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I was going to post this on fpdebate but it's not really a debate so much as me ranting, lol, so I just copied it into here and didn't post there, I might eventually once I get my thoughts organized.
[This was sparked partially by the fact that I want to write a story about a main character who has schizophrenia (undiagnosed) and an anxiety disorder as a result but I wasn't sure how well it would work to have a narrator who's that unreliable. ]
How do you guys feel about main characters with mental illnesses? I'm wondering partially because of a story idea I had and then as I tried to think of something using a character with a mental disorder, all I could remember was a story i came across a year or so a go where the MC falls in love with a boy who has autism. I didn't actually get past the first chapter because what really struck me was how she focused on his beauty and made it seem as if the doctors were holding him against his will etc. and how he clung to her and how she would save him or some ish like that.
Throughout the opening I was just shaking my head. I couldn' t buy it because I have a cousin who's autistic who would be around the age of the guy in the story and it is frustrating being around him because even though you're the same age we're not on the same level so you end up treating him like a child and he in return acts out because he knows that he grew up with us, why do we treat him differently.
If just hanging out with him is frustrating [not all the time, of course, depends on the situation] can you imagine dating someone with the disease? Having to deal with not only your frustrations but his as well? And if he's in the hospital because of it and you're a shallow high school girl who fell for him because he was pretty and clung to you when the nurses tried to bring him back to the room, [if i recall correctly the boy didn't speak to her at the time, just jumped on her] how are you going to make the relationship work at all?
Now, to be fair, I just read the prologue and then a bit of the first chapter, but from the voice I doubted she was going to look at it seriously.
Okay, just found it and here's a quote:
You find out that the dude clinging to you is mentally disabled and all you can focus on is his appearance? Now, I didn't get past that section of the story, and I don't think I'm going to try and get past that part [so if it gets better, feel free to say so in the comments] but I remember feeling disappointed. Not to mention, the way she talks about it/defends him:
Um... he's entitled to be as much human as you are? Maybe the author didn't know what she was saying but that sounds just as bad as calling him mental to me. I mean, he isn't 'entitled' he is a human. He's entitled to being *treated* like others. And I believe he has some 'normalcy' in him. Right. I think part of it is her writing style but that whole thing came off as insulting to me. Not to mention the fact that he comes off as a child who's around three/four makes the whole thing uncomfortable to me. I don't know, this whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.
Not saying just because it deals with autism it should be super serious, but I would like a bit of realism when you decide to use a mental illness as a plot device. If your character hears voices and you label it as part of a disease don't make it just something fun/cute. United State of Tara has someone with multiple personalities and even though it's a funny show, you also see the consequences of these different personalities, something I don't think is shown on fp.
An example of dealing with mental illnesses that doesn't take itself seriously but is amusing to me is The Raccoon Wars by McQuinn. The lead guy is a pyromanic and a sado-masochist and the female is paranoid and has to be some kind of -path. [She's raging ((waging??)) a war against raccoons that includes her buying cyanide and beating them to death. Girl has issues.] But it's written in so smoothly from the POV of view of the female lead that it's not an issue for me.
Another story with a character I think has a mental disorder is Loly Darko's Killing Kevin. She went in a different direction in that the main character is the one who's 'disabled' in the fact that he may, or may not be, a psychopath. He sees butterflies everywhere and he can hear them and at first you think he's just hallucinating and that's his issue, then later on you find out he's been having weird dreams/memories of killing people and then on the news you hear that someone has been killed, but he doesn't seem to recall the actual murder.
This is actually a different take on the whole mental illness aspect because even though Kevin knows something isn't right he doesn't think something is wrong exactly, so we see as he tries to go about his life but he's slipping up. Like I think there's a section where he thinks something only to realise he said it out loud [this leads to a drug test]. And even though we don't deal with the issue of his mental illness [not yet at least]. It's everywhere in the presence of the butterflies he sees. And on a weird correlation, he's a murderer (maybe) who is in lust with a good girl/daughter of a bible thumper who may or may not be dating him just for the bad boy factor.
Since he's the narrator (and an unreliable one at that) you experience his illness and even as you're wondering when he'll try to do something about it aside from smoking weed it isn't particularly jarring.
Now that I think about it, that might not be the best example, lol, but it's like those stories where the main character has a drug problem/eating disorder/cutting. A lot of the time it's sensational, just there to show that the character(s) is/are bad ass, has a rough life instead of it being a part of his life. Like Kevin and the butterflies.
Personally, when I find a story that handles a mental illness in such away you can see the impact it's having on the characters whether or not the person suffering from it views it as an illness [cutting/anorexia/hallucinations] and it's not preaching at me, I don't mind it. If you can integrate it into the story so we can believe the frustration of it all and can laugh even when the character is doing something weird then you've done a great job. I need to believe in the characters/stories and not the way it's being delivered, make me want to root for your characters even if they should be, for all purposes unlikable.
But these other stories where it's just there for laughs [character who hears voices]/mechanism for fake conflict [autistic boy who's OMG SO HOT] then I can't be bothered.
ESPECIALLY if there's potential. A character who chooses to go mute because she was sexually assaulted [a la Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson] and needs to find a way to make her voice be heard while dealing with being hated for the one time she did speak up, love it. A character who goes mute because she is being bullied and then the super sexy transfer student falls in love with her at first sight and wants to save her but since she can't speak she can't tell him that's she's being harassed by the Principal's son and blahdeblahblah. That's crap. [Actually, it sort of sounds interesting in my summary, but the story just has too many UGH moments to balance it out].
---
This was when I realised I was ranting and didn't really have a point, LOL, but seriously if you're going to touch on these issues handle them better. For full disclosure I'll point out that even though I'm more into humour/romance, when I do read things that are darker they tend to be a bit more dark/gory.
After rereading that I think I might have been unfair comparing the autistic story to Killing Kevin and Raccoon Wars as those two are from the POV of the characters who are 'mentally unstable', even if they don't think they are. While this one the main character is in full control of her senses (supposedly) and I don't know if we ever get a glimpse into the autistic boy's mind.
I had another point I'm sure but after using Killing Kevin as an example I think I might just write something about an unreliable narrator. A purposefully unreliable narrator. Off the top of my head I can think of two people who have used unreliable narrators; Loly and Kat [who has taken down all her stories i think].
Of course, that's if I don't consider all narrators written in first person or third person limited as unreliable. Hmm... I'll figure it out, lol.
[This was sparked partially by the fact that I want to write a story about a main character who has schizophrenia (undiagnosed) and an anxiety disorder as a result but I wasn't sure how well it would work to have a narrator who's that unreliable. ]
How do you guys feel about main characters with mental illnesses? I'm wondering partially because of a story idea I had and then as I tried to think of something using a character with a mental disorder, all I could remember was a story i came across a year or so a go where the MC falls in love with a boy who has autism. I didn't actually get past the first chapter because what really struck me was how she focused on his beauty and made it seem as if the doctors were holding him against his will etc. and how he clung to her and how she would save him or some ish like that.
Throughout the opening I was just shaking my head. I couldn' t buy it because I have a cousin who's autistic who would be around the age of the guy in the story and it is frustrating being around him because even though you're the same age we're not on the same level so you end up treating him like a child and he in return acts out because he knows that he grew up with us, why do we treat him differently.
If just hanging out with him is frustrating [not all the time, of course, depends on the situation] can you imagine dating someone with the disease? Having to deal with not only your frustrations but his as well? And if he's in the hospital because of it and you're a shallow high school girl who fell for him because he was pretty and clung to you when the nurses tried to bring him back to the room, [if i recall correctly the boy didn't speak to her at the time, just jumped on her] how are you going to make the relationship work at all?
Now, to be fair, I just read the prologue and then a bit of the first chapter, but from the voice I doubted she was going to look at it seriously.
Okay, just found it and here's a quote:
"You see, he comes from the mentally disabled apartment," her nurse-ly tone finally went on a roll."You mean...he's mentally unstable?" I looked at the guy now. Um...
Hot. Hot. Hot. Hot!!! And oh my Jolly Ranchers he is...HOT!Okay...sorry for that, but did I mention he was hot? Okay, okay...well despite that he was in one of those robe things that the hospital requires people to wear, he was...drool worthy.
You find out that the dude clinging to you is mentally disabled and all you can focus on is his appearance? Now, I didn't get past that section of the story, and I don't think I'm going to try and get past that part [so if it gets better, feel free to say so in the comments] but I remember feeling disappointed. Not to mention, the way she talks about it/defends him:
"Then why did he kiss me!?!?" I shouted as I looked at him. He flinched away, closer to my grandmother now, and grabbed a whole handful of my Gram's hair."Didn't we tell you that he was mental?" The nurse snapped."I don't like your tone Mrs..." – I looked at her name tag – "Mrs. Krepp! I could report you for stating something like that to them. Just because he isn't normal – which I believe he has some normalcy in him – he is entitled to be as much human as you are." My grandmother stood there shocked as I defended the poor soul. What? You know, I was and still am in the Key club and helped the needed for community care.
Um... he's entitled to be as much human as you are? Maybe the author didn't know what she was saying but that sounds just as bad as calling him mental to me. I mean, he isn't 'entitled' he is a human. He's entitled to being *treated* like others. And I believe he has some 'normalcy' in him. Right. I think part of it is her writing style but that whole thing came off as insulting to me. Not to mention the fact that he comes off as a child who's around three/four makes the whole thing uncomfortable to me. I don't know, this whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.
Not saying just because it deals with autism it should be super serious, but I would like a bit of realism when you decide to use a mental illness as a plot device. If your character hears voices and you label it as part of a disease don't make it just something fun/cute. United State of Tara has someone with multiple personalities and even though it's a funny show, you also see the consequences of these different personalities, something I don't think is shown on fp.
An example of dealing with mental illnesses that doesn't take itself seriously but is amusing to me is The Raccoon Wars by McQuinn. The lead guy is a pyromanic and a sado-masochist and the female is paranoid and has to be some kind of -path. [She's raging ((waging??)) a war against raccoons that includes her buying cyanide and beating them to death. Girl has issues.] But it's written in so smoothly from the POV of view of the female lead that it's not an issue for me.
Another story with a character I think has a mental disorder is Loly Darko's Killing Kevin. She went in a different direction in that the main character is the one who's 'disabled' in the fact that he may, or may not be, a psychopath. He sees butterflies everywhere and he can hear them and at first you think he's just hallucinating and that's his issue, then later on you find out he's been having weird dreams/memories of killing people and then on the news you hear that someone has been killed, but he doesn't seem to recall the actual murder.
This is actually a different take on the whole mental illness aspect because even though Kevin knows something isn't right he doesn't think something is wrong exactly, so we see as he tries to go about his life but he's slipping up. Like I think there's a section where he thinks something only to realise he said it out loud [this leads to a drug test]. And even though we don't deal with the issue of his mental illness [not yet at least]. It's everywhere in the presence of the butterflies he sees. And on a weird correlation, he's a murderer (maybe) who is in lust with a good girl/daughter of a bible thumper who may or may not be dating him just for the bad boy factor.
Since he's the narrator (and an unreliable one at that) you experience his illness and even as you're wondering when he'll try to do something about it aside from smoking weed it isn't particularly jarring.
Now that I think about it, that might not be the best example, lol, but it's like those stories where the main character has a drug problem/eating disorder/cutting. A lot of the time it's sensational, just there to show that the character(s) is/are bad ass, has a rough life instead of it being a part of his life. Like Kevin and the butterflies.
Personally, when I find a story that handles a mental illness in such away you can see the impact it's having on the characters whether or not the person suffering from it views it as an illness [cutting/anorexia/hallucinations] and it's not preaching at me, I don't mind it. If you can integrate it into the story so we can believe the frustration of it all and can laugh even when the character is doing something weird then you've done a great job. I need to believe in the characters/stories and not the way it's being delivered, make me want to root for your characters even if they should be, for all purposes unlikable.
But these other stories where it's just there for laughs [character who hears voices]/mechanism for fake conflict [autistic boy who's OMG SO HOT] then I can't be bothered.
ESPECIALLY if there's potential. A character who chooses to go mute because she was sexually assaulted [a la Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson] and needs to find a way to make her voice be heard while dealing with being hated for the one time she did speak up, love it. A character who goes mute because she is being bullied and then the super sexy transfer student falls in love with her at first sight and wants to save her but since she can't speak she can't tell him that's she's being harassed by the Principal's son and blahdeblahblah. That's crap. [Actually, it sort of sounds interesting in my summary, but the story just has too many UGH moments to balance it out].
---
This was when I realised I was ranting and didn't really have a point, LOL, but seriously if you're going to touch on these issues handle them better. For full disclosure I'll point out that even though I'm more into humour/romance, when I do read things that are darker they tend to be a bit more dark/gory.
After rereading that I think I might have been unfair comparing the autistic story to Killing Kevin and Raccoon Wars as those two are from the POV of the characters who are 'mentally unstable', even if they don't think they are. While this one the main character is in full control of her senses (supposedly) and I don't know if we ever get a glimpse into the autistic boy's mind.
I had another point I'm sure but after using Killing Kevin as an example I think I might just write something about an unreliable narrator. A purposefully unreliable narrator. Off the top of my head I can think of two people who have used unreliable narrators; Loly and Kat [who has taken down all her stories i think].
Of course, that's if I don't consider all narrators written in first person or third person limited as unreliable. Hmm... I'll figure it out, lol.
irritated
contemplative