I'm trying to finish the first draft of my first attempt at crime fiction. One of the characters has a badly injured leg, and I have to decide whether to amputate it or not. He’s a fit sort of bloke, in his mid-thirties, and I'm planning on having him in at least one more novel.

I’d really like to explore the emotional impact it would have on him, but worry that, in the longrun it could become a bit tedious for me to work with the fact of his disability.

The alternative is to have the leg saved by something like maggot therapy – which he would hate but would have to accept, so would be potentially a more interesting slant.

Any thoughts?

Dee

Have you watched House?
Hugh Laurie's character has problems on and off with his leg where he lost a lot of thigh muscle due to a blood clot and is in constant pain and addicted to pain killers.
You could save the MC's leg but he continues to have problems (like osteomyelitis (oozing pus) or pain from muscle death), so he struggles with the decision of whether to keep it or have it lopped off.
It is a decision a lot of injured motorcyclists have had to face.

No, I haven’t, but I will now. I hadn’t really considered that saving the leg would lead to long-term problems, so that’s a good angle to go for. Thank you!

Dee, there's a Monica Dickens novel called The Happy Prisoner where the MC - it's 3rd person but wholly his PoV - is recovering from having his leg amputated. Dickens was a nurse in the war and knows what she's talking about medically and psychologically. She's slightly off the radar these days, but she's a really good,intelligent, well-written, middle-of-the-road read.

I find nursing textbooks much more helpful than you'd think for this kind of thing, because unlike medical ones, good nursing is very holistic, and even textbooks talk a lot about the patient's attitudes and experiences.

Emma

Thanks, Emma. I’ll get that.

I recently invested in a nursing textbook the size and cost of a bungalow. It will be very useful when I get down to the detail.

Dee

It is that size, but well worth it. I bought one after I had to replot a whole novel after mis-guessing how long a broken leg takes to mend. And it comes in handy for throwing at burglars and underpinning the house...

Emma

Your best bet is to find someone who has had a leg amputated. There will be aspects of coming to terms with the operation and whether or not to go through with it that you probably haven't yet considered, and might never even think of - especially in coming to terms with things post-op and learning to live with a disability, dealing with related depression and anxiety and all the physical side effects.

in the longrun it could become a bit tedious for me to work with the fact of his disability.

(frowns) That's pretty bad, Dee.

Wot, like Heather Mills, Colin?

95% of amputees, I discovered, experience the phantom limb phenonenon. It became one of the main threads of symbolism in TMOL.

I have to say that I found it made things much easier if he was a below-knee amputee (especially when it came to sex) so I gave him his knee back half-way through the first draft.

Emma

95% of amputees, I discovered

sorry, read that and smiled. Couldn't shake the image of you discovering loads of amputees at the bottom of the garden.

Naomi - I never noticed the pun. I wasn't frowning at that, but the idea that Dee could find see writing about a character with a disability becoming tedious.

read that and smiled.

Just goes to show that sometimes correct punctuation is a disaster!

but the idea that Dee could find see writing about a character with a disability becoming tedious.

Colin, I'm sure she didn't mean that, but that in building a novel something like that can make things complicated just when you don't want them to be.

But I have to say that I found it very useful in TMOL. On the whole, to my suprise, I quite naturally remembered it when there was a point it could help to make, and forgot about it more-or-less when he would. I've not had any feedback that said people didn't believe in it.

Emma

Sorry, missed the pun too, Colin. I was just dying to mention Heather Mills.

Sorry, Colin, I really didn’t mean that the way it came across to you. It’s not that I think the disability itself could prove tedious – I’d like to think I'm not that crass. It’s more, as Emma said, that going through a whole new novel trying to bear in mind how that sort of disability might affect the plot and the character’s actions, might become wearing - and ultimately result in unsatisfactory writing.

However, I'm encouraged by Emma’s experience.. to be honest, Emma, I'd forgotten he had a prosthesis… so it worked for me in the sense that it didn’t seem out of place or laboured. I recently read a Phillipa Gregory novel where one of the characters had lost both his legs; it wasn’t explained and contributed nothing to the story so, for me, that didn’t work because I was waiting for some connection which never came.

Again, Colin, I'm sorry if I offended you. I didn’t for one minute mean that a disability is tedious.

Dee

Dee, Yes, I'm glad you forgot about Stephen, if you see what I mean.

The whole thing came about because in the very first novel I ever wrote I broke the MCs leg as a plot manoeuvre, and then realised that I had to take it into account whatever I made her do for the rest of the story. There was suddenly a whole thing about her finding it difficult to get across the room, or needing help to do something she didn't need help for before, or when it started to ache, or where she'd parked her crutches...

As the plot was powered by her undoing the past and shedding the armour she'd built around a core of unhappiness, making her suddenly vulnerable in that way became really important. So when I was beginning to develop Stephen, with a not entirely dissimilar story, it seemed the natural way to go. There were moments when I suspect in real life things would get comical, in a very bleak, wince-making way. I chose not to go down that route because it was the wrong tone for his narration, but there's a lot of potential there, too.

Emma

Dee, a while ago I read a real-life article on the internet by a guy who lost several toes. He was an alpinist and lost them to frostbite. It was a very moving piece and it was additionally difficult for him in that he didn't get so much sympathy for his injury and was alone in coping. Something like that might be a good half-way house if it's appropriate. If you think that might be interesting I could look up the link for you.