Ten Ways to Cure a Lurching Stomach

How to avoid turning your story into a catalogue of medical symptoms

I lost count years ago, as a reader, of the number of times per book that someone’s stomach churns, twists or roils. Then there’s ‘her guts clenched’, ‘his muscles tensed’ (which muscles?), ‘their insides lurched’, and many others. And that’s before you’ve failed to spot the bony hand of a hidden metaphor poking out to destroy your reader’s trustfall or tickle them into laughter: ‘My guts became a parade of paralysis’ is a real example.

Using physical symptoms to evoke a character’s psychological state can work just fine - after all we’ve been using ‘guts’ as a metaphor for courage for centuries - or can have the reader wishing they’d just take some Rennies.

Photo by julien Tromeur on Unsplash