Don't know how to steer this. >.<

[Faber]

Alright so I'm writing a novel and I'm not exactly sure how to do this one scene.

Basically what has happened is this group of three teenagers have been trapped in this cell for about four - six years and before that had been tortured ever since they could remember. Not many people talk to them, leaving them to only have each other. One day (totally out of the blue), two strangers (the main characters) come to rescue them. I'm blanking on how the teens should react. If it matters, the character archetypes are: feisty petite girl, shy guy, and mother figure.

This may or may not determine how they escape.

Thank you for any feedback

 

[Foxy]

Considering the amount of time they've been trapped and tortured with only each other to lean on, they wouldn't trust your main characters right away. They would be defensive, quiet, sticking close to one another and unsure. They probably wouldn't function like normal people either, if they have no good stimulus so far, no good memories, or anything like that, you could have them be curious and slowly get more excited about the good things they encounter. Or what would be good in their eyes. Like...let's say they were kept somewhere dark. If you let them out into the light they would be awestruck after struggling with the sudden brightness. When the metal of a cell turns into the warmth of sunlight and the soft grass, they would be happy. But around your two main characters they would try to hide it at first. They wouldn't want it taken away. So they would most likely be somewhat difficult characters to write, but after a while they could be brought out of their shells and start trusting.

Which brings me to my second point, the Feisty Petite Girl would probably be feisty compared to her friends. When it comes to the two main characters she could still be feisty but there would probably be an underline of fear as well. :o I hope this helps a bit!

 

[Minibit]

Don't ask us, we're not the characters.

How would each of the assess the risk/reward of the situation? How gunshy has the trauma made them? How physically strong/able to resist people are they?

Try asking these, instead.

 

[Mid]

Read up on Stockholm syndrome. It should give you a general idea on where you'd like to go.

 

[Shiri]

Another good thing to take into consideration is their overall health. Are they well enough mentally or physically to try to protect themselves?

 

[Kestrel]

Generally, people who are tortured are going to find a way to deal with it. I want to point out that, these will be very tough characters to write. It's not so simple as distrusting others, it's seeing pain as routine, (partial) apathy to pain of loved ones, and so forth. These people are going to be fucked up. Fuck, you could have Stockholm syndrome in there, I don't know. This is some really heavy shit you're dealing with. I'm going to assume that aside each other, they haven't had much in terms of social interaction or love. This will make interactions, whether they go along and trust the main characters or not, awkward at best, but likely take some spin for the abusive (either a because that's what most they know. Their priorities will likely be more primal than others. Rehabilitating in some kind of society will takes years, decades, possibly it will never even happen.

If you want to write this realistically and have to ask how they will react to the main characters in the beginning... I'm going to be a dick and say you may want to reconsider your subject matter. This isn't a topic you'll just get by with a bit of empathy and writing skill alone. If you want to portray this respectfully, you're going to need to do a lot of research. Just the basics of psychology and sociology to start with (so you understand how they differ), then several forms of trauma, anti-social disorders, stockholm syndrome, just at the top of my head.

Of course you don't have to listen to me. You can write whatever you want. Just know that you will either need to study a bunch or refrain from most realism.