On writing fainting from the point of view of the person fainting.

[Montero]

Saw in pocket

The Lights Don’t Just Go Out: A Lifelong Fainter on How Fiction Gets Fainting All Wrong

My five-year-old and I were reading Charlotte’s Web at bedtime recently when we reached what constituted her—and, presumably, many children’s—first literary fainting episode. It occurs after Wilbur…

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[Teresa Edgerton]

I have fainted a number of times in my life, and can say that not all fainting incidents are the same. Sometimes the lights DO suddenly go out. Other times there is more warning: sweats, nausea, vision closing in around the edges. Sometimes spots in front of the eyes first, then things go dark. If it could happen in different ways for one person (me) when fainting from different causes, it makes sense that it would not be only one way when it happens to different people.

 

[Swank]

Sometimes you just wake up not sure why you are on the floor.

Write whatever you want. It isn't going into a medical journal.

 

[mosaix]

Just the once for me. And as @Swank says I just woke up on the floor - with a nasty bruise on my head.

 

[Montero]

Sometimes you just wake up not sure why you are on the floor.

Write whatever you want. It isn't going into a medical journal.

OK differing experiences, thanks.

I disagree with the "write whatever you want". I like verifiable facts in my fiction to be accurate - helps suspend disbelief and I like learning things that are accurate. I know some writers and readers don't care, but I'm definitely not one of them.

 

[Swank]

OK differing experiences, thanks.

I disagree with the "write whatever you want". I like verifiable facts in my fiction to be accurate - helps suspend disbelief and I like learning things that are accurate. I know some writers and readers don't care, but I'm definitely not one of them.

Well, it's sff, so if someone passes out in a new and exciting way, that is part of it being speculative. But the whole reason you have an article about fainting to discuss is that it isn't something that people have a tremendous amount of experience or interest in.

Where writers get in trouble is when they try to provide a lot of specific details, and then get those wrong. The classic, "He took the safety off his revolver." Anyone with a modest knowledge of firearms realizes that revolvers don't have safety levers, even though many handguns do. Why did the author choose to add the very specific "revolver" when the more general "pistol" or "gun" would have been sufficient and avoided the need to get it right?

The article isn't a medical one. It is about how some literary descriptions of losing consciousness due to stress are like the author's experience, and others are less so. The fainting author isn't an expert, just someone with a specific experience. Your character may have a very different experience, arising from a different set of medical particulars. And that faint isn't invalid unless it tries to capture something incredibly specific but gets it all wrong.


As a teenager, I flexed all my muscles once to impress my friends with the myriad veins I could get to stand up all over like a body builder. And when I stopped, the change in blood pressure caused my to momentarily black out - falling on my face. Did I faint? Did I pass out? We all used the first word - did we commit and act of illegal vocabulary, or is the word "faint" unspecific enough to cover my foolishness?

 

[Montero]

Well if I read a book where there is niche knowledge that the author gets wrong, I then doubt the rest of it. Yes, being less specific such as your revolver vs pistol example also works. However, where possible I like to draw on my experiences or someone else's account of their experiences of such things as fainting, and discussions such as this gives various options for how it could go.

 

[Karapace]

I know from what others have said that there are different types of faint. For some it comes in from the edges with a little warning. However my personal experience was this and of an indelicate nature. Once feeling very ill I went to the toilet and was sitting there, as you do. Next I heard my wife calling my name and found I was sprawled across the bathroom floor with my trousers round my ankles and a bump on my head. My wife had heard the crash and come to investigate.

 

[tinkerdan]

All I can tell you is that I was cold and shivering--we had just done several laps of the pool at my high school and were sitting on the edge of the pool waiting for further instructions. I was looking at the water watching the lights reflecting of the water and my arms were at my sides with my head down. The sounds were remote, distant, muted.

Then...I was looking up into the concerned face of coach--I was flat on my back and about ten feet away from the pool.

That's sort of how it worked for me.