#writerstips

1) Make sure you’ve created a character the audience cares about. A character who has struggled and who the readers can relate to will pull more of an emotional response. We relate to Katniss because of her unwavering love/protection for her sister. We want her to win and come home to her.

2) Make the characters struggle/give them a difficult journey. Nothing is easy in life, whether it’s fiction or reality. It can be tragic to see a character we’ve grown to care about get shoved around by life, bad situations or just plain bad luck. Katniss may have saved her sister from the Games, but she had to deal with losing Rue, getting hurt, thinking she was betrayed by Peeta, etc.

3) Show, don’t tell. It all goes back to the way you write the story. It’s much more sad to read the details and description of (ex. someone dying) rather than the author just saying that they died.

4) There must be stakes. The character(s) must risk losing things as they adventure throughout the story. Cause and effects for their actions. When the bad effects outweigh the good, things can become really sad. Katniss and Rue try to slow down the Careers and a terrible effect is that Rue dies. A life just might be the highest stake you can dangle over a readers head.

5) Give the characters (and the reader) hope. Then take it away. As the characters are approaching something that seems impossible, they must feel hope that they can win, that there is a way out of this alive. You could take this in dozens of different directions (not limited to these):

     • There is a way out, but no one sees it.      • There was never a way out and they were doomed from the start.      • They find a way out but at very high stakes— death.      • Sacrifices are made in order to win/get out.      • There is a way out, but betrayal ruins it all.      • There is a way out... but only for one person.

When Katniss found Rue in a trap and got her out safely, they experienced a moment of false-hope. Everything was okay now, right? She dies seconds later.

6) Make it unfair. When an experienced solider rides into battle, he is aware that he may die. This can be sad, but it’s not necessarily unfair. Change a few things up... and it can become truly tragic: a young, frail boy is drafted into the war right after his newly wed wife fell pregnant. Or, a little girl whose name is pulled from a glass bowl to fight to the death in a game for entertainment. We don’t weep for Kato or the Career pack in the Hunger Games because it’s not unfair for them. It’s unfair for Rue.

Pt. 2 — Coming Soon! [Sources 1] | [Source 2] 

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Last week I covered what schizophrenia looks using real-world experiences. This week, I’m going to dive into the disease on a more technical level. As per usual, none of this information is to be used to diagnose or treat anyone, but as a tool for writers to create characters who are close to life as possible and not mere caricatures of mental illness.

Life with schizophrenia is hard for the person experiencing the symptoms as well as the family providing care. But consider this, there was only one treatment plan for schizophrenia 100 years ago: institutionalization. Although institutionalization is still part of treatment, it is often not the only part. Thanks to new treatments and medications, many people with schizophrenia live at home or in group homes in the community. Some even have jobs. I’ll be the first to say that mental health has a LONG way to go, but I believe it is important to keep in mind where we came from.​

A person with schizophrenia may manifest the following (Videbeck p. 252):

Ambivalence: Holding seemingly contradictory beliefs or feelings about the same person, event, or situation.

Associative Looseness: Fragmented or poorly related thoughts and ideas. Thoughts are tangential—not flowing from point to point but all of the place. For example, one sentence might be about baseball and the next about frogs in a pond without a coherent link.

Delusions: Fixed false beliefs that have no basis in reality

Echopraxia: Imitation of the movements and gestures of another person whom the client is observing.

Flight of ideas: Continuous flow of verbalizations in which the person jumps rapidly from one topic to another

False sensory perceptions or perceptual experiences that do not exist in reality. These can be auditory (voices), visual, smells, and tactile (feelings, like skitters across the arms).

Ideas of reference: False impressions that external events have special meaning for that person. (The person on the TV is talking to them specifically.)

Perseverations: Persistent adherence to a single idea or topic; verbal repetition of a sentence, word, or phrase; resisting attempts to change the topic.

The above list are considered “Positive Symptoms” as in they are added to the person. Most positive symptoms are treatable, but there are “Negative Symptoms” or symptoms that seem to be lacking in a person that generally linger after the positive symptoms abate. These are them:  

Alogia: tendency to speak very little or to convey little substance of meaning

Anhedonia: Feeling no joy or pleasure from life or any activities or relationships (characteristic of depression, but is it any wonder with everything else possibly going on? Geez.)

Apathy: Feeling of indifference toward people, activities and events.

Blunted Affect: Restricted range of emotional feeling, tone, or mood

Catatonia: Psychologically induced immobility occasionally marked by periods of agitation or excitement; the client seems motionless, as if in a trance

Flat affect: Absence of any facial expressions that would indicate emotions or mood.

Lack of volition: absence of will, ambition, or drive to take action or accomplish tasks.

Keep in mind that the person experiencing these bizarre behaviors or thinking patterns may be fully aware of them. I once entered a patient’s room to find her smashing invisible bugs on her bedside table. She told me she knew the bugs weren’t real, but smashing them made her feel better. The extent of the awareness of symptoms is difficult to know since there is a huge communication barrier in many schizophrenic patients. The number of delusions, hallucinations, and their strength are all difficult barriers to break through.

Not every person with schizophrenia will have all of the above symptoms. In fact, schizophrenia is less of a single illness and more of a syndrome. Here are the five major types according to the DSM-IV-TR:

Paranoid Type: Has persecutory (feeling victimized or spied on) or grandiose delusions, hallucinations, and occasionally, excessive religiosity (delusional religious focus) or hostile aggressive behavior

Disorganized: Has grossly inappropriate or flat affect, incoherence, loose associations, and extremely disorganized behavior.

Catatonic Type: has marked psychomotor disturbance, either motionless or excessive motor activity. The excessive movement is not influenced by external stimuli. May also have mutism, echolalia (repetitive nonsensical speech) or echopraxia (imitation of the movements and gestures of someone the person is observing.)

Undifferentiated Type: Sort of a mix of the above

Residual Type: Has a history of one previous, but not current, episode.  

Schizophrenia generally starts around age 15-25. There is a genetic component to the disease, but having a genetic predisposition to the illness is not a guarantee it will present. Studies on identical twins show a 50% chance of the previously unaffected twin getting the disease. Through various imaging techniques, we have been able to see that those suffering with schizophrenia have alterations in their overall brain structures. How these came about are still a mystery although some theorize it comes about through viruses, trauma, or immune responses. Basically, the theory is that certain people have a genetic predisposition to get schizophrenia if a certain thing occurs to turn on those genes. For example, a virus comes along and triggers those genes and the brain deteriorates. There’s a similar theory regarding the onset of juvenile diabetes.

While there can be a sudden onset of schizophrenia, most people generally develop signs and symptoms slowly over time. It starts with social withdrawal, unusual behavior, loss of interest in school or work, and neglected hygiene. Generally, the diagnosis is made when delusions, hallucinations, and disordered thinking begin to appear. The age at which schizophrenia appears often determines the overall impact of the illness. The younger the onset, the worse they tend to do. Also, a slower onset predicts a worse outcome than a sudden onset.

Two years after initial onset, two patterns typically emerge. Either the person continues to experience psychosis and never fully recover (although symptoms may shift in severity over time), or they alternate between episodes of psychosis and near complete recovery.

The intensity of the psychosis also seems to diminish with age. Some may be able to function, live independently, and succeed at jobs with stable expectations and supportive work environments. Most, however, have severe difficulty functioning in their communities.

It is important to keep in mind that a person showing initial signs and symptoms of schizophrenia might lose all symptoms within a period of six months. This is called Schizophreniform disorder. Others might experience a brief psychotic disorder where delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech may last from 1 day to 1 month. It may or may not have an identifiable stressor or follow childbirth.

There is SOOOOOO much to tell when it comes to schizophrenia and this post has already become way to long. Next week, I’ll be creating a post that brings together all of this information in a usable form.

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As I was researching this, I came across this article I found very informative but did not use as a source: http://www.drjack.co.uk/the-future-of-schizophrenia-by-dr-jack-lewis/

Previously, we talked about what anxiety is, the different types of disorders, and now we’re going to talk about how each of them is treated. Keep in mind that none of these posts are to be used as a way to diagnose or treat people in real-life scenarios. It is merely a broad-overview of mental health disorders intended to help writers create as real-to-life characters as possible.

In a following post, I’m going to be bringing all of this information together to show how you can use the mental health diagnosis of anxiety together to create a plot and character arc. I try to post weekly on Mondays, so if consider following my page if you haven’t already.

In modern medicine, clinicians generally use a combination of medications as well as cognitive behavioral therapy. I am not going to focus on this medication aspect because it is not relevant to the point I’m trying to make.

Often, the first part of treating anxiety is to realize it is taking place. Sometimes it can be hard to admit that anxiety is causing that racing heart sensation, the nausea, and the heart palpitations. Often a person will show up at the ER thinking they are having a heart attack before showing up at their therapist’s office. Or a person with chronic anxiety might turn to less healthy alternatives of stress management such as binge eating or drinking. In cases like OCD, they may participate in ritualistic compulsion practices. In cases like agoraphobia, they may refuse to leave the house.

In this day and age, we are getting better as a society that does not demean people with mental health related illnesses, but we have a long way to go. If a person who previously perceived others with mental health illnesses as weak or crazy, when they develop symptoms themselves, they can be very hard to accept. A major hit to their self-esteem or self-perception can occur. Acceptance may not occur, so the person keeps presenting to the hospital with the same symptoms, but refuses to see a therapist. All this needs to be taken into consideration as it relates to treatments for anxiety. It’s also little details you can add into your character’s profiles to make them more real.

In a controlled environment such as a therapist’s office, the therapist will probably teach their client relaxation techniques to manage their anxiety symptoms when they arise. They will probably discuss different triggers that cause the anxiety to flare up. These triggers might phobias such as claustrophobia or the thought of eating in an anorexic patient. Together, the therapist and client will formulate a plan on how to face these triggers without having an anxiety related response.

For an example, we’ll us a woman with claustrophobia, specifically a fear of elevators. They are probably also afraid of closets, cars, and other tight quarters, but there’s an elevator down the hall so it’s the most convenient problem to deal with at the moment. The therapist may try ‘systematic desensitization’ where the therapist exposes the client to the threatening object in gradually increasing intensities (Videbeck p. 241). For example, they may spend a session looking at pictures of elevators on the computer. Next session, they may stand ten feet from the elevator and watch as it opens and closes while people get in and out. Then they take a peek inside the elevator. Basically, these steps are performed until the client is bored of them—which is the mind’s way of saying something is thoroughly processed. Finally, the client is able to step inside the elevator, not without fear, but without having a full-blown panic attack. They survive their small trip unscathed. This does not mean that elevator rides will be easy from now on. In fact, the client will still probably be scared of elevators, but they, themselves, will be braver. The key to this, however, is that the person must face the fear willingly. If the therapist drags them down the hall and shoves them into an elevator, the effects will be disastrous.

Often, this bravery translates into other parts of their life as well. They’re still scared to go to the grocery store, but they survived the elevator and are willing to give the shopping trip a try. They’re still afraid of their overbearing husband, but are willing to stand up to him for once. In the end (theoretically) the client become a braver person overall.

Thing is though, the overbearing husband might not like this change in their wife. They may have preferred being the strong, controlling man with the mouse-like wife. (Think Carol in the Walking Dead). Maybe she will have the courage to leave him. Or, perhaps the husband will have the courage to go to therapy themself to find out why they are the way they are. Who knows? It’s your story.

Next post I’m going to bring together all the elements of my previous posts on anxiety and show how you can use them to create a story/character arc.