Part one of a two part episode

Most speculative fiction will involve traumatising your main character at some point but how do you make it clear to a reader or viewer that this is what is happening without ponderously 'telling' it? What narrative techniques can be employed to show this instead? How do you deliver the message with emotion without tilting over into melodrama? How do you make trauma believable? This week Jules and Madeleine delve into this tricky part of storytelling.

On the slab - Daredevil, Twilight, I Belong to the Earth and many more.

Title music: Ecstasy by Smiling Cynic