Poetry expresses ideas and emotions through rhythm, sound, and word beauty.

It distills emotions and thoughts into verses. Poetry often uses metaphors, similes, and figurative language to reach the reader’s heart and mind.

Poetry ranges from structured forms, like sonnets, to free verse.

The latter breaks away from traditional formats for more expressive thought.

Example: Whispers of Dawn is a poem collection capturing morning’s quiet moments. “First Light” personifies dawn as a painter. It brings colors of hope and renewal to the world.

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Plays are meant for performance. They bring characters and conflicts to life through dialogue and action.

This format uniquely explores human relationships and societal issues.

Playwrights face the challenge of conveying setting, emotion, and plot through dialogue and directions.

Example: Echoes of Tomorrow is set in a dystopian future. Memories can be bought and sold. It follows siblings on a quest to retrieve their stolen memories. They learn the cost of living in a world where the past has a price.

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Screenplays outline narratives for films and TV shows.

They require an understanding of visual storytelling, pacing, and dialogue. Screenplays must fit film production constraints.

Example: The Last Light is a screenplay for a sci-fi film. Humanity’s survivors on a dying Earth seek a new planet. The story focuses on spacecraft Argo’s crew as they face mission challenges and internal dynamics.

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Memoirs provide insight into an author’s life, focusing on personal experiences and emotional journeys.

They differ from autobiographies by concentrating on specific themes or events.

Memoirs invite readers into the author’s world.

They share lessons learned and hardships overcome.

Example: Under the Mango Tree is a memoir by Maria Gomez. It shares her childhood memories in rural Colombia. The mango tree in their yard symbolizes home, growth, and nostalgia. Maria reflects on her journey to a new life in America.

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Flash fiction tells stories in under 1,000 words.

It’s about crafting compelling narratives concisely. Each word in flash fiction must count, often leading to a twist.

This format captures life’s vivid moments, delivering quick, impactful insights.

Example: The Last Message features an astronaut’s final Earth message as her spacecraft drifts away. In 500 words, it explores isolation, hope, and the desire to connect against all odds.

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Creative nonfiction combines factual accuracy with creative storytelling.

This genre covers real events, people, and places with a twist. It uses descriptive language and narrative arcs to make true stories engaging.

Creative nonfiction includes biographies, essays, and travelogues.

Example: Echoes of Everest follows the author’s Mount Everest climb. It mixes factual details with personal reflections and the history of past climbers. The narrative captures the climb’s beauty and challenges, offering an immersive experience.

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Fantasy transports readers to magical and mythical worlds.

It explores themes like good vs. evil and heroism in unreal settings. Fantasy requires careful world-building to create believable yet fantastic realms.

Example: The Crystal of Azmar tells of a young girl destined to save her world from darkness. She learns she’s the last sorceress in a forgotten lineage. Her journey involves mastering powers, forming alliances, and uncovering ancient kingdom myths.

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

Science fiction delves into futuristic and scientific themes.

It questions the impact of advancements on society and individuals.

Science fiction ranges from speculative to hard sci-fi, focusing on plausible futures.

Example: When the Stars Whisper is set in a future where humanity communicates with distant galaxies. It centers on a scientist who finds an alien message. This discovery prompts a deep look at humanity’s universe role and interstellar communication.

Watch this great video that explores the question, “What is creative writing?” and “How to get started?”:

What Are the 5 Cs of Creative Writing?

The 5 Cs of creative writing are fundamental pillars.

They guide writers to produce compelling and impactful work. These principles—Clarity, Coherence, Conciseness, Creativity, and Consistency—help craft stories that engage and entertain.

They also resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore each of these critical components.

Clarity makes your writing understandable and accessible.

It involves choosing the right words and constructing clear sentences. Your narrative should be easy to follow.

In creative writing, clarity means conveying complex ideas in a digestible and enjoyable way.

Coherence ensures your writing flows logically.

It’s crucial for maintaining the reader’s interest. Characters should develop believably, and plots should progress logically. This makes the narrative feel cohesive.

Conciseness

Conciseness is about expressing ideas succinctly.

It’s being economical with words and avoiding redundancy. This principle helps maintain pace and tension, engaging readers throughout the story.

Creativity is the heart of creative writing.

It allows writers to invent new worlds and create memorable characters. Creativity involves originality and imagination. It’s seeing the world in unique ways and sharing that vision.

Consistency

Consistency maintains a uniform tone, style, and voice.

It means being faithful to the world you’ve created. Characters should act true to their development. This builds trust with readers, making your story immersive and believable.

Is Creative Writing Easy?

Creative writing is both rewarding and challenging.

Crafting stories from your imagination involves more than just words on a page. It requires discipline and a deep understanding of language and narrative structure.

Exploring complex characters and themes is also key.

Refining and revising your work is crucial for developing your voice.

The ease of creative writing varies. Some find the freedom of expression liberating.

Others struggle with writer’s block or plot development challenges. However, practice and feedback make creative writing more fulfilling.

What Does a Creative Writer Do?

A creative writer weaves narratives that entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

Writers explore both the world they create and the emotions they wish to evoke. Their tasks are diverse, involving more than just writing.

Creative writers develop ideas, research, and plan their stories.

They create characters and outline plots with attention to detail. Drafting and revising their work is a significant part of their process. They strive for the 5 Cs of compelling writing.

Writers engage with the literary community, seeking feedback and participating in workshops.

They may navigate the publishing world with agents and editors.

Creative writers are storytellers, craftsmen, and artists. They bring narratives to life, enriching our lives and expanding our imaginations.

How to Get Started With Creative Writing?

Embarking on a creative writing journey can feel like standing at the edge of a vast and mysterious forest.

The path is not always clear, but the adventure is calling.

Here’s how to take your first steps into the world of creative writing:

Find a time of day when your mind is most alert and creative.
Create a comfortable writing space free from distractions.
Use prompts to spark your imagination. They can be as simple as a word, a phrase, or an image.
Try writing for 15-20 minutes on a prompt without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow freely.
Reading is fuel for your writing. Explore various genres and styles.
Pay attention to how your favorite authors construct their sentences, develop characters, and build their worlds.
Don’t pressure yourself to write a novel right away. Begin with short stories or poems.
Small projects can help you hone your skills and boost your confidence.
Look for writing groups in your area or online. These communities offer support, feedback, and motivation.
Participating in workshops or classes can also provide valuable insights into your writing.
Understand that your first draft is just the beginning. Revising your work is where the real magic happens.
Be open to feedback and willing to rework your pieces.
Carry a notebook or digital recorder to jot down ideas, observations, and snippets of conversations.
These notes can be gold mines for future writing projects.

Final Thoughts: What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is an invitation to explore the unknown, to give voice to the silenced, and to celebrate the human spirit in all its forms.

Check out these creative writing tools (that I highly recommend):

Recommended Tools	Learn More
Jasper AI
Show Not Tell GPT
Dragon Professional Speech Dictation and Voice Recognition
Surface Laptop
Bluehost
Sqribble (eBook maker)

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The Creative Penn

Writing, self-publishing, book marketing, making a living with your writing

Stories Are What Save Us: Writing About Trauma With David Chrisinger

posted on August 23, 2021

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:59 — 48.8MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More

Writing can help us process trauma — whatever that means for you — as well as help others through our words. In this episode, David Chrisinger explains why stories can save us.

In the intro, thoughts on print distribution [ Jane Friedman ]; Hachette's acquisition of Workman and why backlist is key [ The New Publishing Standard ]; Your Author Business Plan ; The Magic Bakery .

Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid , writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna .

David Chrisinger is an award-winning nonfiction author and teaches writing at the University of Chicago. His latest book is Stories Are What Save Us: A Survivor's Guide to Writing About Trauma .

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

What is trauma and how is it different for different people?
How to write about trauma without suffering further
Is it possible to write a factual memoir?
Tips for creating space between you and the ‘character’ you are writing about
How do we deal with people who might be hurt by what we write?

You can find David Chrisinger at DavidChrisinger.com and on Twitter @StrongerAtBP

Transcript of interview with David Chrisinger

Joanna: David Chrisinger is an award-winning nonfiction author and teaches writing at the University of Chicago. His latest book is Stories Are What Save Us: A Survivor's Guide to Writing About Trauma . Welcome, David.

David: Thank you so much for having me.

Joanna: It's great to have you on the show.

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing.

David: I sometimes joke that I'm about a million miles from where I thought I was going to be when I started college because I went to college initially to be either a wildlife or a forest manager. And I even got certified to fight wildlife and forest fires.

For whatever reason, I realized halfway through that, it was more of an interest or a hobby, it wasn't really a passion. And there were so many students that I was in classes with who I knew I was going to have to compete someday for a job and they were going to win. And so, I tried to think of, well, what do I think I can be the best at? What can I put everything into?

I settled on art and history. So, I did 3D art and focused on modern American and European history, and wrote lots of papers, obviously, in college. And it was my sophomore year that I took a historical methods course, actually doing historical research. And that's where I think I really caught the writing bug.

I started to see history as this story that people told that was based on evidence, and interviews, and dozens of other kinds of records . And it was a way of people making sense of something. And there was just something about that, that really connected with me. And so I decided I wanted to be a history professor.

I graduated from college as the great recession was starting. And it turned out to be a pretty bad year to apply to graduate programs. I got in to the University of Chicago. I did my Master's degree and then had a heart-to-heart with an advisor who said I think the academic job market's not coming back and you should really think of doing something else.

I had no plan B. But he suggested I start looking for jobs in the federal government, maybe in public policy. A lot of social science folks end up in that sort of route.

And that's what landed me at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is basically the research department, the evaluation department for Congress, and wrote a lot of reports and testimonies and had to really learn how to connect with an audience, with a reader that doesn't have the same expertise or the same experience that the researchers have.

And I started doing my own writing. It's been a very serendipitous journey to writing, and not something I intended to do from an early age.

Joanna: I think that's fascinating. And it's interesting because you mentioned history as a story. And I guess that's also what we're talking about in terms of what survivor means, and what trauma means, and what our writing is because when we write our writing's only ever from one perspective, but as you say, we are connecting with an audience. I can see how your various interests have come together, which is fascinating.

Let's get into the topic of the book because I think the word trauma, particularly at this time in history, is quite a difficult word. When people say trauma, it has very, very heavy connotations, maybe a very bad injury or experience of war.

What is trauma? How can the experience of what is traumatic differ between people, especially in these times?

David: It was 2017 I think the dictionary.com labeled trauma as the word of the year. That was something at least in the United States that was starting to get a lot more attention.

When I set out to write this book, it was one of those things where the timing lined up in a really odd way. And trust me, I would not have wished for a pandemic to try to help with book sales here, but I think the idea that we've all experienced something that is on that scale of trauma.

Now, there are things that are undeniably, clinically, by definition, traumatic. Like you mentioned, combat, people who survive sexual assaults, natural disasters, these situations where your life is really at risk.

And then on the other side of that scale, there are experiences where, let's say, I behaved in a way that I'm not proud of or something outside of my control happened to me that changed the course of my life or helped me to see the world in a different way, not everyone's going to call that trauma.

So I try to be pretty clear in the beginning of the book, that it's not really my job as a teacher and it's not really a reader's job to say, ‘Oh, that wasn't traumatic. Or, that doesn't matter because it's not as bad as this other thing.'

There's this really famous quote from Viktor Frankl, who is a Holocaust survivor and a psychotherapist, and he said, ‘Trauma behaves much like a gas.' So if you were to pump gas into a box, it doesn't matter how big that box is, the gas is going to expand to fill the space. That's what trauma does, too.

If it's something that's knocked you off the course of your life or something that makes you feel less whole than you used to feel, then to me, that's the sign that there's a story there.

There's a story that when you're ready to tell it, other people are going to want to hear.

Joanna: I think this is so important. And I was reading your book, and I felt this several times during the pandemic. it's like, “I'm having a really difficult time right now but my life is very good compared to other people. So I feel guilty about labeling this in any way bad for me.”

And I say that because I feel like a lot of writers have the same experience or a lot of people have the same experience, which is, “oh, what's happened to me isn't as bad as what's happened to X other person.” And even different people who go through a similar experience, someone might come out of that traumatized and another person can just write it off as not a big deal.

Personal perspective is so key, isn't it, in terms of both your experience and also the reader's experience?

David: That's exactly right. And I would add to that when we set out or when I set out to write a story, that there's going to be some kind of, let's just call it trauma, whether it's what other people would agree is trauma or not, beside the point, if I want to write about that. Obviously, that thing that happened or that experience that I had is going to be central to the story but it's not the whole story.

And part of what I think makes personal essay writing and memoir so exciting to write and also so exciting to read is you can imagine yourself in the author's position . How would I react to that? If that happened to me or what step would I take if I had survived that?

It's almost like a computer simulation as you're reading it. When I read a memoir, I'm not there to be voyeuristic of someone's trauma. And in fact, that sometimes makes me feel quite uncomfortable as a reader if I'm starting to feel voyeuristic.

What I'm looking for in those stories is, okay, how did this person change? How did they react to this situation? What did they learn? How are they different?

That's really where some of the ideas from this book came from, or, what were the kind of stories that resonated with me. And lots of times it was that there was a point to them. There was a reason why the person was sharing that story more than to say, ‘Here's what happened,' which lots of times, that's a very appropriate thing to do, especially when you are documenting real traumatic events.

It's incredibly important to say, here's what happened. But when we're talking about these kind of personal essays, memoirs, I think the thing that keeps the reader engaged is what did you learn from that?

Joanna: From the perspective of the person writing, so forget about publication and readers, we can talk about them in a minute but in terms of just writing:

Why is writing about trauma a helpful thing and how can we write about these dark and difficult times without going through more suffering or even drowning in these memories?

David: One of the most prolific researchers and writers, let's call them, about this topic, has this rule that he calls the freakout rule, which is anytime that you want to express yourself in writing, if you start to feel that panic or that wave of depression, that freakout, that's a signal from your body that you're just probably not ready to do that kind of writing . And you should listen to it.

The way that I sometimes explain this to students is it's sort of like exercise. If there's a little bit of burn, then you know you're doing it right. But if it's painful, you need to stop. That means you're doing something that's not good for your body.

Sometimes it's just a matter of kind of figuring out, well, what experience or what thing do you want to write about that you've got a little distance from , you have a little perspective, you can approach it from different vantage points? That can be a really good topic to start writing about in the style that I teach in this book.

The research that's been done on these sorts of practices, it points to a lot of different results and a lot of maybe potential causes for why writing can be so helpful. But some of the leading theories, if you will, show that by writing a story, you're bringing coherence to it. You're wrapping your arms around something that seemed fragmented or sort of discombobulated even.

And that there's a real pleasure and a real benefit to being able to articulate something in a coherent way . Our brains want to do that, naturally. And sometimes trauma impacts the brain's ability to do that. And so, forcing yourself to wrap your arms around it can be really, really helpful.

I think it was Joan Didion, who said, ‘I need to write to understand what I think about something.' I know that's true for me as well, that sitting down to write a story helps me work through, ‘What do I really think about that? And how did I feel at that moment? And why was I feeling that way? Did it have something to do with the relationship that I had with that person? Is there something unexplored that I haven't thought about and maybe I need to start thinking about.'

It's using writing almost as a way to get ideas out onto the page and, again, to make sense of it.

And then there's just the idea, and I think this is true, as well of unloading that emotional burden onto the page, even if it's momentary.

I know when I write something down, whether it's in a Word document or in a journal, I know it's there and I know I don't have to constantly be thinking about it anymore or trying to remind myself of it. So I think there's a psychic weight loss that also happens with this kind of writing.

Joanna: I totally agree with you. And as you were talking now, I think there's often a mode of a person's preferred expression. And obviously, you're a writer. I'm a writer, people listening are generally writers, as this is a podcast for writers, but I feel like sometimes people say, ‘You could go to therapy.' And I'm like, ‘Well, do you know what, I don't really talk my issues. I write my issues.'

My first husband, this was over a decade ago… I'm happily in my second marriage now. But my first husband left me and I have a whole load of journals from that time. And I read them and I don't even recognize the person in those journals. As you say, it all comes out on the page.

It was about a year, I closed the last book on that and it doesn't hurt now to look back. And yet when I open one of those journals, I'm like, ‘Whoa, who is that person?' So writing this down and I haven't published any of those, by the way, they were just journals but it is almost a preferred mode. If someone wants to talk or someone wants to create art, or someone wants to dance, or however you express your feelings and work through that, and for some people it's writing.

David: I think that's totally true. I'm curious when you go back and read some of those things, do you feel very differently than the feelings that you put on the page or are those still kind of close anyway?

Joanna: No, they're like another person. As in I read them, I can see it's my handwriting, but I can't even access all the kind of self-destructive stuff and that, say, hate and things, terrible poetry, all the things that I wrote down , then, it's almost like I exorcised it onto the page.

By putting it there, it exists there, not in my head. I feel like it was very healing for me to do that. And of course divorce is an incredibly common thing. But my parents got divorced and I feel that they were traumatized by that experience.

Where I don't feel I'm traumatized because I almost dealt with it by writing, which is why it's so powerful.

David: That's so interesting. I feel very similar, when I go back to read things, I have that thought of, ‘Who was I when I was feeling this way?' I had a therapist once who told me about this mental trick, I guess you could call it.

She called it the fives or the five questions or something like that, where she said, ‘When you're feeling these really intense feelings, ask yourself, ‘Is this going to matter in five minutes? Is it going to matter in five hours? Is it going to matter in five days,' right, and you just keep going, maybe five years is where you cut it off.'

That can sometimes give you enough perspective to say, ‘Okay, I had a really, really bad morning, but this probably isn't going to matter in a few days.' And just to get that perspective. Sometimes I think it's helpful to do that with the subject matter of the things I want to write about is this something that is still affecting me more than five years after it happened? That might be an indication that I need to work through it , right, that it's big enough, it has enough of an effect on my day-to-day life that I haven't buried it, I haven't made sense to that, I haven't wrapped my arms around it.

Whereas, when you're in that moment and you're thinking, ‘All this rage is pouring out onto the page and this feels so good. And someone should read this.' Are you sure that you're going to want someone to be able to read that five years from now?

Angie Ricketts wrote the afterword for my book. This is something her and I talk about all the time, that her memoir, she sold a proposal for the memoir and the publisher had it in their mind that this book had to come out at a very, very specific time to kind of hit the book club, list creation time. And there was also a TV show that was very popular that was related to the same topic, and we wanted to have that available at the same time.

So she ended up having to write the memoir in three months. And she spent the first two months panicking about it. And then finally, in the last month, really sat down to write it. Her memoir is written in present tense because she had all the journals and the diaries from all the years that she was writing about.

The book has this immediacy to it and it's unfolding before your face to impact on the reader. And now, when we talk, she says the same thing you did, ‘I read that, and I don't even know who that person was.'

I asked her a similar question, ‘Do you wish you maybe wouldn't have put it out into the world?' And she said, ‘No, absolutely not,' because what that book does is it gives this snapshot of who she was as a person at that time. And the fact that she doesn't feel like that person anymore, is a sign that the writing did something for her.

It helped her get past some of those things and look at them in a different way. And she also said there are things in her book that maybe she would rewrite now, if she was doing a second edition or something. She said lots of people were frustrated or upset about things that she wrote, but that no one called her a liar. And that was the definition of success for her at that time was to just get it out onto the page. But now, if she sat down to write, it would be a very different book.

Joanna: You're going to have to tell us the name of that book now.

David: Angie's book is called No Man's War . And Angie was married to an army officer who deployed I believe it was nine times to Iraq and Afghanistan. And so the book is about her life as an army wife.

Joanna: You mentioned the word liar there.

Truth and lies and something in between, I feel is very difficult in memoir or as you said, personal essay because our memories are attached to emotions.

We experience something from our perspective. I completely appreciate that my own journals about my divorce are not my ex-husband's perspective. But this is a question that I keep coming back to.

Just so you know, I've written over 30 books now, none of them are memoir. I have a memoir in progress. So I think about this a lot. How can we even tell or can we write things that serve the story beneath the story, as you call it? Does everything need to be factually true?

David: So this is where my journalism friends will probably disagree with me but my memoir and personal essay friends will agree.

I think the premise itself is probably not exactly accurate. I'm not convinced that I can write a totally objective, factually correct story. I just don't know that my human brain is capable of doing that because like you said, when we remember things, there are emotions tied to it.

There are also ways that our body copes with traumatic experiences that results in memories being stored in weird ways and fragmentation. And there's just tons of things that happen in the brain during a traumatic experience, that, I think having the standard of, I'm going to write something that is objectively fact-based and evidence-based and true, is maybe just something that's not possible with this kind of writing.

Now, I think that there's a freedom and kind of a beauty in recognizing that and leaning into it for lack of a better phrase. So when I write, I try to be very transparent about whether this is something I remembered, whether this was something based on evidence or based on a document or based on a letter, for example, or if this is something I had recorded or had preserved in some other way.

I try to be transparent about where the information is coming from and also being careful not to put emotions onto other people or to try to speculate about what they are thinking or feeling unless there's a point to me speculating, to maybe show the reader that I can't read this situation. I'm not sure if this person is feeling this or feeling that, and giving the reader an opportunity to collect the evidence themselves and maybe come to their own conclusion.

It's not fun, I don't think for the average reader to be told everything constantly. It's also, I think, pleasurable, frankly, to read something and know that the author is trusting you to come to your own conclusion or is okay with you bringing yourself to the story and making sense of it in your own way.

Now, if I am writing a scene, let's say, and I have no documentation except my memory, I'm going to be really clear about that.

If it's something that I think happened or that I'm pretty sure happened or I know it happened, but I don't know the details of it, that's when I might start looking for corroborating evidence.

Can I find a picture of the setting where this happened? That's from that period. Can I say something factual about what things look like there? Can I find information? Let's say the scene is across the street from an ice cream shop, can I then say, ”Well, it smelled like waffle cone.' I better make sure that that place sells waffle cones.

There's this kind of detective or investigative work that I actually find quite enjoyable as a writer, where I'm searching for those sensory details and I'm searching for the essence of a place or of a person. What can we infer from someone's letters, for example, about how they felt or about who they were?

We can make those inferences and we can make those speculations but we also want to show, I think, where the evidence comes from and how we got to that conclusion, again, to show that we're not just making stuff up. But I think that the key is transparency and then also thinking about, well, if I wanted to write the scene, what details would I need and how can I find those?

Joanna: It's interesting because as part of writing novels, sensory detail is so critical for getting deep into a character's point of view. And you talk about this in the book is turning ourselves into a character in a story but this is so difficult in terms of this is me. Yes, you could write in first person, like, I think you mentioned your friend did. But even if you do, you still have to almost create the character that is you at whatever point in your life you're writing about. How can we do this?

What are your tips for separating ourselves enough and how would we tell the story with this character?

David: I'll say two things. So the first is, I am sure you picked up on this in my own writing, but I'm pretty honest about my own failings, and my own shortcomings, and character flaws, and even times where I regret how something happened, I regret my behavior, I try to be as honest as I can about what happened, not in a defensive way, but in a descriptive way of showing that I'm not that reliable of a narrator in most cases.

I think a reader really appreciates seeing a narrator as flawed, that this isn't a book of here are all the ways that I'm so smart and smarter than you, and you should listen to me. It's about, I've made these mistakes too or these things have happened to me too, or I had this bad reaction in this situation.

So that's the first thing I think is it's important to present yourself as a three-dimensional human, flawed, wonderful, beautiful, sometimes ugly person. And giving that same kind of grace and that same perspective to the other characters in your book as well.

I have this good writing friend of mine who said you don't have to call someone a jerk in your writing. You can just describe what they do. And if that is how a jerk behaves, your reader will come to that conclusion. You don't have to tell them someone is a jerk.

And at the same time presenting yourself, like I said, as someone who can do no wrong is not really that interesting, I don't think. I like to see when people roll up their sleeves and say, ‘Here's my scar and here's how I got it.” Now, so that's the first thing.

Second thing is I'm an outline writer. That's how my brain works. That's how I have to do it. I know that's not true for everyone. So if you're a writer who writes by the seat of your pants, this might sound really awful. But for the outlining folks I try to first understand the action in a story in a paragraph.

So, this is how the story starts, here are the ways that the tension builds, this is the big crisis moment, here's how things get resolved. I want to have that understanding of a story before I start writing.

Then the next step is okay, well, I have to show either myself or I have to show other people acting in the story. What are the things that the reader is going to want to know or that they need to know about those characters to make sense of what's happening in the story or to make sense of the action that the character takes?

The example I use in the book is a friend of mine wrote a book about a trip that I went on with him. And in the first few pages of the chapter where he introduces me, he mentions my weight three separate times. I played football in college. I'm a bigger guy. I'm 6'4′, about 250-some pounds. And he makes this comment about three different times in the beginning of the chapter. And when I read it, I thought, ‘Why is he doing this? I am more than just my body weight.'

Then, towards the end of the chapter, he has this climactic scene where we're in the middle of this really terrible storm that could have really ended the trip. I had to drag our canoe that was full of supplies, about 500 pounds worth of supplies. I had to pull it straight up the side of a hill.

And so when I asked him, ‘Why did you keep bringing up my weight?' He said, ‘I wanted people to believe that you could actually do that, that you could pull this canoe up the side of a hill. And I felt like if I didn't stress that you're a big strong guy, then people wouldn't believe it or they would doubt my claim.'

So it's sort of almost like reverse engineering.

I want to show how this person acted. Why do I think they did that and what are the details that I can present about them? What are the little vignettes that I can present? What are the anecdotes that maybe will help explain this behavior just a little bit to the reader?

That's where I'm going to start, is figuring out what are those little quirks, those little things about the character, that you can see this when you're a seasoned storyteller. You see this in movies and TV and stories where you learn this detail about someone and you think, ‘Oh, this is going to come back? This is going to come back at some point.' This is a clue of how they're going to behave later.

Those are the sorts of things I look for. And then it's a matter of making sure that character, whether it's yourself or someone else is a real like three-dimensional character and that they're not all good. They're not all bad. And there are a bunch of stuff in between.

Joanna: This is what's so hard, I think, with memoir and story because when I create a novel, and I'm a discovery writer, by the way. I prefer the term discovery writer.

David: Oh, I like that. Going to use that now.

Joanna: Yes, definitely use it. We're trying to change the language away from seat of the pants or pantser, which is just such a terrible word and very American, because, of course, pants is underwear here in England.

David: Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense.

Joanna: When I write a novel, I create a character that fits my plot or my narrative, why did this bad person do the bad thing, like, blow up the world or whatever? And it's easy to choose the vignette to support my story.

But you're talking there about, you mentioned grace for the other characters, but we can't write three-dimensional characters for everyone in this book. So, for example, your example with your weight or your build in your friend's book, it wasn't about you. The book wasn't about you. So that was one detail that didn't encapsulate your entire self.

Now, one of the things I get a lot of emails from people writing memoir, people worried about either getting sued if they've written something that could be taken the wrong way by people in a serious way or just damaging friendships or relationships by taking a particular point of view.

Let's say you were actually offended about comments about your size and then you just didn't talk to that friend anymore, or whatever. So you can see, especially in these times where people get quite wound up on social media.

What are your thoughts on the concern of offending people or getting sued, and how do we portray other characters, especially with trauma, because these are going to be difficult relationships?

David: I struggle with this. I don't want to present myself as the expert who's got it all figured out. But I can share maybe some of the influences that I think about.

There's this great American writer named William Zinsser, who wrote a book called On Writing Well , and he makes this point about memoir where he says, let's say you write your story and your sister gets really upset about it, you can tell her that she can write her own memoir if she doesn't like it. So there's that kind of this is my story and I don't care what you think about it sort of approach.

That feels to my Midwestern sensibilities, that feels like really aggressive and mean. The other side of the spectrum is only writing things that people find flattering or that they would be happy or at least not upset about the world knowing. And I do think that there are times in which it does pay to give that kind of deference to a character.

For example, when I'm doing a more journalistic piece and I'm writing about someone and I am not a character in the piece, this is a story completely about them, I will run the story by them. I won't send them the story so that they can read it word for word. I will read it to them either on Zoom or on a phone. And I'll read the details that are about them.

I always say, the reason I'm calling here is because I want to make sure that there's nothing factually inaccurate about what I'm saying. But at the same time, I want you to know that I get to decide how this affects the story . So if I then started saying, ‘Okay, here's this scene where I talk about how you did X,' and the person might say, ‘Well, that's not exactly how I felt. What I really thought was this.'

That might be something I definitely want to change that because I don't want to mischaracterize how they felt. Now, if I make a judgment about the person, and they say, ‘Well, I don't like that judgment,' then that means not something I will change unless they can give me information that would change my mind about the judgment.

Now, when I'm writing about myself and there are other characters in the book or in the story that I'm related to, or that I'm friends with, or that I teach, or whatever the relationship is, I always try to make sure that the story is from my perspective, that I'm not trying to tell their story in my story. I want to present things from my vantage point, from my perspective.

From there, I want to try to figure out what were they thinking? What were they feeling? I think the only way to really do that, if the person's living, of course, is to interview them and to ask those questions. I've done that with several members of my family. There are lots of stories in the book from my family. I had questions and I asked for answers, and I probed for details. I asked them to describe things.

That became my evidence for the thing that I wrote. Now, I know that there are big differences in libel laws between the UK and the U.S., I want to say that that's much more of a concern in the UK. I don't want to advise anyone on legal precedent for what they can say, but I try to use that that criteria that Angie told me about, which is someone might be upset with me, but as long as they don't think I lied, that's the thing that I'm looking for.

Then the other question you have to ask is how important is the relationship to you?

There are, I think, reasons to write about people in a way where it's like, ‘Well, if you wanted me to write a better story about you, you should have treated me better.' If you wanted to be the hero in my story, then you should have been the hero in my story.

I would never suggest that someone should gloss over or sugarcoat someone's flaws, just because that would upset them. Because at the end of the day, it's really your story and you trying to understand what you went through, and then trying to communicate that with other people so that they can understand too.

And like I said, if you present a character for who they are, the reader will come to that conclusion on their own . And it will feel more natural and less of an attack. And, for lack of a better word, it's sort of like, well, this is what happened and this is how I felt about it.

There are times then where you might want to incorporate what other people were thinking and feeling, and times when you might not want to. And that's really, totally up to the writer to make that decision.

I don't necessarily have rules that I follow, but I try to listen to the feeling I get when I'm writing something. And if I start to feel like, oh, they're not going to like this, then I want to interrogate that. Why aren't they going to like it? Is it because I'm being too harsh or is it because this is really embarrassing for them and they know it? Okay, well, if it's really embarrassing for them and they know it, and they've tried to make amends or apologize, how can I put that into the story or how can I give this context that would leave a reader thinking, ‘Wow, that was a really difficult situation, but it sounds like they're in a better place?'

If that's the case. If it's not, don't invent that, right? Don't try to invent a resolution when there isn't one. Sometimes stories don't really end. Another story begins.

Joanna: Yeah, absolutely. And memoir never ends, I think until we're dead.

David: For sure.

Joanna: There's always another book. So that was fantastic.

David, tell us where people can find you and your book and everything you do online.

David: Thank you so much. I have a website, davidchrisinger.com . You can find all my latest stuff there, upcoming events, other books I've written articles, what have you.

In terms of buying the book, obviously, there's Amazon. In the United States, indiebound.com is a great resource as well. You can buy books from your local bookstores. I'm not sure who to point you to in the UK, but the publisher is Johns Hopkins University Press. I think that's the best way to find it.

Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, David. That was great.

David: All right. Thank you.

Reader Interactions

August 23, 2021 at 8:36 pm

Your idea as a “Discovery Writer” is novel to me. I like it very much.

Thank you, Joanna, for this great interview. Mr David Chrisinger came across as very charming and personable. I liked in particular, his style of resolving writing issues. I learned a lot from this interview. Thank you!

August 24, 2021 at 12:59 am

I’m glad you enjoyed it, Stephen!

August 24, 2021 at 9:10 am

Thank you Joanna, you’re approach to your ‘chaos’ was very helpful…onwards and upwards

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Last updated on Feb 14, 2023

10 Types of Creative Writing (with Examples You’ll Love)

About the author.

Reedsy's editorial team is a diverse group of industry experts devoted to helping authors write and publish beautiful books.

About Savannah Cordova

Savannah is a senior editor with Reedsy and a published writer whose work has appeared on Slate, Kirkus, and BookTrib. Her short fiction has appeared in the Owl Canyon Press anthology, "No Bars and a Dead Battery".

About Rebecca van Laer

Rebecca van Laer is a writer, editor, and the author of two books, including the novella How to Adjust to the Dark. Her work has been featured in literary magazines such as AGNI, Breadcrumbs, and TriQuarterly.

A lot falls under the term ‘creative writing’: poetry, short fiction, plays, novels, personal essays, and songs, to name just a few. By virtue of the creativity that characterizes it, creative writing is an extremely versatile art. So instead of defining what creative writing is , it may be easier to understand what it does by looking at examples that demonstrate the sheer range of styles and genres under its vast umbrella.

To that end, we’ve collected a non-exhaustive list of works across multiple formats that have inspired the writers here at Reedsy. With 20 different works to explore, we hope they will inspire you, too.

People have been writing creatively for almost as long as we have been able to hold pens. Just think of long-form epic poems like The Odyssey or, later, the Cantar de Mio Cid — some of the earliest recorded writings of their kind.

Poetry is also a great place to start if you want to dip your own pen into the inkwell of creative writing. It can be as short or long as you want (you don’t have to write an epic of Homeric proportions), encourages you to build your observation skills, and often speaks from a single point of view .

Here are a few examples:

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The ruins of pillars and walls with the broken statue of a man in the center set against a bright blue sky.

This classic poem by Romantic poet Percy Shelley (also known as Mary Shelley’s husband) is all about legacy. What do we leave behind? How will we be remembered? The great king Ozymandias built himself a massive statue, proclaiming his might, but the irony is that his statue doesn’t survive the ravages of time. By framing this poem as told to him by a “traveller from an antique land,” Shelley effectively turns this into a story. Along with the careful use of juxtaposition to create irony, this poem accomplishes a lot in just a few lines.

“Trying to Raise the Dead” by Dorianne Laux

A direction. An object. My love, it needs a place to rest. Say anything. I’m listening. I’m ready to believe. Even lies, I don’t care.

Poetry is cherished for its ability to evoke strong emotions from the reader using very few words which is exactly what Dorianne Laux does in “ Trying to Raise the Dead .” With vivid imagery that underscores the painful yearning of the narrator, she transports us to a private nighttime scene as the narrator sneaks away from a party to pray to someone they’ve lost. We ache for their loss and how badly they want their lost loved one to acknowledge them in some way. It’s truly a masterclass on how writing can be used to portray emotions.

If you find yourself inspired to try out some poetry — and maybe even get it published — check out these poetry layouts that can elevate your verse!

Song Lyrics

Poetry’s closely related cousin, song lyrics are another great way to flex your creative writing muscles. You not only have to find the perfect rhyme scheme but also match it to the rhythm of the music. This can be a great challenge for an experienced poet or the musically inclined.

To see how music can add something extra to your poetry, check out these two examples:

“Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen

You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well, really, what's it to ya? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Metaphors are commonplace in almost every kind of creative writing, but will often take center stage in shorter works like poetry and songs. At the slightest mention, they invite the listener to bring their emotional or cultural experience to the piece, allowing the writer to express more with fewer words while also giving it a deeper meaning. If a whole song is couched in metaphor, you might even be able to find multiple meanings to it, like in Leonard Cohen’s “ Hallelujah .” While Cohen’s Biblical references create a song that, on the surface, seems like it’s about a struggle with religion, the ambiguity of the lyrics has allowed it to be seen as a song about a complicated romantic relationship.

“I Will Follow You into the Dark” by Death Cab for Cutie

If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks Then I'll follow you into the dark

You can think of song lyrics as poetry set to music. They manage to do many of the same things their literary counterparts do — including tugging on your heartstrings. Death Cab for Cutie’s incredibly popular indie rock ballad is about the singer’s deep devotion to his lover. While some might find the song a bit too dark and macabre, its melancholy tune and poignant lyrics remind us that love can endure beyond death.

Plays and Screenplays

From the short form of poetry, we move into the world of drama — also known as the play. This form is as old as the poem, stretching back to the works of ancient Greek playwrights like Sophocles, who adapted the myths of their day into dramatic form. The stage play (and the more modern screenplay) gives the words on the page a literal human voice, bringing life to a story and its characters entirely through dialogue.

Interested to see what that looks like? Take a look at these examples:

All My Sons by Arthur Miller

“I know you're no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.”

Arthur Miller acts as a bridge between the classic and the new, creating 20th century tragedies that take place in living rooms and backyard instead of royal courts, so we had to include his breakout hit on this list. Set in the backyard of an all-American family in the summer of 1946, this tragedy manages to communicate family tensions in an unimaginable scale, building up to an intense climax reminiscent of classical drama.

💡 Read more about Arthur Miller and classical influences in our breakdown of Freytag’s pyramid .

“Everything is Fine” by Michael Schur ( The Good Place )

“Well, then this system sucks. What...one in a million gets to live in paradise and everyone else is tortured for eternity? Come on! I mean, I wasn't freaking Gandhi, but I was okay. I was a medium person. I should get to spend eternity in a medium place! Like Cincinnati. Everyone who wasn't perfect but wasn't terrible should get to spend eternity in Cincinnati.”

A screenplay, especially a TV pilot, is like a mini-play, but with the extra job of convincing an audience that they want to watch a hundred more episodes of the show. Blending moral philosophy with comedy, The Good Place is a fun hang-out show set in the afterlife that asks some big questions about what it means to be good.

It follows Eleanor Shellstrop, an incredibly imperfect woman from Arizona who wakes up in ‘The Good Place’ and realizes that there’s been a cosmic mixup. Determined not to lose her place in paradise, she recruits her “soulmate,” a former ethics professor, to teach her philosophy with the hope that she can learn to be a good person and keep up her charade of being an upstanding citizen. The pilot does a superb job of setting up the stakes, the story, and the characters, while smuggling in deep philosophical ideas.

Personal essays

Our first foray into nonfiction on this list is the personal essay. As its name suggests, these stories are in some way autobiographical — concerned with the author’s life and experiences. But don’t be fooled by the realistic component. These essays can take any shape or form, from comics to diary entries to recipes and anything else you can imagine. Typically zeroing in on a single issue, they allow you to explore your life and prove that the personal can be universal.

Here are a couple of fantastic examples:

“On Selling Your First Novel After 11 Years” by Min Jin Lee (Literary Hub)

There was so much to learn and practice, but I began to see the prose in verse and the verse in prose. Patterns surfaced in poems, stories, and plays. There was music in sentences and paragraphs. I could hear the silences in a sentence. All this schooling was like getting x-ray vision and animal-like hearing.

This deeply honest personal essay by Pachinko author Min Jin Lee is an account of her eleven-year struggle to publish her first novel . Like all good writing, it is intensely focused on personal emotional details. While grounded in the specifics of the author's personal journey, it embodies an experience that is absolutely universal: that of difficulty and adversity met by eventual success.

“A Cyclist on the English Landscape” by Roff Smith (New York Times)

These images, though, aren’t meant to be about me. They’re meant to represent a cyclist on the landscape, anybody — you, perhaps.

Roff Smith’s gorgeous photo essay for the NYT is a testament to the power of creatively combining visuals with text. Here, photographs of Smith atop a bike are far from simply ornamental. They’re integral to the ruminative mood of the essay, as essential as the writing. Though Smith places his work at the crosscurrents of various aesthetic influences (such as the painter Edward Hopper), what stands out the most in this taciturn, thoughtful piece of writing is his use of the second person to address the reader directly. Suddenly, the writer steps out of the body of the essay and makes eye contact with the reader. The reader is now part of the story as a second character, finally entering the picture.

Short Fiction

The short story is the happy medium of fiction writing. These bite-sized narratives can be devoured in a single sitting and still leave you reeling. Sometimes viewed as a stepping stone to novel writing, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Short story writing is an art all its own. The limited length means every word counts and there’s no better way to see that than with these two examples:

“An MFA Story” by Paul Dalla Rosa (Electric Literature)

At Starbucks, I remembered a reading Zhen had given, a reading organized by the program’s faculty. I had not wanted to go but did. In the bar, he read, "I wrote this in a Starbucks in Shanghai. On the bank of the Huangpu." It wasn’t an aside or introduction. It was two lines of the poem. I was in a Starbucks and I wasn’t writing any poems. I wasn’t writing anything.

Creative Writing Examples | Photograph of New York City street.

This short story is a delightfully metafictional tale about the struggles of being a writer in New York. From paying the bills to facing criticism in a writing workshop and envying more productive writers, Paul Dalla Rosa’s story is a clever satire of the tribulations involved in the writing profession, and all the contradictions embodied by systemic creativity (as famously laid out in Mark McGurl’s The Program Era ). What’s more, this story is an excellent example of something that often happens in creative writing: a writer casting light on the private thoughts or moments of doubt we don’t admit to or openly talk about.

“Flowering Walrus” by Scott Skinner (Reedsy)

I tell him they’d been there a month at least, and he looks concerned. He has my tongue on a tissue paper and is gripping its sides with his pointer and thumb. My tongue has never spent much time outside of my mouth, and I imagine it as a walrus basking in the rays of the dental light. My walrus is not well.

A winner of Reedsy’s weekly Prompts writing contest, ‘ Flowering Walrus ’ is a story that balances the trivial and the serious well. In the pauses between its excellent, natural dialogue , the story manages to scatter the fear and sadness of bad medical news, as the protagonist hides his worries from his wife and daughter. Rich in subtext, these silences grow and resonate with the readers.

Want to give short story writing a go? Give our free course a go!

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Perhaps the thing that first comes to mind when talking about creative writing, novels are a form of fiction that many people know and love but writers sometimes find intimidating. The good news is that novels are nothing but one word put after another, like any other piece of writing, but expanded and put into a flowing narrative. Piece of cake, right?

To get an idea of the format’s breadth of scope, take a look at these two (very different) satirical novels:

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I wished I was back in the convenience store where I was valued as a working member of staff and things weren’t as complicated as this. Once we donned our uniforms, we were all equals regardless of gender, age, or nationality — all simply store workers.

Creative Writing Examples | Book cover of Convenience Store Woman

Keiko, a thirty-six-year-old convenience store employee, finds comfort and happiness in the strict, uneventful routine of the shop’s daily operations. A funny, satirical, but simultaneously unnerving examination of the social structures we take for granted, Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman is deeply original and lingers with the reader long after they’ve put it down.

Erasure by Percival Everett

The hard, gritty truth of the matter is that I hardly ever think about race. Those times when I did think about it a lot I did so because of my guilt for not thinking about it.

Erasure is a truly accomplished satire of the publishing industry’s tendency to essentialize African American authors and their writing. Everett’s protagonist is a writer whose work doesn’t fit with what publishers expect from him — work that describes the “African American experience” — so he writes a parody novel about life in the ghetto. The publishers go crazy for it and, to the protagonist’s horror, it becomes the next big thing. This sophisticated novel is both ironic and tender, leaving its readers with much food for thought.

Creative Nonfiction

Creative nonfiction is pretty broad: it applies to anything that does not claim to be fictional (although the rise of autofiction has definitely blurred the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction). It encompasses everything from personal essays and memoirs to humor writing, and they range in length from blog posts to full-length books. The defining characteristic of this massive genre is that it takes the world or the author’s experience and turns it into a narrative that a reader can follow along with.

Here, we want to focus on novel-length works that dig deep into their respective topics. While very different, these two examples truly show the breadth and depth of possibility of creative nonfiction:

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

Men’s bodies litter my family history. The pain of the women they left behind pulls them from the beyond, makes them appear as ghosts. In death, they transcend the circumstances of this place that I love and hate all at once and become supernatural.

Writer Jesmyn Ward recounts the deaths of five men from her rural Mississippi community in as many years. In her award-winning memoir , she delves into the lives of the friends and family she lost and tries to find some sense among the tragedy. Working backwards across five years, she questions why this had to happen over and over again, and slowly unveils the long history of racism and poverty that rules rural Black communities. Moving and emotionally raw, Men We Reaped is an indictment of a cruel system and the story of a woman's grief and rage as she tries to navigate it.

Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker

He believed that wine could reshape someone’s life. That’s why he preferred buying bottles to splurging on sweaters. Sweaters were things. Bottles of wine, said Morgan, “are ways that my humanity will be changed.”

In this work of immersive journalism , Bianca Bosker leaves behind her life as a tech journalist to explore the world of wine. Becoming a “cork dork” takes her everywhere from New York’s most refined restaurants to science labs while she learns what it takes to be a sommelier and a true wine obsessive. This funny and entertaining trip through the past and present of wine-making and tasting is sure to leave you better informed and wishing you, too, could leave your life behind for one devoted to wine.

Illustrated Narratives (Comics, graphic novels)

Once relegated to the “funny pages”, the past forty years of comics history have proven it to be a serious medium. Comics have transformed from the early days of Jack Kirby’s superheroes into a medium where almost every genre is represented. Humorous one-shots in the Sunday papers stand alongside illustrated memoirs, horror, fantasy, and just about anything else you can imagine. This type of visual storytelling lets the writer and artist get creative with perspective, tone, and so much more. For two very different, though equally entertaining, examples, check these out:

Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson

"Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success, flat stretches of boring routine and valleys of frustration and failure."

A Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. A little blond boy Calvin makes multiple silly faces in school photos. In the last panel, his father says, "That's our son. *Sigh*" His mother then says, "The pictures will remind of more than we want to remember."

This beloved comic strip follows Calvin, a rambunctious six-year-old boy, and his stuffed tiger/imaginary friend, Hobbes. They get into all kinds of hijinks at school and at home, and muse on the world in the way only a six-year-old and an anthropomorphic tiger can. As laugh-out-loud funny as it is, Calvin & Hobbes ’ popularity persists as much for its whimsy as its use of humor to comment on life, childhood, adulthood, and everything in between.

From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

"I shall tell you where we are. We're in the most extreme and utter region of the human mind. A dim, subconscious underworld. A radiant abyss where men meet themselves. Hell, Netley. We're in Hell."

Comics aren't just the realm of superheroes and one-joke strips, as Alan Moore proves in this serialized graphic novel released between 1989 and 1998. A meticulously researched alternative history of Victorian London’s Ripper killings, this macabre story pulls no punches. Fact and fiction blend into a world where the Royal Family is involved in a dark conspiracy and Freemasons lurk on the sidelines. It’s a surreal mad-cap adventure that’s unsettling in the best way possible.

Video Games and RPGs

Probably the least expected entry on this list, we thought that video games and RPGs also deserved a mention — and some well-earned recognition for the intricate storytelling that goes into creating them.

Essentially gamified adventure stories, without attention to plot, characters, and a narrative arc, these games would lose a lot of their charm, so let’s look at two examples where the creative writing really shines through:

80 Days by inkle studios

"It was a triumph of invention over nature, and will almost certainly disappear into the dust once more in the next fifty years."

Named Time Magazine ’s game of the year in 2014, this narrative adventure is based on Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. The player is cast as the novel’s narrator, Passpartout, and tasked with circumnavigating the globe in service of their employer, Phileas Fogg. Set in an alternate steampunk Victorian era, the game uses its globe-trotting to comment on the colonialist fantasies inherent in the original novel and its time period. On a storytelling level, the choose-your-own-adventure style means no two players’ journeys will be the same. This innovative approach to a classic novel shows the potential of video games as a storytelling medium, truly making the player part of the story.

What Remains of Edith Finch by Giant Sparrow

"If we lived forever, maybe we'd have time to understand things. But as it is, I think the best we can do is try to open our eyes, and appreciate how strange and brief all of this is."

This video game casts the player as 17-year-old Edith Finch. Returning to her family’s home on an island in the Pacific northwest, Edith explores the vast house and tries to figure out why she’s the only one of her family left alive. The story of each family member is revealed as you make your way through the house, slowly unpacking the tragic fate of the Finches. Eerie and immersive, this first-person exploration game uses the medium to tell a series of truly unique tales.

Fun and breezy on the surface, humor is often recognized as one of the trickiest forms of creative writing. After all, while you can see the artistic value in a piece of prose that you don’t necessarily enjoy, if a joke isn’t funny, you could say that it’s objectively failed.

With that said, it’s far from an impossible task, and many have succeeded in bringing smiles to their readers’ faces through their writing. Here are two examples:

‘How You Hope Your Extended Family Will React When You Explain Your Job to Them’ by Mike Lacher (McSweeney’s Internet Tendency)

“Is it true you don’t have desks?” your grandmother will ask. You will nod again and crack open a can of Country Time Lemonade. “My stars,” she will say, “it must be so wonderful to not have a traditional office and instead share a bistro-esque coworking space.”

An open plan office seen from a bird's eye view. There are multiple strands of Edison lights hanging from the ceiling. At long light wooden tables multiple people sit working at computers, many of them wearing headphones.

Satire and parody make up a whole subgenre of creative writing, and websites like McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and The Onion consistently hit the mark with their parodies of magazine publishing and news media. This particular example finds humor in the divide between traditional family expectations and contemporary, ‘trendy’ work cultures. Playing on the inherent silliness of today’s tech-forward middle-class jobs, this witty piece imagines a scenario where the writer’s family fully understands what they do — and are enthralled to hear more. “‘Now is it true,’ your uncle will whisper, ‘that you’ve got a potential investment from one of the founders of I Can Haz Cheezburger?’”

‘Not a Foodie’ by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell (Electric Literature)

I’m not a foodie, I never have been, and I know, in my heart, I never will be.

Highlighting what she sees as an unbearable social obsession with food , in this comic Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell takes a hilarious stand against the importance of food. From the writer’s courageous thesis (“I think there are more exciting things to talk about, and focus on in life, than what’s for dinner”) to the amusing appearance of family members and the narrator’s partner, ‘Not a Foodie’ demonstrates that even a seemingly mundane pet peeve can be approached creatively — and even reveal something profound about life.

We hope this list inspires you with your own writing. If there’s one thing you take away from this post, let it be that there is no limit to what you can write about or how you can write about it.

In the next part of this guide, we'll drill down into the fascinating world of creative nonfiction.

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