Gun shot advice

[elisheva_m]

The big melodramatic action climax of the lakorn I'm writing involves a gun fight (tropey genres x 2, realism is a bonus). Key characters escape, but it's too much to ask that it's unscathed or that they all only have grazes.

What's a good location for a gun shot wound which, let's say, requires stitches but can plausibly be expected to heal without complications? Arm or leg as they had the magical protection of body armour and being main characters. They've made it to a safe location with supplies prepared in advance and with the expectation of bullet wounds. One in particular has been around violence for over a decade and has experience.

I have a good enough idea on graze wounds for my needs - these really are "little details" in the lakorn and I'm just trying to calm the melodrama a bit with something heading in the vague direction of realism :D :D  It's been harder to figure out a wound which conveys "serious" (ie stitches as an emotional stand-in for surgery) but won't be difficult to treat for someone with good supplies and experience.

So rather than asking if this or that might work for you all to tell me it won't, I figured i'd just ask for suggestions on the location(s) from the start :D :D

TIA and thanks for replies to my earlier question.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

“Outside and in an open area” is fairly broad territory; are we talking an urban setting, where she might bang into a railing or sharp sculpture? A natural setting, perhaps with stones, thorns, or old wooden fences?

[elisheva_m]

Yes, I've been being vague about the exact location in case this gets to the point where I might ask for beta readers on DW.
As much as I like lilacsigal's suggestion, trying to implement it in this particular setting bogs the action down with words and creates a new moment of implausibility. The gunfight and what happens immediately after are high melodrama, so they need to be more emotion than explanation.

Pallas_rose's reply about stitches being rare for gunshot wounds got me headed down another path, which is in keeping with character, where they are in the plot and lakorn as a genre. Bandaging it up that night with the expectation that this will be enough, except she doesn't sleep because [spoilers :D ] and aggravates it is more than plausible. It is 100% what she would do, and will continue to do, so it's a much better fit than trying to explain in a sharp object which shouldn't be in the setting and how she managed to fall/interact with it in a way which gave her a serious wound.

This grounds it in the characters and their emotions quickly, which is how good lakorns manage their melodrama. The draft currently does have stitches to help keep some of the intensity as I step it down into more regular life. Is it what a doctor would have done? Possibly not. But these characters, it fits :D