Car Accident

Don't worry, I wasn't the one in the accident. It was two of my characters. I know enough medical lingo between my nursing-major friends and Google that I am able to write decent hospital scenes, but I still don't know for sure that I am being completely accurate. This story is slated for many hospital scenes, so it will definitely require more editing of them than anything else.

What hospital scenes, you may ask? This first one is because my main character and his best friend are in a car accident. The next will be just a day or two later because his family is injured (while going home from visiting him in the hospital after his car accident). Sound like a bad soap opera already? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

I may go back and edit this post if I ever wind up sharing this story with other people, but otherwise it doesn't really matter if I share spoilers of some sort. My main character is just a junior in high school when the car accident occurs, and his entire family dies while he is still in the hospital. My second hospital scene is him at his sister's bedside as she dies, leaving him completely alone. This not-quite-seventeen-year-old is then placed into the foster system and tries to commit suicide at least twice, once while still in the hospital and again after leaving. He not only blames himself for his family's death, he also feels abandoned by his best friend, who he pushed away in his grief after the accident.

The main part of my story follows this boy as he tries to go on living but never feels wanted or needed anywhere. Eventually a group of other students at school take him under their wing and he learns to trust humanity again. Awww... touching and somewhat-cliche ending, check.

I'm currently in the midst of writing the car accident scene and the scene where he wakes up in the hospital afterward, and am muddling my way through the medical jargon whilst attempting to sound believably like a 16-year-old boy who has just been in a traumatic accident and is worried about the friend who was in the car with him at the time. I usually write while I'm bored in class, so it's hard for me to focus on the voice of the character when I'm also taking psychology notes. At the same time, I feel like for the past 3-4 years he has been stuck in my head, screaming to be let out and written down. I feel like I know this boy better than I know many of the "real" people in my life... he's real to me, in a way that only another writer will ever understand. Getting his thoughts out on paper are a way of bringing him to life in a way that only I can, and it's an absolutely amazing feeling to speak through somebody else's voice. There's no telling how long it is going to take me to finish this story, but I can't wait to see where the characters lead me!