Don’t you hate seeing people in action movies always hit in the arm or the leg and they just soldier on and kill the bad guys?  Who among us can take a slug to the arm and leg and not react? Writing realistic injuries is very important to me.  I have a guy hit in the arm in one of my novels.  He gets infected and barely survives after an emergency amputation.  Real people, no matter how heroic, succumb to blood loss and shattered bones with shock or at least limited ability to function.

The so-called flesh wound is no fun at all.  If it hit bone or an organ, you will die right away, or slowly from infection and gangrene.  If it just hits flesh, you have a terrible jagged tear, full of bacteria, blood loss and pain.  Just think about the last time you had surgery, or even had a tooth filling.  Without any pain medicine or treatment would you just laugh that off?  I think not.  As an author, I have to be true to the scene.  Sometimes that means a favorite character loses a limb, an eye, has months to recuperate, or even gets vaporized.  It is not fun to realize your story needs carnage to those you have grown to love, but it is worse to have them miraculously survive.

Later I can talk about the .38 snub nose shooting someone off a ten story roof, or the machine gun firing 100 rounds at point blank and missing the hero…

There is a very helpful link below, but first, two pictures, a bit grisly, of real gunshot “flesh wounds” to demonstrate you might want to make them a bit more serious in your stories:

Shoulder Flesh Wound

Forearm Flesh Wound

Here is a great link to very detailed analysis of properly writing realistic injuries:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7RMh43/:16YPDdasi:Tj+VIpVd/www.users.totalise.co.uk/~leiafee/ramblings/realistic_injuries.htm/

Writing Realistic Injuries
By Leia Fee, with additions by Susannah Shepherd

Quick Contents

Introduction
General remarks
What’s  normal?
Reactions to injury – including emotional reactions, fainting and shock.
Minor injuries – such as bruises, grazes and sprains
Head injuries – from  black eyes to severe concussions
Broken bones
Dislocated joints
Cutting and Piercing – for various locations, including blood loss symptoms and figures.
Blunt trauma – getting hit, internal injuries.
Burns – including electrical burns
Hostile environments – such as extreme cold and heat, oxygen deprivation and exposure to vacuum.
References – useful websites.