Writing About Pain: Different Types to Explore
“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
-The Dread Pirate Roberts
Pain is an unfortunate part of life. As our characters go about their day—working, building relationships, pursuing goals and dreams, blowing off steam—things won’t always go as planned, and they will be hurt. When it comes to how quickly and fully they heal, a lot will depend on their pain response. But first we need to know the kind of suffering they’re dealing with.
Kinds of Pain
Most of us know about physical and emotional pain, but there are more types to consider. And consider them you must if you want to know which makes the most sense for your character in a given scene and in the kind of story you’re writing. So let’s take a look at the categories of pain that are common for all people and are at your disposal for your fictional humans.
Physical Pain
Put simply, physical pain is the neurological response to bodily harm caused by illness or injury. The severity of this and any other kind of pain will depend on its source. If you step on a LEGO, you’ll feel pain, but the quality, intensity, and length will be different than if you’re catapulted through a windshield during a car crash. The same is true of pain associated with an illness; the discomfort resulting from a sinus infection headache will vary vastly from the pain associated with shingles (as I can unfortunately attest to).
Emotional Pain
This can be described as intense and harrowing emotions in the wake of a difficult experience. Divorce, the death of a loved one, victimization, or paralysis in the face of an agonizing decision can all trigger emotional pain in the form of sadness, heartache, grief, self-doubt, or nostalgia. Rather than feeling an ache in our physical bodies, this kind of pain is felt in our emotions. But it’s just as unpleasant as physical discomfort, prompting us to pull away from the source and make the pain stop.
Psychological Pain
Closely related to emotional discomfort, this kind of pain goes deeper, into the realm of mental and emotional suffering. Shame, regret, depression, despair, PTSD, and anxiety are just a few examples. While emotional and psychological pain are similar, a major difference is that while the former tends to be temporary, the latter takes longer to resolve and often requires more dedicated measures, such as therapy or medication.
Social Pain
Social pain is a form of emotional pain that results from relational conflict, bullying, social rejection, or being separated from loved ones. It can also be referred to as interpersonal pain because it’s caused by certain interactions with the people around us. This kind of pain can cause the person to feel isolated, excluded, and devalued.
Spiritual Pain
As humans, we have physical bodies and emotions, but we’re spiritual beings as well, and negative impacts on the spirit can result in spiritual pain. Situations that threaten a person’s faith, shake their moral code and their ideas about right and wrong, or cause them to doubt their purpose in life can cause spiritual distress.
Chronic Pain
This specific form of physical pain is often associated with a chronic illness or injury. It’s defined by its persistence as it carries on for many months or years despite treatment. As such, chronic pain can be especially detrimental, eventually leaching into other areas and spawning emotional, psychological, social, and/or spiritual distress on top of the prolonged physical pain.
Tips for Writing These Categories of Pain
Now that you’re aware of the different kinds of pain that exist, you can decide what will make the most sense for your character. But there are a few more things to keep in mind if you want to write this universal human experience authentically and believably.
The Pain Types Don’t Always Happen in Isolation
Stepping on a LEGO, as physically uncomfortable as it may be, isn’t likely to result in other kinds of pain. But more serious situations can result in your character experiencing multiple types of pain at once. Take a physical assault, for example. In the moment, your character will feel pain in their body, but also in their emotions if they struggle with feelings of embarrassment, self-blame, or worthlessness. If the assault occurs in a public place—say, at school—they could experience social pain. If the abuser is a religious figure or mentor, spiritual pain may become a factor, as well.
Whatever’s happening to your character, research those events carefully to understand exactly what they’ll be going through. Then you can focus on the best details from the various categories to show their pain to readers.
Pain Categories Are Often Progressive
A car accident may start with minor physical pain. But what happens when the character discovers that their distracted driving killed someone else? What if the physical discomfort worsens into something chronic?
However the pain begins, the specifics of the root event can determine how it progresses—if it festers or causes other kinds of suffering to develop. Just as many emotions follow a natural progression (from irritation to frustration to anger to rage, for instance), one kind of pain can be followed by another, especially as time passes and the character has time to process what’s happened.
Pain Responses Should Be Tailored to the Character
Responses to pain will vary from one character to another, depending on a number of considerations. Personality, past experiences, and the character’s current support system are just a few of the factors that will determine how they deal with their pain—if they’re facilitating healing or are responding in a way that’s making things worse. (We’ll look at this more deeply in the 6th post of this series.) The best way to write your character’s pain responses believably is to learn as much as possible about your character so you’ll know how they’re likely to respond.
Put The Emotional Wound Thesaurus to Work
If your character’s pain is coming from a traumatic event, this database at One Stop for Writers may have already done some of the research for you. It covers a variety of wounding events that could have befallen your character, and all the pain categories are covered. (See a complete list here.) So put it to use to brainstorm possible causes for your character’s pain and how they reasonably could respond to it. And for easy reference, you can also find a new tip sheet at One Stop on the different pain categories.
Other Posts in the Writing About Pain Series
The Three Stages of Awareness
Coming up: Describing Minor Injuries
The post Writing About Pain: Different Types to Explore appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.
The Bookshelf Muse is a hub for writers, educators and anyone with a love for the written word. Featuring Thesaurus Collections that encourage stronger descriptive skills, this award-winning blog will help writers hone their craft and take their writing to the next level.
Source: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2023/08/writing-about-pain-different-types-to-explore/
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