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Q&A Effective techniques for describing pain

I've noticed something in writing: it's difficult to convey pain, and even specific types of pain, to an audience who's comfortably sitting at home in an easy chair. I can hardly imagine pain unt...

3 answers  ·  posted 12y ago by ElizaWy‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question technique
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:46:28Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/7460
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar ElizaWy‭ · 2019-12-08T02:46:28Z (about 5 years ago)
I've noticed something in writing: it's difficult to convey pain, and even specific types of pain, to an audience who's comfortably sitting at home in an easy chair.

I can hardly imagine pain until I'm injured myself, in fact. The sting of freezing never hits home until I find myself on a mountain slope. I've no problem with the situational tension, but conveying the suffering (sharp or aching, burning or freezing, immediate or escalating) seems to be harder.

What techniques can I use to really make the audience empathetic? What's proven to be the most effective? Something prose-based? Reactionary? Who writes pain extremely well?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-03-18T03:52:06Z (almost 12 years ago)
Original score: 19