How to Write Psychological Torture

Right. So I'm writing a series of short stories about... well, there's really no way to say this without it making me sound mental, so, it's about two kids who torture people. So yeah...

Anyway, I already wrote the first story (Which can be found here if you feel like reading a rush-job.) And I don't want the second one to be completely the same, so I thought I'd have the kids participate in some psychologically traumatizing torture, basically, leaving the victim in such a horrible state that it's worse than actually killing them. Problem is... I have no freaking clue how to describe this sort of thing. Suggestions?

edited 21st Dec '10 10:50:24 PM by Mukora

If you yourself aren't appalled by it then you're probably not doing it right.

Yeah. That's one of the guidelines I used while writing the first one. "Does this thing I just wrote really make me want to punch Jimmy in the nuts? ... Yep. Okay, keep writing."

^^Or that he's just a desensitized fuck.

Well a good starting point would be to get a handle on the victim's thought process and hot button issues. Then just have those buttons get pushed as hard as they can be and see what happens.

edited 21st Dec '10 11:11:34 PM by Alkthash

Well, psychological torture usually comes out in its subtleties, so yeah, it'll be practically the opposite of the story you wrote. I don't know if it'd be consistent with the children's character, but since we didn't see much of it, I suppose that's possible.

What kind of psychological tortures are you using? There are a lot of different ways to psychologically torture people, some of them easier/faster than others. This has a few methods if you haven't thought of them yet; I don't know how much thought you're giving to realism (uh, I'm only considering "where did they get all these weapons" type realism, not "I can believe this would happen" here), but generally you wouldn't expect them to have access to drugs. Still, some don't need a lot of resources.

Normally I'd advise you to immerse yourself in the character POV and play with the prose as time passes, but it won't work if your story is stylistically similar to that rough draft. But regardless, details like the torture methods used are useful for advice like this.

If you yourself aren't appalled by it then you're probably not doing it right.

I'd contest this. Not all torture scenes aim to elicit disgust or horror, first of all, and secondly, it is possible to desensitise yourself to torture scenes, particularly if you try to read a ton in order to get it right (stylistically or realistically).

Do the research.

The Other Wiki is a good start.

Basically, anything that causes no physical pain, but is extremely unpleasant emotionally, counts as psychological torture. One big thing is to never give them a break. Keep them going through something unpleasant pretty much continuously, including depriving them of sleep. People break down very fast when they have no opportunity to recover.