. . . And Everything Went Dark

Please don't knock your characters out for long periods of time. Especially not long enough to *move them somewhere*

Unconsciousness = lack of O2 to the brain at the very least = transient or permanent brain damage

To give some indication -if someone's unconscious for more than 5 minutes I'm taking them to a hospital with CT capability. If they're still unconscious when the intensive care paramedics show up they're getting intubated on the side of the road because that means their brain probably hasn't had the optimum amount of O2/ or there's pressure/bruising issues within the enclosed skull.

Yes, some people get knocked out for a bit and wake up fine. Rest assured that they've been scanned every which way in the meantime, and are definitely in a hospital, or on their way there.

The only thing that annoys me more than a extended LOC is significant blood lose with no sight or sound of hypovolemic shock. Human beings are pretty damn fragile when it comes to certain things and the brain is one of them.

My suspension of disbelief is stretched by one loss of consciousness - two has me snorting, especially if there's a fairly long period of unconsciousness

_Sian_ said:

My suspension of disbelief is stretched by one loss of consciousness - two has me snorting, especially if there's a fairly long period of unconsciousness

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And it's such an obnoxiously common trope, too. When I was younger, I thought that getting knocked out was just forcibly being put to sleep - primarily because I read too much Tintin, and that happened to him every five minutes or so with no ill effects.

gothicangel said:

A plea on behalf of a reader . . .

Dear author, I've been reading your book, and so far (300 pages in) your MC has been knocked out twice, just as things were getting interesting. When he comes to, the action is over, and the other characters info dump what happened. You know the saying show, don't tell? Well, I want to see this stuff. It wasn't clever in Twilight, and it isn't clever when you do it either.

Please stop it.

Yours,

A Frustrated Reader.

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I hate these kinds of 'skip-the-hard-parts' tricks so much, I once wrote a swashbuckler parody to pass around amongst my friends that included a scene that went like this:

1. The hero and heroine were surrounded by bandits, up to their knees in peril.

2. Before anything could happen, I changed POV to a villain who was monologing in their room while staring out the window.

3. I cut back to the hero and heroine at their goal, and the hero said, "Hard to believe we're finally here after that intense battle. And the journey through the Land of Ghosts. And over the Pit of Flame to the temple where we had to solve that clever riddle or die. ...I really feel sorry for anyone who missed all that."

ETA

L.C. Blackwell said:

This discussion does, however, remind me of Mysteries of Udolpho, when the "heroine" persistently fainted whenever action was called for. If you haven't read it, here's a word: don't.

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Oh, Udolpho! My personal Classic I Feel Guilty For Disliking, but you nailed why; and I feel compelled to also add that this is after pages and pages and pages of some of the s-l-o-w-e-s-t buildup ever.