I've been through it....but I can't describe it.

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celticroots

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This is concerning a WIP I am working on which my MC self-harms. I have experience with self-harm, why I do it, how I feel before and after. I know the reasons why my MC harms, but I am having a really hard time describing how she feels before and after harming in writing. Those areas will likely be re-written over and over again.

Or how she can explain what her harming means to her without it being an info dump.

I feel like an idiot because I am writing about a subject I have experience with yet have trouble portraying it in writing.
 

Tazlima

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Personally, I find writing from life more difficult than creating a story from scratch. It's like putting your nose against the TV screen, you're too close to see clearly.

The solution that I've found effective is being completely blunt. This isn't the place for eloquent prose and clever turns of phrase. Just speak plainly and leave nothing out. Those sections that you feel weird and awkward writing? The ones that you think take things too far? Leave them in and be brutally, painfully honest. Whatever you do, don't sugarcoat them. Those are the things that will grab readers and pull them into the story.

YMMV.
 
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Silenia

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If it makes it easier for you to write it, keep in mind that not everyone self-harms for the same reasons. Her reasons need not be yours. Her feelings need not be yours. Even if her reasons are yours, her feelings need not be the exact same.

I used to self-harm because I was desperate to feel anything and pain was better than the all-consuming numbness I was otherwise feeling. Self-harming made me feel alive. I used to self-harm because feeling something, even pain, signified to me that I was still standing. Damaged but not broken. My scars are neither badges of honour nor of shame but simply a part of me--relics of something that at the time helped me survive just as much as my lungs or heart do.
I neither hide them nor call attention to them. They just are and if someone sees them it is not any more relevant to me than if anyone sees a scar that wasn't self-caused.

One of my friends self-harmed out of guilt, because he felt unworthy, felt he had to punish himself for what he saw as transgressions, flaws, sins. To him, each scar represented shame and guilt. Probably still does, even if I haven't spoken him for years. He hid his scars and became very upset if someone noticed them.

A good online friend told me that she used to, for a relatively short time (years before I knew her), self-harm as a plea for help. Although she hid the wounds and scars, part of her wished for someone to see them. To notice that something was wrong, that she needed help. She told me that looking back, she was getting more and more sloppy in hiding them not out of complacency but because she wanted them to be seen; wished for someone to intervene and get her the help she was at that time unable to ask for.
 

Darron

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You may or may not like this, but what I see isn't trying to talk about the SI, but how to show not tell. It is something I still need to work heavily on in my WIP, but if you're writing about this, then think about what your body did when you were in that place. Did you pause at the beginning to plan it out? Did you randomly laugh? Did you twitch or feel your heart race just thinking about what to do tonight? Idk, just trying to think how you could show it better. I typed something up trying to show what I mean:

Tightening her hand around the brush, Kelley gave a brief pause listening for footsteps inside the house. The first swing was always the hardest. Teeth clenching in anticipation she landed the broadside just above the knee. Gasping, “That stings, damn it.”

Kelley twisted the brush and tried again. The thinner sides felt better. Dropping her shoulders in relief, Kelly hurried to finish before neighbors noticed the garage light on. “This one is for math and history,” She muttered switching to her left leg. Another grading period at school was ending and another slam for more and more work was just beginning.

Rubbing her eyes, Kelley hobbled back inside. She shook her leg every few steps to fire up the bruising muscles and feel good again. Back in her bed, Kelley snuggled whispering, “and it’s only Tuesday.”
 

PandaMan

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This is concerning a WIP I am working on which my MC self-harms. I have experience with self-harm, why I do it, how I feel before and after. I know the reasons why my MC harms, but I am having a really hard time describing how she feels before and after harming in writing. Those areas will likely be re-written over and over again.

Or how she can explain what her harming means to her without it being an info dump.

I feel like an idiot because I am writing about a subject I have experience with yet have trouble portraying it in writing.

Back when I was college I volunteered as a counselor. I had to help several young women with this problem. It can be caused by many things, but it's often centered around some family dynamic or boyfriend issue. That was decades ago and I'm sure our understanding of this phenomena has greatly expanded since then.

You make it not an info-dump by putting it in a scene with your character doing and feeling it in real story time.

I'd advise you to write out everything you can about your experiences in stream-of-conscience style. Continue page after page until you see a sentence, fragment, or word, that rings true.

Better yet, pretend you are your character and do the same thing.

You'll eventually get there with the writing. Just keep at it, and at it, and at it.
 

Torill

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Some great advice here already - I was just thinking re the infodump: does she need to be fully aware of why she self-harms and what it means at the time of doing it? Or is that something she can gradually come to realise over the course of the story?

Also, show what it means through showing in what sort of situation she selfharms, what the trigger event or feeling is, and what sort of emotional reaction she has (as in guilt vs relief) etc. Then the readers may draw the conclusions themselves.

Do you write in first person? Then instead of having her explain the whole thing to herself in one long monologue (people seldom do that about anything in their lives), let her have short comments and thoughts about it, spread out over the course of the story, that will eventually add up and paint the whole picture.
 

Once!

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I don't know anything about self harm, but it reminded me of this passage from Wuthering heights:

As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, ‘Let me in!’ and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear.

I must have first read this around thirty years ago, but I can still remember it. The thing that I remember is not lots and lots of detail. We only get one or two details and our imagination does the rest.

By all means infodump to get your feelings onto paper. But when you are writing it you may find that you need fewer details than you think.
 

celticroots

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Some great advice here already - I was just thinking re the infodump: does she need to be fully aware of why she self-harms and what it means at the time of doing it? Or is that something she can gradually come to realise over the course of the story?

Also, show what it means through showing in what sort of situation she selfharms, what the trigger event or feeling is, and what sort of emotional reaction she has (as in guilt vs relief) etc. Then the readers may draw the conclusions themselves.

Do you write in first person? Then instead of having her explain the whole thing to herself in one long monologue (people seldom do that about anything in their lives), let her have short comments and thoughts about it, spread out over the course of the story, that will eventually add up and paint the whole picture.


Yes I do write in first person. First person present tense.
 

Roxxsmom

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I agree with the others who say we're often too close to our own experiences to describe them accurately.

One thought. Is it possible to find and read the accounts of other people who have experienced self cutting? Maybe they can add some perspective to your own experiences, and they could possibly give you a new way of looking at it or describing it.

Another thought is that the inability to accurately describe or completely articulate one's own experience with this, not to mention extreme discomfort from trying to do so, could actually be a completely authentic way of handling it in your story for your pov character too.
 
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Tazlima

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Another thought is that the inability to accurately describe or completely articulate one's own experience with this, not to mention extreme discomfort from trying to do so, could actually be a completely authentic way of handling it in your story for your pov character too.

Oooh, good point!
 

Jamesaritchie

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The best writing always comes from personal experience, even if that experience is disguised as fantasy, or SF, or horror, or you name it. But the sad fact about writing is that we often have to do the best we can, and let it go at that. The second best writing, which is sometimes as good as personal experience, is when the writer uses the personal experience of others.

Getting anything right isn't easy. We fool ourselves when writing something we know nothing about, something we haven't personally experienced. Trust me, those who have experienced something will not find it realistic, unless the writer has been through some aspect of it, or is good enough and smart enough to use the experience of those who have been through it.

You can't just fake anything, and still get it right.

All you can do is the best you can do. You may never be satisfied with how you get if down in print. Few are. What matters is that you come close enough to let others understand the basics.

But it boils down to the fact that it's never easy getting anything right. Making it all up means you don't know whether it's right or not. Just do your best, and let it go at that. It's probably better than you think.

We're never too close to write it well, we're just to close to know we're writing it well.
 

G.G. Rebimik

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The best writing always comes from personal experience, even if that experience is disguised as fantasy, or SF, or horror, or you name it. But the sad fact about writing is that we often have to do the best we can, and let it go at that. The second best writing, which is sometimes as good as personal experience, is when the writer uses the personal experience of others.

Getting anything right isn't easy. We fool ourselves when writing something we know nothing about, something we haven't personally experienced. Trust me, those who have experienced something will not find it realistic, unless the writer has been through some aspect of it, or is good enough and smart enough to use the experience of those who have been through it.

You can't just fake anything, and still get it right.

All you can do is the best you can do. You may never be satisfied with how you get if down in print. Few are. What matters is that you come close enough to let others understand the basics.

But it boils down to the fact that it's never easy getting anything right. Making it all up means you don't know whether it's right or not. Just do your best, and let it go at that. It's probably better than you think.

We're never too close to write it well, we're just to close to know we're writing it well.

Well said, James! This was very helpful.
 
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