What’s the worst pain you’ve ever felt? And how would you describe it?
Describing physical pain in writing is a challenge that most writers face at one time or another. A character might have a headache, give birth, or get injured in an accident or a battle. (By the way, if you’re reading this, you might also want to check out my writer’s guide to serious injuries and calamities.)
When I was writing my book The Equinox Stone, I did a lot of thinking about ways to describe pain since my characters get pretty banged up over the course of the book. Near the end (spoilers), one of them has several injuries, and I wrote: “His adrenaline was burning off, leaving him in a symphony of pain, one part of his body screaming, the other parts answering with agony of their own.” I really liked the “symphony of pain” idea.
Since so many writers look for ways to describe pain in creative writing, I figured I should do a master list of words and phrases to use. I’ve also suggested ways that the character can react to the pain, which you could use whether you’re writing from the point of view of the person in pain or the point of view of someone with them. Some of these could probably be adapted to emotional rather than physical pain.
In most cases, you probably won’t use these ways to describe pain verbatim (although you’re certainly welcome to, even with the longer phrases.) You’ll adapt it for the paragraph you’re writing. You might also combine one or two ideas. Like all my master lists, it’ll probably make you think of even more ideas.
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she braced herself for the pain
a dull ache
a deep ache in his bones
a throbbing ache
his head throbbed
pain filled her head
pain squeezed her head
a jab of pain
a burst of pain
a flash of pain
prickles of pain
a blaze of pain
fresh pain
a stinging pain
a spike of pain
white-hot pain
a sharp pain
a shooting pain
a stabbing pain
a piercing pain
a corrosive pain
a crippling pain
a searing pain
a grating pain
a grinding pain
a drumbeat of pain
pain shot up her leg
pain surged through her body
pain lashed across his lower back
pain ripped through her chest
pain branched across their back like lightning
pain lacerated her shoulder
pain twisted his belly
a cramp seized her foot
pain exploded behind her eyeballs
the pain flared in his leg
a flaming pain in her wrist
a burning pain in her neck
pain coursed through his body
pain like a sharp knife in his gut
pain lanced through him
pain went through her like a sword/spear
blinded with pain
dizzy from the pain
disoriented from the pain
the pain blossomed in his midsection
the pain spread through her bowels
a wave of pain rolled through her
pain crashed through his body
he let out a gasp from the pain
she panted with pain
she hissed with pain
he grimaced in pain
he managed to grin through the pain
he winced at the pain
she cringed at the pain
they strained against the pain
she curled up in pain
he doubled over with agony
she writhed in pain
he moaned in pain
she sucked in a sharp breath at the pain
he howled in pain
she grunted from the pain
he let out a cry of pain
she bit back a cry of pain
she yelped with pain
he let out a shriek of pain
he screeched in pain
she screamed in pain
the pain brought tears to his eyes
he quivered with pain
he was wracked by pain
she trembled from the pain
she was shaking from the torment
she convulsed with pain
his breathing was shallow
the pain took her breath away
they tried to breathe through the pain
she tried to focus on something other than the pain
he clutched his head in agony
she clamped her hand around her stubbed toe
he cradled his wounded arm
he grasped her hand tightly as the pain hit
she gritted her teeth against the pain
he clenched his teeth when the pain hit
his face was drawn with pain
her face was twisted with pain
she stiffened with the pain
he went rigid with agony
her back arched off the bed with the pain
she spoke haltingly from the pain
his voice was tight with pain
her voice was rough with pain
it hurt too much for him to speak
pain like he’d never felt before
the pain robbed her of rational thought
he was out of his mind with pain
she was delirious with pain
he prayed for an end to the suffering
she wished for the release of death
he blacked out from the pain
the pain abated
the pain eased
the drugs softened the pain
the pain faded
the pain diminished
the pain evaporated
the pain dissolved
the pain released her
the pain subsided
the pain dulled
the pain drained out of her body
Okay, I could do this all day, but I’ll stop it here! Do you have other thoughts about creative ways to describe pain? Let us know in the comments!
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These are fantastic references for even a causal writer like myself! Thanks a bunch!
Glad you like the post, Poppy! Have a great week!
This is a the most thorough list I’ve seen on this subject, and I will be referring to it often. Do you have an upcoming list for how to describe crashes—cars, planes, and snowboards in particular? ?
Hi MJ! You know, I haven’t done that yet…but it’s a great idea! Maybe sometime I will 🙂
Wow! Thank you for this exhaustive list. That’s really helpful. It is a great challenge in writing to describe pain accurately.
Aw thanks, Naomi! Hope everything’s going well with you 🙂
Bryn, you asked for the worst pain we had ever felt. I have been through childbirth – the memory of that pain has faded with the years. The abscessed tooth has no power of recollection. It whispers only from the gap between my molars.
But the pain of betrayal still bears the image of suffering.
Like a poisonous plant – dark and barbed – wrenched from my heart tearing away at life and ripping holes in my soul.
Healing has come. The trauma is tamed. My life is no longer dominated by the toxic relationship, but in my memory, there remains the image of the event that nearly ended my life.
Hi Jessie! I never gave birth, but I have had an abcessed tooth, and that is definitely one of the worst physical pains I’ve ever felt…
You write so well about a different kind of pain. That is so wrenching and powerful. Some of the worst scars aren’t the ones we can see.
Thank you Bryn.
My absessed tooth could not be numed so I endured 15 seconds of pain while he drilled into the pulp to relieve the pressure and ingect pain killer into the pulm.
It hurts just reading all of those ahahaha KIDDING! Thank you for sharing!
Hi, R.L.! Hahaha, that is honestly why I added the ones to the end about the pain going away!! Thanks for reading 🙂
This is such a wonderful list. Then again, all your lists are wonderful. They always help spark my brain when I’m looking for the right words.
Aww thank you Erin! Hope everything’s going well with you this week!
1 I was screaming before i hit the ground.
2 the X-ray tech Turned my foot to the side and tried to strangle her.
Real experience
Donald—OWWWWW. And “I was screaming before I hit the ground” is an amazing sentence!
Those are great examples.
Aw thanks. Thanks for reading, Denise! Have a good rest of your week 🙂
“I was screaming before I hit the ground” LOVE IT!!
True experience, the best kind.
I haven’t really experienced a lot of pain. So I guess that the worst pain I’ve ever felt would be breaking my ankle- although walking with a orthopedic boot was pretty bad too, or even just wearing. You try wearing one for more than a couple of hours when there is a literal metal plate pushing against the pad of your foot.
This is an excerpt from the first book in my Chronicles of Undying series, Garden of Soul (which is currently unfinished and unpublished). I got a bit frustrated trying to find a creative way of conveying that she was experiencing a phantom pain from having her head busted open.
At first, there was only darkness and pain; something that I had gotten used to in my short life. I could see nothing but the dark corners of my mind, and the shadowy beings that dwell within them. But then I slowly forced my eyes to open, struggling to think through the mind-numbing pain which made me want to find a nail to ram into my eye to relieve it.
Have you ever had a doctor ask you to rate your pain on a scale of one to ten? Well, those numbers can’t even begin to describe the terrific pain that I am trying to relate. It felt almost like an intense headache; except that it was not localized to any specific part of my brain, nor did it spread across my head in dull, severely-debilitating waves of pain like many migraines. Instead, it felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to my skull before systematically removing my brain piece by piece with an ice pick.
A bit late to this post, but must say it’s a great list that will be very useful to me as I do the rewrite and revisions of my screenplay and finally get around to making headway on the novel.
A technique I kind of ripped off the Jason Bourne series, and probably a lot of other works out there, is having my main character show a degree of stoicism outwardly with minimal reaction to major injuries. That, combined with her flattened affect (that she has due to a mental illness) that she’s been able to override at will through practice.
Below is a scene from the screenplay that takes place during her escape from an assassination attempt on her in a crowded train station after losing her heels and crossing a subway train pit to get away.
Being that a screenplay is a recipe for filmed exposition, I’ll need to apply things similar to your suggested descriptions and those suggested by others above for the novel version so I can put readers in the mind of my character (I’m not quite skilled at that yet).
“As she’s going up the Outbound Green Line stairs, she hunches down, takes her light coat off, turns it inside out and puts it back on, ties her hair back in a ponytail with a couple of rubber bands, and puts on her sunglasses. Her feet ache from her rapid crossing of the subway pit and the rocks of the track ballast.
As she gets to the top of the platform a ROLLERBLADES GUY, wearing large studio headphones, crosses her path and runs over her exposed left foot, creating a bloody gash. She winces, ever so quickly.
The guy looks at her.
ROLLERBLADES GUY
“God lady, I’m so sorry.”
ZOEY
“Rollerblades. AND headphones. In the subway. Keep it up buddy, you know; shame I won’t get to see it someday.”
And on she walks on with a slight limp.”
Zoey’s no superhero and she doesn’t have a belt or watch with a million jaw-dropping tools like 007 (though at times I give her a collapsable baton and a Leatherman like tool). I suppose her superpower is her ability to withstand and overcome pain to complete her objective.
There’s a show (not the feature film) on Amazon Prime called Hanna, I was watching late last year, where one of the lead characters, Marissa, seems to constantly get shot, afflicted by enemies and torturers, injured in car accidents and left for dead, or otherwise beaten to a pulp.
Like Zoey, Marissa is an intelligence officer (this genre seems to be getting too crowded), and despite her ability to pass as a forty-ish soccer mom, she fights like hell to achieve her objectives. My best analogy would be that she’s a human Terminator, who would march on until she had no legs and even then would crawl with her last.
I’m eager to watch the next season as well as find a script of the show floating around, if I can, to see how they described what we see on screen and what I can learn from it to create my own unique story.
Another valuable resource. Thanks, Bryn!
Shared with my writer friends! Thanks, Bryn!
-n
All of the ones you used.
The doctors last words were, “We’re going to amputate your foot.” // I, in my drug induced euphoria, blithely said Okay.” I woke up and the bastard quacks hadn’t done it.
In my current wip I have a birth scene where the young woman is unused to pain and makes a lot of fuss. This will be a great resource for that. Many thanks. I’ve bookmarked it!
Hi Vivienne! Thanks for reading, and I hope it’s useful. And hope the writing’s going well! 🙂
My MC assists in an appendectomy in the amazon where there is no narcotics. A paralytic was used. The MC demands to know if the doctor knows how much pain he caused.
I screamed while still flying across the intersection and landing did nothing to stop the explosion in my leg.
I have had basically 2 different worst pains, one for most intense, and one for longest lasting.
My most intense pain was from an intestinal blockage I had many years ago. I had chronic constipation for years, but this was different, I couldn’t pass anything. I woke up in pain and I was crying, the pain was easily an 8 or more on the pain scale, worse than any abdominal pain I had before or since. I texted my momma telling her that I had some really bad intestinal pain and I needed an enema. After a while of letting the enema work, I was able to pass it and the pain was gone.
My longest lasting pain started one day when I slipped on the stairs. My back and my tailbone were both hurting. The back pain went away quickly. The tailbone pain however lingered. And not just for hours or a day, it stayed there for 6 weeks. The first 3 weeks were incredibly painful for me, I was grimacing every time I got up or sat down because it hurt so much at that moment. And I naturally did it slower to try to minimize the pain, but, it didn’t work. When I was going to sleep, I had to sleep on my stomach. I generally start sleeping on my side, but that was too painful, so I went to sleep on my stomach with my head turned to the side so I could breathe fine. However, every day, I would wake up on my back. It didn’t immediately hurt when I woke up, but just like getting up from a chair, getting up from my bed hurt, and I had to do a certain maneuver to minimize pain when getting up from my bed.
The last 3 weeks weren’t as painful as far as sitting and getting up from a chair was concerned, but sleeping on my side was still too painful and getting up from my bed was still quite painful. Finally, 6 weeks after my tailbone injury, it finished healing and the pain was gone.
I’ve had a lot of pain, but those 2 are my worst. And I will find this page useful, as my stories almost always involve pain at some point.
The only pain that I’ve experienced was when I tripped and fell on to a metal separator for a garden and nearly lost my left thumb. when it happened, I couldn’t feel any pain, but somewhere in me, I knew I was in pain. I just couldn’t at the time.
This was maybe seven years ago, but I still remember the pain when the doctors stuck a needle in my hand to numb the pain to stitch up my hand. now that hurt, maybe even worse than me splitting open my hand. It felt like my hand was on fire and that it was spreading up my arm to the rest of my body. I screamed like I never had before, almost blacking out. I wished that I had.
When they put the stitches in, it felt like someone was poking and tugging at my skin. I didn’t look. I hadn’t wanted to because I knew what I would have seen. Blood, my blood, sweeping out of my hand and onto the table it was laying on. thinking about it new gives me chills and to this day I have slight pricks of pain every now and again from the wound.
I hope this helps with your writing or for anyone else who reads this. Thanks for the advice too. I’m trying to write a novel and was having trouble, but this blog really helped me.
“My life is pain”