E is for Exhaustion
Feb. 21st, 2013 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snowynightI don't want to type any more. Even effort to make me lift my fingers to type seems to be too much for me. But there're thousand miles to go, thousand miles to go. My brain yearns for a shut down. But no, even yearning takes too much effort. I'm totally apathetic to everything around me. Nothing matters any more, any more.
Exhaustion can be mental or physical. Your muscles refuse to perform any more, even when your brain will it. You hear a cry for help, but you have been saving and losing people for too long, you just don't care any more. The cause of exhaustion can be undersleep, intense physical or mental exercises or diseases. Rest can relieve fatique, but usually our beloved characters never get a break from it any way. It's a miracle most have the energy to open their eyes, face the next morning and think of the tasks they need to do. It can also be used to great effect in hurt/comfort fic, to examine the real consequence of the continuous stress they endured in canon, to make them feel more real. After all, we all feel exhaustion some time in our lives.
Writing about exhaustion can be difficult as your characters are apathetic to anything thrown in their life and passive in their response, and it's hard to write about the negative. They may not collapse dramatically, but it's wise to write in small gestures. They oversteps, pouring milk into the rubbish bin other than their coffee cup, their muscle tensed, their eyes red-rimmed and so on. They lost interest in their usual activities, and in a more serious case, completely burn out.
Who are prone to exhaustion? Superheroes are the most probable examples. Daredevil the film may not be good, but there's a poignant scene that Daredevil goes through the before-sleep routine, climbing into the sound-proof casket (necessary due to his super hearing), only for him to hear a woman somewhere nearby crying for help. He only lets out an exhausted sigh before slowly closing the casket to close out the sound. People in a highly stressful business, like paramedics, medical staff and cops are at high risk to it. Extrapolation of the canon stress will be easier to convince your readers, but you may want to explore the exhaustion implied behind the always cheerful magic pixie dream girl in canon. Maybe behind the facade is a soup tired to her bone.
The comfort can come in simple letting your character sleep, their friends who hate paperwork showing up to do it for them just because. They may be too tired to have sex, but the act of comfort can come in just letting the beloved close, to let them have the chance to feel safe, to fully relax and take the rest they deserved. The characters may not be self-aware of their exhaustion, but it's traditional for their friends to show up with an overdue meal and tuck them into sleep.
Questions: If you are a writer, how do you write about the characters exhaustion? If you 're a reader, how do you enjoy it? Do you have any examples of it doing well or not?
Exhaustion can be mental or physical. Your muscles refuse to perform any more, even when your brain will it. You hear a cry for help, but you have been saving and losing people for too long, you just don't care any more. The cause of exhaustion can be undersleep, intense physical or mental exercises or diseases. Rest can relieve fatique, but usually our beloved characters never get a break from it any way. It's a miracle most have the energy to open their eyes, face the next morning and think of the tasks they need to do. It can also be used to great effect in hurt/comfort fic, to examine the real consequence of the continuous stress they endured in canon, to make them feel more real. After all, we all feel exhaustion some time in our lives.
Writing about exhaustion can be difficult as your characters are apathetic to anything thrown in their life and passive in their response, and it's hard to write about the negative. They may not collapse dramatically, but it's wise to write in small gestures. They oversteps, pouring milk into the rubbish bin other than their coffee cup, their muscle tensed, their eyes red-rimmed and so on. They lost interest in their usual activities, and in a more serious case, completely burn out.
Who are prone to exhaustion? Superheroes are the most probable examples. Daredevil the film may not be good, but there's a poignant scene that Daredevil goes through the before-sleep routine, climbing into the sound-proof casket (necessary due to his super hearing), only for him to hear a woman somewhere nearby crying for help. He only lets out an exhausted sigh before slowly closing the casket to close out the sound. People in a highly stressful business, like paramedics, medical staff and cops are at high risk to it. Extrapolation of the canon stress will be easier to convince your readers, but you may want to explore the exhaustion implied behind the always cheerful magic pixie dream girl in canon. Maybe behind the facade is a soup tired to her bone.
The comfort can come in simple letting your character sleep, their friends who hate paperwork showing up to do it for them just because. They may be too tired to have sex, but the act of comfort can come in just letting the beloved close, to let them have the chance to feel safe, to fully relax and take the rest they deserved. The characters may not be self-aware of their exhaustion, but it's traditional for their friends to show up with an overdue meal and tuck them into sleep.
Questions: If you are a writer, how do you write about the characters exhaustion? If you 're a reader, how do you enjoy it? Do you have any examples of it doing well or not?
