What About a Sore Back?

So here's something that came to me today (which I wrote down; any time an idea related to your writing comes to you, write it down, because you might be able to use it, if not now, maybe later).

How about a sore back?  Who among us hasn't had a sore back from time to time?  Who among us hasn't felt the stabbing pain, experienced the debilitation, hasn't had his life altered, at least a little, because his back is so sore, he can scarcely move?

Well, use that.  Give your character a sore back.  Why not?  If a sore back is an experience common to all human beings, then why shouldn't your protagonist have a sore back too?  Why should your protagonist always be in perfect health?  That's not realistic.  Help your reader relate to your protagonist by giving him, your protagonist (and your reader, by association), a sore back.

Giving your protagonist a sore back shouldn't be done just for the sake of doing it.  It should be done for a reason.  After all, nothing in a novel should be there by accident; everything in a novel should be there because you intended it to be there, either consciously or unconsciously, because it's meant to be there for some reason that serves your story. 

At the very least, giving your protagonist a sore back could be yet another form of conflict.  Let's say everything is already going wrong for your main character.  But, to show that things couldn't get much worse, give him a sore back, a really, really sore back, one that almost prevents him from standing, let alone moving from one place to another.

Or perhaps a sore back is symbolic of something else, or foreshadowing something bad is about to happen to your protagonist.  Really, you can use a sore back for just about any purpose.  Be creative.  Giving your protagonist a sore back in that specific scene may be just what your narrative calls for.  Think it through.  Figure it out.  Does it work?  Could it work?  Make it work.

Finally, it doesn't have to be a sore back.  Aren't there all kinds of things that befall us as human beings, that we can give our characters, to make them more human, to intensify their conflict?  How about a sore throat?  A bad cold?  The flu?  What about a toothache, a sprained ankle, or a broken arm?

I just went through the experience of having a broken arm.  And what an experience it was.  Now that I have it under my belt, I could use it, if I wanted to, in my novel–afflict my protagonist with a broken arm.  I can certainly write around that, because I know about the experience intimately.  I can make it about as realistic as you could imagine.

Use what you have.  Use what's yours to use.  Use it to make your characters more like the human beings who walk in and out of our lives every day.

Heap more conflict on your characters.  Make your readers care more about your characters, because real things happen to them, real inconveniences, not only the ones you fabricate to make their lives miserable.

Have you considered a sore back?