Help on writing a character with a limp?

[londonzerk]

Hello, I am new here and this site seems really helpful, but I am in desperate need of help. I have scoured the internet for information on this matter but there is very minimal info on this.
Basically I would like some help on writing a character with a permanent limp, it's not overly painful as it is just a slight limp he got from an accident in his past. However I need some help on implementing scenes that remind the reader of his limp that don't seem forced or out of the blue. Maybe some simple things like when he wakes up he ends up putting his weight on his limpy leg so it hurts..? He also is able to fight in melee combat if that helps? Admittedly, the limp is not a huge part of his character but I don't want to write it so his limp just randomly throbs on occasion.
I guess it still serves somewhat of a role in his development though, as he has grown to be insecure about it and doesn't like being treated differently because of his limp.

Anyways, please help! I would greatly appreciate it and be sincerely thankful!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Having a long term limp will knock your gait out and start to cause problems as you over compensate for it. I suspect @Boneman might be able to help.

 

[Steve Harrison]

Not sure how to write the character, but my mum, who is 91, has had a pronounced limp since she contracted polio when she was three. It never stopped her doing things and seemed more of a problem for other people, who were always trying to look after her, which was extremely irritating to her as she does not see it as a problem. She grew up in Nazi Germany and had to join the Nazi Youth and when she couldn't march, they gave her a bike (when did not annoy her).

So, based on this, my approach might be for others to underestimate the character due to the limp, which the character uses to his advantage. And on the flip side, the character might also overestimate his capabilities, which results in difficulties and pain at times.

 

[DannMcGrew]

A lot depends on the cause of the limp. A congenital malformation or the result of a disease like polio often doesn't hurt in and of itself.
An arthritic knee or a spinal malformation can hurt all the time or mostly when overused or aggravated. A wound can hurt constantly as can some neurological damage or disease.
So if your guy was damaged in hand-to-hand or maybe foot-to-knee combat, he could have good days and bad days. That hummer probably hurts in the morning, when the weather's changing, and when he's fatigued. A "bad knee" can also just give out unexpectedly rendering one pretty much immobile for maybe a couple minutes or a couple days, usually accompanied with some really attention-getting pain.

People, especially young people, can choose to ignore their disability (except on those occassions when severe pain hits). They'll adjust their gait and speed along almost as well as an unimpeded person -- just might look a little funny, as we say.
That bad leg may also slow him down in some other activities beside walking/running. If he's doing martial arts he'll need to adjust his stance and maybe modify some moves so as not to put as much weight on the bad leg. Climbing might be a problem -- not insurmountable but a problem.

He probably will incorporate some special exercises into his routine to strengthen muscles that help compensate for a weakness... also if he's got a trainer the trainer will work on modifying moves.

You mention not having the limp appear "out of the blue" but in some cases that's exactly what happens. You're going along just fine and wham! you're not.

Hope this helps. As you might have guessed, I have a little experience.

Good luck with your story.

 

[Mad Alice]

limps can be written.
Depending on what the injury is or was will change the gait and conditions.
For example did your person break a leg or simular accident while growing so the one leg didn't grow as long as the other? Or was there a growth on the foot, and club foot that raised up one leg?
Did the injury break or twist something? Was it a birthday ectopic? A war injury where part of the leg was cut away? These will all change the walk. The ability of the limb after as well.
But there are some universal effects.
You get cramps when you go fast, but also the middle of the night and the next day after overworking an injury.
You are more disabled when it is cold or when it's storming out because of arthritis and other barometric pressure sensitive conditions attained after injuries. (Your character now has the superpower of personal pain )
Balance issues, especially for martial arts. You will have to over compensate quite a bit.
You will end up overworking the good side and injuring it
You will bob up and down as you walk. Lurch when you run as good leg stretches twice the length of the bad one.
Your gait is uneven and the sound from you walking won't have the same rhythm as other people. Step halt step versus step step step. Or step slide bounce brace step, if you want to break the motion down.
People will overlook you. Think you are mentally challenged. Condescending, bullying. Or just ignoring yout even when you are directly in front of them like in a shop you will be ignored for the normal people who get served first.
Normal will be a constantly moving goalpost that seems impossible to achieve most days.

 

[Star-child]

Admittedly, the limp is not a huge part of his character but I don't want to write it so his limp just randomly throbs on occasion.

This is probably a missed opportunity. Your character needs history and drive - why not capitalize on this characteristic and these "reminders" as more important back story?

It is an opportunity to illustrate the limp in multiple, unrelated ways:
1 A flashback to the accident, which is an opportunity to show the character in difficult circumstances.
2 Another character commenting on it or asking about pain, setting that character up as caring or sharing his past.
3 A momentary stumble, lulling the reader into believing that the character might not be ready for a real fight.
4 Donning a brace or bandage is an opportunity to connect that item to another character or incident.

Not saying every little thing needs to be explained, but if you are going to go back to it multiple times, use it for something more than vital data or a set-up for the big fight.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I agree with much of what has been said above. Even if it never appears in the story, I think you need to be clear in your own mind about the nature of the injury, how long ago and how your character received it, etc.

I have a permanent limp, but mine is arthritic rather than due to an injury, and shifts from one leg to the other depending on which joint is complaining most loudly! Sometimes a joint can fail catastrophically without giving me any warning, leading to an embarrassing fall. Maybe you could use this to heighten tension in a fighting scene, when your hero appears to be about to be defeated but then leaps back into action and wins against all the odds.

I'm happy to read through any sections you write that mention the limp, if it would help, and comment on whether it reads believably or not.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Basically I would like some help on writing a character with a permanent limp

Read Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself. One of the main characters lives with a back injury, and while that's different from what you're looking to do, Abercrombie makes it a key part of the character's drives and actions.

 

[Toby Frost]

A while ago, I used to go running on the road in cheap trainers. One evening after work, my knee swelled up and became painful. I couldn’t bend it much without it hurting, and bending it in the usual way became impossible. So, for a couple of weeks, I had quite a bad limp. My main memory was of my leg being very awkward: to quote Ray Bradbury, it was sometimes like having a piece of wood attached to my hip. Sitting down involved putting my weight on the good leg and lowering down and up with it, with the bad leg sticking out awkwardly, and using my hands to take some weight. I swung the leg more from my hip, which meant that my hip joint became more tired than usual. Getting into and out of cars (as a passenger) was particularly uncomfortable as I had to manually bend my leg, which hurt. I remember thinking that I must be walking like a cartoon arch-villain.

However, I could move quite quickly over short distances, and someone with a limp could still be a dangerous opponent if they could close the distance quickly. (Also, if the character is an experienced fighter, he’ll get used to opponents trying to capitalize on his weakness, and may play it up to surprise them.)

Anyhow, a couple of years later, it flared up again, but nowhere near as badly. It was more that I could feel that something was wrong in there, as if the muscles and bones hadn’t been connected quite right, or that my kneecap had suddenly got bigger than usual. I used a support bandage and was very careful, and it went back to normal. So it’s possible that this injury could flare up if, say, he has to walk quickly for a long distance, or starts kicking down doors.

 

[-K2-]

Having a long term limp will knock your gait out and start to cause problems as you over compensate for it. I suspect @Boneman might be able to help.

A friend of ours took a round in his knee in Vietnam, which knocked him onto his back and his lower spine landed on a bamboo stump. The knee healed 'okay,' but his back left him crippled. No amount of pain medication helped. One day, an orthopedic surgeon inspected his limping gait, took a few measurements and so on...and a week later supplied him with roughly a 3/4"-20mm insert for the heel of his shoe. It was like magic. He could run a marathon with it and had zero pain. Without it, he couldn't walk twenty steps without being crippled again.

Point being, no matter the cause of a limp, as others have suggested it's how you compensate which often causes the most problems. People with bad knees or ankles often find their backs twisted out of position. Naturally, a bad back can cause a terrible limp and pain either throughout or localized in your legs.

In the end, people limp more often than not, not because they are left with some deformity, but because they've learned to compensate in a way for the pain they'd have otherwise.

Regarding pain, life-long problems often don't hurt--consciously--unless you do something to truly aggravate them. BUT, if they're massaged or granted some other pain relief, suddenly the individual will realize how much pain they are constantly in, and simply ignores. I have numerous old injuries I never feel except during extreme weather. However, when I get my massages, I'm stunned at how much pain I never recognize is relieved.

K2

 

[Boneman]

Having a long term limp will knock your gait out and start to cause problems as you over compensate for it. I suspect @Boneman might be able to help.

He might! Living up to my name... the body's ability to adapt to limps is pretty impressive - sure we know someone we've said to: 'why are you limping?', and they insist they're not... But for a character to draw attention to it themself is more difficult. If they're looking for a man with a limp, he could go on about ensuring he's altered his gait. But also his shoes would wear unevenly, and if he had a minor leg length difference (very common source of limps that are compensated for, from the word go) then his trousers/skirt hemlines would be skewiff. (Lovely word, meaning out of skew... or uneven). But low back ache at the first compensation area, mid back, and base of neck will all grumble at some time. Sub-occipital headache on one side. Don't have your character see a chiropractor, the rest of the book will be taken up with the endless visits there...

 

[Phyrebrat]

Nothing to add other than my anecdotal experiences working with dancers and much of that has been related upthread.

I do want to tell you all that as a kid my dad convinced me the sheep on Corfe Castle has legs longer on one side of their body than the otherto compensate for living on such a steep hill.

I only found out he was lying when I was about 15 years old (I was a slow developer/ thick). Nowadays I don’t believe anything unless it comes from Stephen Fry or Venusianbroon.

pH

 

[Danny McG]

Give him a cane like Yoda

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/200082

 

[Star-child]

Give him a cane like Yoda

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/200082

Yoda is 20 years older in Empire. Or does he limp in Ep 2?

 

[The Big Peat]

Let me talk about my limp.

I was born with a club foot, which was corrected surgically by stretching the ligaments out, with the result that I have one leg about 2cm shorter than the other, very limited flexibility in the ankle and toes (if I'm doing yoga or martial arts, I can't get up on my toes on one foot) and atrophied muscle development in the calf. My condition would qualify me for the Paralympics in certain categories, although I never knew this until I read an athlete profile and realised he had the exact same thing I did (I was 29 at this point). Most people would not know this unless I tell them or are deliberately looking for it. I wear a step in my shoe and you can't tell from my gait - or at least most people can't. A pro could. I used to go get my shoes at a running shop to try and correct my pronation - costs too much considering how quickly I burn through shoes, almost always on the outside edge of the correct leg, so there's definitely something there.

But you can frequently tell I have a limp. Because between being lazy about doing my physio exercises and a lifetime of rugby, I regularly have a limp. I am almost always limping after playing.

I don't always. And it's not always the same one.

Sometimes it's the corrected leg, usually caused by the ankle, which I frequently tweak if doing intense physical exercise. I'm not sure how to describe my gait when that happens, but physically there's mild flaring pain whenever I put weight on it and a sense of not being able to get proper purchase from it. It's at its worst if I've just got up from sitting and have accidentally overstretched the ankle joint, at which point its not fully taking my weight and its like I'm walking on a stump rather than a foot.

Sometimes its the other leg though, which has to suffer from being compacted all the time and has muscular problems as a result. There it is usually my knee, which I've damaged multiple times (hyperextension at best, torn ligaments at worst, never been to hospital and found out because I'm stupid). If I haven't been doing my stretches, sometimes it'll feel like I have a piece of weak plastic in my knee as the joint and it doesn't really bend correctly.

And sometimes its somebody trod on my foot with studs on, which is a different limp, or I was sitting in an awkward position and my leg has gone to sleep, which is the worst.

Representing this in fiction?

First off, my tale is different from others here so yeah, know where the limp came from. They are not created equal.

Second, for most of us, the pain isn't really thought about all that often. Light touch.

Third, when you are talking about the pain, it isn't always in the same place. And there's good days. Bad days. Days I'll try to avoid walking. I think if you want it to feel real and not monotonous, paying attention to those sorts of changes and the sort of ways it changes a day is the way to go. I'm not wearing my Timberland boots if I've got ankle problems. I'm taking the bus even if it takes a little longer and costs a little more. Maybe I'm trying to stretch it out when waiting. Etc.etc. You probably don't put your weight on the bad leg when getting out of bed either, you know better than that.

Finally, being able to fight on it... depending on the exact details, sure. And they probably won't notice that much, because adrenaline kicks in and the body knows what it can do. My ability to launch a good kick off my bad leg is limited, but I don't try to. I can sprint on it, I can get a decent amount of explosive force out of it. But afterwards? Afterwards, you will notice what you did. And if I was to train extensively in martial arts, I'd probably train more for a grappling art than one based on fantastic footwork.

 

[Overread]

Another thought is holding back and fear of worsening condition. A person with a limp, depending on the nature, their understanding of it and when it happened in their life; might have a fear of making their limp worse. Causing them to avoid some activities, or overcompensating with the other leg. This might result in a character appearing more restrained/feeble even if their body is capable of much more. Plus if they do push themselves you can play out the whole mental worry in their mind as they can feel themselves pushing their body beyond what they consider a safe limit point. Feeling the "grind their bones" the "twitching ache in their muscles". The "damage" they are doing to themselves and the risk of their condition degrading as a result.

The recovery period after being longer etc... Perhaps even adopting an even more limited lifestyle and overcompensating. Or perhaps they pull through and are fine; they find new strength in themselves as they realise they didn't hurt themselves; that it wasn't a limit point.

 

[Danny McG]

This discussion is getting a bit lame

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