Chris Bridges, author of psychological thriller, The Death Bed, with some top tips when it comes to writing about health care in your fiction . . .
I aspired to be a writer from a young age but life doesn’t always like plans. I’d followed the prescribed pathway by working my way through the school library, hoarding notebooks and applying for a place to study an English Literature degree. I even had a typewriter (it was the late 80s). My mental roadmap saw me becoming a journalist and writing incisive and witty novels in my spare time. And it didn’t happen.
I bombed my exams following a mental health crisis and family issues and then lost my university place, ending up working in a shop. Retail work was fine but wasn’t where I wanted to be and, on a whim, I decided to train to be a nurse (my thought process here is too long to document). Thirty years later, I was still a nurse and finally managed to write and have a psychological thriller published in my fifties. You could say that I took the long way round.
Understanding Health Care
I’ve always been curious about people and reading seemed like a way to understand others but working in health care, as well as sating a desire to help people, satisfied my desire to learn about the intriguing humans in front of me. Every person is carrying a life story and people are part of a wider network of family and/or friends. In health care, these stories are vital and provide essential context to illness and health. People are also frequently at their most candid and open when they’re unwell.
I’ve also seen the opposite side of health care in recent years as I developed a chronic illness. Being on the receiving end is fascinating but less satisfying.
As a former nurse with MS who writes and also reads a lot, I have a different perspective from most people when writing or reading about health care environments. It’s an easy ask for me to imagine a hospital after years spent wandering the wards. However, I’m not a pedantic audience. I think an important thing to remember is that most readers accept that fiction is just that. Even people who are barristers, law enforcement officers or scientists don’t expect every detail and procedural nuance to be captured exactly.
A Hospital Setting
If I’m reading a book set in a hospital then, as long as it’s not littered with egregious errors, I give the writer an automatic pass to not know every nuance of the daily routine, the complex hierarchy and organisational systems. I’d probably put the book down, anyway, if it was bogged down with all that stuff. It’d be a bit of a bore to read all that painstaking research if it wasn’t relevant to the story.
What I like to read is a vibe. What does a hospital ward feel like for either the nurse who hasn’t had time to use the toilet for six hours or the patient who’s waiting for pain relief. What is the atmosphere of the place? How does it attack the senses.
Perspective can help. Have a point of view. What are you trying to make the reader experience or feel? My latest book is set in a hospital and as it’s a crime novel, I chose to home in the things that are creepy. There are lots of those. Just try walking a hospital corridor alone at night and you’ll soon find out if you spook easily.
Health Care in Fiction: Top Tips
These are my top tip for writing about health care:
- If you need specific information then ask a family member or friend. Most people know someone or know someone who knows someone who works as a nurse or doctor. Health care can be thankless at times. What a delight if someone is interested enough in your work to want to make it into a story. I’m sure they’d be glad to answer some questions (within limits, they’re probably exhausted).
- Some things need to be more accurate than others. For example: if you’re choosing to write about a specific illness then it’s helpful to look at how people with that illness describe the experience. Specific websites often feature patient stories that can help you to have insight. In depth technical details about equipment, names of drugs or procedures aren’t always useful. Consider whether you actually need them to drive the story.
- Why have you chosen to write about health care or illness and what are you trying to put across? This should focus the way the writing plays out and influence the tone and angle. If you’ve written a death bed scene in a hospital then it’s likely to be about a different set of emotions and motivations than a tense fight to find a cure in a clinic setting might be.
- Avoid clichés. Does a hospital smell of strong disinfectants or is something more pungent and noxious? Is it always a ‘bustling’ environment or are there hollow, down times? Are nurses always ‘ministering angels or are they flawed and human?
- Avoid stereotypes. Doctors and nurses are less defined by gender now and doctors in Ireland have an almost equal gender split. Ill people are still complex and often unfathomable humans and don’t fit the trope of the meek and compliant patient. Health care settings are also rich with diversity in their workforces. The stereotypes rarely apply.
If you’re thinking of writing about health care then I’d advocate doing it without hesitation. There’s some great books, both commercial and literary, based in these settings and if you want somewhere rich with stories then your luck is in. The walls can’t talk but you do for them and bring it alive on the page.
(c) Chris Bridges
Author photograph (c) Maxim Vinciguerra at Infinity Focus Photography
About The Death Bed by Chris Bridges:
She’s not there to save her friend.
She’s there to silence her.
When nurse Laura arrives at her old best friend’s death bed, it’s not out of compassion – it’s out of fear. Her enigmatic friend Sadie is dying, and with her last breath, she might destroy everything.
Sixteen years ago, tragedy tore their group of nursing students apart. And Laura has spent every moment since then ensuring the truth never sees the light of day.
But as Sadie fades, the past refuses to stay buried. And Laura is about to learn: The dying don’t always go quietly.
And some confessions are worth killing for.
Order your copy online here.
And read more Resource articles on Writing.ie here.
