Getting Started

scripttorture:

Torture is a very difficult topic to write and with so much
misinformation presented as fact it can be extremely difficult to research.
It’s difficult to know where to start.

This blog was very much suppose to serve as that starting
point but now, several hundred thousand words in, the blog itself is a bit of a
labyrinth.

So this is a quick summary covering some of the most common
points that affect fiction and writing.

Common Misconceptions
about Torture

If you’ve followed the blog for any length of time you’ll
probably have heard me talk about the prevalence of torture apologia in
fiction. Here are some of the common inaccurate stereotypes about torture that
fiction continues to use.

These are the ‘arguments’ fiction often uses to support
torture, arguments that have no basis in
reality.

• Showing
      torture as an effective interrogation technique. That’s really not
      how the human brain works.
• Showing
      torture making victims passive.
• Showing torture making victims obedient. The evidence we have
      suggests torture makes victims much more strongly opposed to their
      torturers and any group the torturer represents than they were previously.
      Victims may become compliant in the short term but this isn’t the same as
      long term obedience.
• Showing torture ‘forcing’ victims to change their strongly held
      beliefs. Brainwashing does
      not work. There is no way to force
      someone to change their beliefs.
• Showing torturers as superhumanly good at detecting when victims
      are lying. They are as terrible at it as everyone else.
• Showing torturers as skilled. Torture really doesn’t require
      any degree of skill, intelligence or even training.
• Showing
      certain torture techniques as fundamentally harmless. Fiction
      tends to show solitary confinement, sensory deprivation and electrical
      based tortures as much less harmful (or indeed lethal) than they actually
      are.
• Showing torture as ‘scientific’. It really isn’t and the idea
      that torture can be ‘made better’ pervades arguments justifying abuse.
• Showing torture as something only the ‘bad guys’ do. This
      often means twisting the definition of torture so that the ‘good guys’ can
      continue to beat people to a pulp without being called into question for
      it.

There are also a lot of inaccurate tropes about torture
victims, giving at best misleading and at worst insulting portrayals of
survivors. These include:

• The idea that torture victims are ‘broken’.
• The idea that survivors can never live full, happy lives.
• Conversely
      the idea that survivors quickly lose all symptoms and torture has no
      lasting effect on their lives.
• The idea that torturers can control the victim’s symptoms or
      experience. They really can’t. So
      far no one can accurately predict an individual survivor’s symptoms, much
      less control them.
• The idea that certain physiological responses to torture are
      ‘better’ then others. This is particularly unfair to victims as it
      often judges their worth based on which set of symptoms they happened to
      develop.
• The idea that resistance is unusual. Resistance to torture is
      the norm. Studies
      on the historical use of torture to force confessions show that an average
      of 90% of victims refuse to
      comply with torturers long enough to sign a confession.
• The idea that survivors can ‘always remember’ what they endured. Torture
      causes memory problems and while victims rarely completely forget such a
      traumatic event they often get
      key details wrong because of this. This makes prosecuting and proving
      torture extremely difficult.
• The idea that ‘good guys’ resist torture and ‘bad guys’ don’t.
      This rather neatly blames victims for being tortured, whatever their
      beliefs.

What counts?

The legal definition isn’t really what most people think. It
depends less on the practice or technique used to inflict pain and much more on
who is doing it.

For an act to be ‘torture’ in the legal sense it must be
carried out by a government official, public servant or member of an armed group occupying territory. A police officer
beating someone while on duty is a torturer. The same officer beating their
spouse is an abuser.

Beyond that torture is: ‘any act by which severe pain or
suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted [] on a
person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or
confession, punishing him for an act he has committed, or intimidating him or
other persons.’ (UN Declaration
against Torture)

This means that lot of things that get dismissed as ‘not
really’ torture definitely count.
Practices like sleep deprivation (for example constant noise and light),
starvation, dehydration, stress positions, beatings, forced exercise, virginity
tests and prolonged solitary confinement- all count.

Be aware of what you’re writing.

Torture in Narratives

So where does that leave us as writers and what kind of role
can torture play in a piece of fiction?

Barring tropes that are used to encourage real life torture
I don’t think there are ‘bad’ plots
so much as badly executed plots.

Well written torture isn’t
a narrative shortcut. If you’re looking for something to keep a character out
of the story for a short time with no long term effects or an easy way to add
drama then a torture plot probably isn’t
a good fit.

But it can add greater
depth and emotional impact to a story.

Pratchett’s Small Gods
and Rushdie’s
Midnight’s Children both use
torture to tremendous effect: adding depth and urgency to their stories along
with searing critiques of the societal structures that allow abuse to flourish.

The Age of Shadows
and Pan’s Labyrinth both use torture
to highlight particularly bloody historical periods, showing the pressures
normal people were put under to allow abuse and how they often rebelled.

If you’re considering using torture in your story think
about what it’s actually adding to the narrative. Is it essential? Does it have
a long term impact on the characters and situation, even if it isn’t the focus
of the story? What does it reveal about the characters and the plot?

These are stories
worth telling, whatever the genre. If you need help writing them I’m here. 🙂

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