Domestic noir: Fictionalising trauma survival

Abstract

How can authors fictionalise trauma without cognitively suffering intense vicarious trauma in that writing process? This paper explores this question through the lens of fictionalised Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) representations in domestic noir narratives. Domestic noir operates within the constraints of a domestic space that is subverted from a sanctuary to a potential psychological space of tyranny or violence. This may include reiterative chronic traumas such as IPV or other forms of relationship violence. Viewed as a trauma fiction, domestic noir is peculiarly suited to interrogating the survivor narrative. The domestic noir models focused on IPV develop a complex combination of the victim, survivor and hero in their representations of traumatised protagonists. The effects of writing about IPV trauma may be transformed by this fictionalising into an emerging hero-as-survivor narrative. The Emerging Hero Process developed and elaborated within this paper indicates, through reiterative cycles of the protagonist’s emotional and behavioural response, their capacity to summon the heroic act that may enable a reframed and reconciled survivor outlook. The Emerging Hero Process has evolved into an IPV writing model of a survivor narrative that may also filter or reposition the vicarious trauma of the writing process.