Dear Jeannie: Effect of Abortion on Men

Dear Jeannie, 

Wesley wasn't romantically involved with Crystal when she became pregnant, but she was very special to him. Unbeknownst to him, he had developed a lot of protective affection towards her. Against his advice, wishes, and prayers, she had an abortion and fled the state. Is it realistic for him to carry life-altering guilt about her choice for years? He was the only person she knew who argued against the decision (partly for moral reasons, but mainly because of the physical dangers and consequences she would face). He doesn't connect to people easily, so would he still want to track her down afterwards, or would he mentally throw her in a garbage bin? I know some women go through healing and therapy in the wake of this kind of decision, but what about men?

Mourning in Myrtle Beach


Dear Mourning,

I love this question because it's thinking outside the box. YES!! Men can mourn the loss of an unborn life, and I believe this had largely been undressed in the media (for sure) or in fiction (I read one book where the man carried this burden....there are probably others). What is unique about your situation is that the baby was not his child (if I'm reading it right). So it's a bit more far-fetched that he'd carry this "life-altering guilt" about a child he wasn't biologically connected to...but I suppose he could feel guilt in general about her choice. But the further you remove him from the outcome (i.e., if it were his child, or if they had plans to raise it together, even if it wasn't his) the less likely his guilt reaction would be. Whether he'd want to track her down or not would depend on his feelings for her prior to the abortion. And he wouldn't do it for some time, probably, as he'd harbor anger (at least initially) against her for what he would perceive as her reckless, impulsive, selfish action. But kudos for thinking about an issue in such a different light. Thanks for writing in.

Got Questions?

'Cause the queue is empty! Leave your own questions anonymously below, using monikers like Sleepless in Seattle, and I'll answer in future Dear Jeannie columns.

Dear Jeannie: Teen v. Adult Reactions and Guilt Trips

Dear Jeannie,

How might teenagers react to realizing they're in an end of the world (EMP) situation? They are away from adults but in a familiar home, so it might even take a while for them to realize how dire the situation is, but what sorts of emotions and behaviors would be possible? Would they fall along the grieving types of reactions possibly, denial, bargaining, and the sort? How do teenagers react to disaster, possibly childishly, and being forced to act like an adult? I'm afraid I've made them too 'adult' and non reactive. 

Worried in Wisconsin


Dear Worried,

Teenagers and even children feel the same way adults feel when faced with challenges and hardships. They have all the same hardware and wiring that adults do...it's the software that's different (i.e., how the hardware is utilized). Children act out when scared or angry, while adults might be more "mature" about it and get even or punch a boxing bag. The rule of thumb with teens and kids in general is that they are less likely to be able to communicate their feelings effectively, so they will resort to more physical ways of coping, whether that's fighting, running around like hoodlums, being verbally aggressive, etc. They will likely have heightened reactions as far as intensity and duration go (i.e., they cry/yell longer and louder). So yes, they'll feel denial, shock...all of it. You might have them acting "too adult" if you have them sitting in a circle, calmly discussing options. Hope that helps!

Dear Jeannie,

My MC idolized his father as a child until, as a late teen, his younger sister killed herself with a drug overdose from a narcotic/alcohol mix she'd gotten hold of from her physician father's stash. He had a previously hidden drug abuse problem. Although my MC followed in his father's footsteps professionally, the devastating events of his childhood have caused issues in his adult life. What might those issues look like? He is 34 years old and his father passed away several years ago, having never gotten over his guilt and failure as a father.

Home in the Heartland 

Dear Heartland,

Oooh. Like this backstory. You could go a lot of different ways. Perhaps he becomes obsessive-compulsive in how he handles/locks up drugs, keeps files, maintains his office, etc., so as to avoid any possibly accidents such as what happened to his sister. He might have a difficult time treating addicts, or closet addicts, especially those who are fathers, as they remind him of his own and the counter-transference is too great. You didn't mention if your MC has a family, but if not, he might be extremely reluctant to engage with a woman who had any kind of alcohol/drug background..even if not her own, but a family member's. (Which would be the perfect heroine to give him, by the way.) He likely got into medicine not only to follow in his father's footsteps, but maybe somehow to absolve himself of his ignorance when, as a young teen, he didn't know what to do for his sister (say, if he found her dying or something). His motivation is to be better than his father, which gives him great amounts of pressure, which, ironically, would make him susceptible to the same things his father did to relieve stress (i.e, drug addiction). His greatest fear could likely be to be like his father in every way, not just as a physician. Lots to work with there. I'd be interested in assessing him for real. :-)

GOT QUESTIONS?

I hope so, because I'm officially OUT. The queue is empty, so first two responders will definitely have your questions answered next week! 

Dear Jeannie: Guilt and Intermittent Explosive Disorder

Dear Jeannie,

My MC decides to go to war after a childhood hero is tortured to death by the enemy, and the execution broadcast as shock-propaganda. Two years later, my MC is killed in the same manner by the same man, only to be revived by enemy doctors and told that she is now required to serve a year working in the enemy hospital to pay for her resurrection. Shortly thereafter, she finds that the childhood hero is alive and working as a nurse. Now the pair have finally sparked a real conversation regarding their experiences, and it was my Old Soldier who brought it up. I'm unsure as to how my MC will deal with her death and resurrection, or whether my Old Soldier will feel that her death was indirectly his fault.

Wondering in Washington


Dear Wondering,

This is one of those questions that could go a lot of different ways. The Old Soldier childhood hero could very likely feel it was his fault the MC is now in his same condition, especially if she made it clear that she only joined the war because of him. 

As for your MC, her first reaction to the death/resurrection (outside of "what the h--- just happened?") would be to wish she hadn't survived. She would likely be angry at being revived only to work for the enemy, and her anger would be in direct proportion to how fervent she was in her war ideology. However, upon meeting her childhood hero, she might be grateful to learn he's still alive, sad that he's been held captive for the enemy, and determined to find them both a way out from their oppressor.

I, for one, would love to know what you're going to do next with this interesting plot. Kudos!


Dear Jeannie,

My protag's husband is struggling with an "inner demon." His grandfather and great-grandfather were also "possessed." He learns to control his anger through meditation, yoga, exercise and massage. His bursts of anger range anywhere from a firecracker exploding to a volcano erupting. Can this type of anger be hereditary? Or is it just the inability to cope with stress? Those who are not exposed to these bursts see him as a loving husband, hardworking employee, and loyal friend.

Lost in Translation


Dear Lost,

I'm interested in how you are portraying this man's anger and explosiveness as a demon. Is this because of their religious background? What it sounds like you are describing is Intermittent Explosive Disorder, a very real problem many people face, no matter how you view it (chemical imbalance, demon, etc).

Essentially, the disorder requires several distinct episodes of failure to resist aggressive impulses (both physical and verbal) that results in assaultive acts, destruction of property, or nondestructive/noninjurious physical aggression. Also, the degree of aggression expressed is way out of proportion to what precipitated it. The impulsive nature of these actions has to cause marked distress, impairment, or negative consequences for the individual.

Mental disorders can definitely be inherited, but they can also be a learned behavior, so to speak. If your MC's husband witnessed his father (who witnessed his father) blowing up as a way to be heard, feared, revered and respected, then it's not unheard of for children to pick this up.

Hope this helps!

Got Questions? I'm one away from being OUT.

Post them anonymously below, using monikers like Sleepless in Seattle.
I'll get to them in future Dear Jeannie columns.

Should You Feel Guilty for Skimming?

Multicolored Stacked Books by Stuart Miles

With the Thanksgiving holidays around the corner, we probably all have a pile of books to be read (or, if you're like me, a long list in various e-reader apps on my iPad). We've all had the misfortune of picking up a book we thought would be a winner only to discover it's a dud.

I've dealt with three types of readers thus far in this scenario:

1) Tossers: those who toss the book out on it's ear with the attitude of "life's too short to deal with bad prose, poor grammar, fill-in-your-literary-vice-here."

2) Skeptics: those who cautiously read on, hoping that something in the book will redeem their decision to have wasted the earlier amount of time reading it.

3) Dogmatics: those who finish the book no matter what, perhaps silently cursing their inability to toss it or having "wasted" their money (hopefully the book was a freebie on Amazon and then this won't be the case).


I'm not writing this post to cast my vote for any one camp. Sorry to disappoint.

But I do want to offer an alternative to nail biting decisions.

In some ways, I'm proposing the literary equivalent to taking a book on a first date. Mortimer J. Adler wrote a book called How to Read a Book in which he identified four levels of reading that build upon one another:

• Elementary
• Inspectional
• Analytical
• Syntopical

Elementary reading is remedial literacy. The basics, if you will. You find the book attractive, the cover interesting, the premise engaging.

Inspectional reading encompasses a quick, yet meaningful, advance review to order to evaluate the pros and cons of whether you should go steady with this book. There are two ways to do this, according to Adler:

1) Skimming. This is like taking a book out for a drink (instead of a longer dinner). You read the back cover blurb, glance at chapter titles, selectively dip in and out of content, and skip around a bit.

The KEY is that this is a time-limited activity.

And here is where my metaphor falls apart slightly. Drinks with a first date can last anywhere from an hour to an entire evening. But with a book, you want to take no more than about five minutes to make the decision about whether to go on to the next level of reading commitment. 

If your gut tells you that this book is unworthy of additional time or effort, CUT YOUR LOSSES AT THIS POINT. You're only out a few minutes of your time and can pick up the next book on your TBR pile guilt-free. You haven't led the book on or made it think you were more interested than you are.

If, however, you are still interested, it's time to go dancing with your book.

2) Superficial. Doesn't sound much better than skimming, but this is reading at it's purest level of enjoyment. You're not pondering why a character did what, you're not losing sleep over something you didn't get. You're just reading for entertainment, just like going dancing with a date. You're actively engaged, but still on a surface level.

Unless a book truly resonates, with a spark that makes you crave to reread, there's no need to go further into Adler's third and fourth levels of Analytical and Syntopical reading. And if you're interested in those levels, buy Adler's book, as the post stops here.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving reading hours....and remain guilt-free due to very intentional skimming.

Let's Analyze

Do you skim? When do you know you've skimmed enough to keep reading or toss it?

Character Clinic: Taggert

Today, I've got 20-year-old Taggert on the couch, the brain child of author Angela. Taggert flirts with danger and can be reckless, something he enjoys and that makes him feel free. He used to be the personal messenger for Prince Zven, carrying orders all over the kingdom that he later learns sentenced many innocent people to death in villages while at the same time putting the blame on pirates. Taggert is helping Jocelyn, the prince's betrothed, run away, and he's developed feelings for her. 

Angela wants to know: How will Taggert react--given his personality--when he finds out that his thrill-seeking behavior has endangered everyone he cares about? What is a reasonable response and subsequent actions?

Taggert -

You like to skirt the wild side of things, that much is certain. It's an interesting conundrum, given that your greatest fear is that you'll hurt someone without meaning to. It's a little baffling to read that and then have you write that "danger is good for the soul."

I'd have to ask you whether each and every time you face a danger--get an adrenaline rush--are you going back to how you felt when you dove off that cliff when your mother was chasing you? Do you relive that? Or are you simply focused on the rush of endorphins in your body, how it makes you feel physically to buck convention and rules?

The answer to that question will actually tell you a lot about yourself and what your mental state might be if when you get someone else hurt because of your recklessness. The big difference between how you'll feel at that moment and how you felt when you realized that the letters you were delivering were putting people to death will be the personal involvement factor.

You yourself didn't put those people to death, and there is a mental way of removing yourself from the outcome due to that fact. But if you chose a reckless behavior that ends up harming someone else--even if you yourself got harmed in the process, as well, you'll be racked with guilt.

Guilt affects everyone differently, but you'll probably react one or two ways: 1) you'll forsake your reckless behavior and try to make restitution with those you've harmed or 2) you'll figure yourself beyond forgiveness and engage in ever reckless behavior, ultimately to your own destruction, emotionally or physically. Sounds pretty dramatic, but that about sums it up. Your author will know which will be more likely to be your response.

Hope you've enjoyed your time on the couch today. If you want to go deeper, you know where to find me.

Character Clinic: Joe Cooper

Lorna's character Joe is on the couch today. He's a high school senior quarterback whose biggest dream is to play for the NFL--preferably the San Francisco 49ers. He has a girlfriend Rebecca who he loves dearly. One night, he was texting Rebecca and not paying attention to the road. He hit and killed a jogger. To make matters worse, he ran from the scene and didn't tell anyone. The jogger just happens to be the uncle of Cheryl, the head cheerleader at his school who has always had a crush on him. She's vowed to find out who is responsible for killing her uncle. Yikes!

Lorna wants to know: What is Joe thinking or feeling as he goes through his life after the accident? Will he have trouble in school or make mistakes playing football? Anything important I need to know?

Joe -

You've killed someone. Unless you are an unfeeling, uncaring person (which your intake form would suggest otherwise), then you are definitely going to be affected--seriously--by this traumatic event. The guilt, at times, might be unbearable.

The nightmares you mentioned are evidence of post-traumatic stress, as would any flashbacks while you're awake, avoiding the scene of the crime, perhaps even avoiding your car (opting to ride your bike to school, etc). People with PTSD generally try to avoid any and all reminders of the event, which might mean suddenly Cheryl makes you uncomfortable (besides the fact that she's after you and doesn't know it) because she reminds you of her uncle. Or it might play out in your life by the fact that you don't want to text your girlfriend anymore. Texting reminds you of that split second when you heard your car crunch into something on the road.

It's different for everyone, but *normal* people would probably act different enough after an event like this that even the casual observer would know something was "up" with them, whether they could figure out what it is or not. You'd likely be more withdrawn. Your grades might suffer. Your game might suffer. Life might suddenly crowd you out.

You'll probably be mentally hounded by questions, like, "Could I have done something to save him?" "Should I turn myself in?" "Should I have died too?" "Is my life worth living after having done this?" This will be excellent inner tension for him.

I feel that I must say that any reader is going to want him to come clean by the end of the book, or not only will the book be unsatisfying, it will also be espousing a moral premise that is inherently false. So I hope you've got a great arc planned for him to see this through. Best of luck!

Character Clinic: Siron

Today's character on the couch is Siron, a 19-year-old in Taylor's fantasy novel. He never knew he father, but his mother said he reminded her too much of him, thus she didn't like him. Siron's biggest regret was accidentally killing his mother. He pushed her into a stove, and she badly burned herself, which he intended, but then she cracked her head open when she fell. Now he and his sister, who Siron would do anything for, are penniless and starving. Siron's entire motivation hinges around his sister, keeping her happy, healthy, and alive.

Taylor wants to know: What would make Siron's devotion to his sister more realistic? What would it take for his devotion for her to break? And what would it take for Siron to become someone who no longer cares for anyone but himself?

Taylor -

The first thing my mind went to when you asked what would make his devotion more realistic was one word: GUILT. If some action of Siron's had inadvertently harmed his sister, either physically or emotionally, then he'd naturally feel responsibility.

What if when he pushed his mother into the stove, she stumbled over Siron's sister, causing her to fall into the stove as well? Even a small scar at Siron's hand might give credibility to his extreme protectiveness.

You already would have the built-in guilt of having taken away her mother. Even though Siron didn't mean to kill her, he did intend to hurt her. Either way, he would be removing his sister's parent. She was favored by his mother, so it would stand to reason that his sister had a good relationship with their mother.

So for his devotion to break (I assume you mean to stop altogether), a blatant disregard for his sacrifices for her might override the guilt. Then you would have Siron's emotions switch to anger, which is a secondary emotion. His true inner emotion would be more like disappointment or worry or fear (for her safety or even that of his own). [Click on the picture to the left to enlarge it. I use this in therapy all the time.] If his sister were to somehow fly in the face of his protection, or to somehow put them in further danger--that might make Siron question his utter devotion, and possibly help him live more for himself than solely her.

Hope you've enjoyed your time on the couch! If you want to go deeper, I'd be glad to have a longer session! Just click here.

Treatment Tuesday - Survivor's Guilt 101

This week's assessment is for Jennifer. She wrote in about her current WIP featuring two brothers. The hero feels he is to blame for his brother's death. His brother was driving the car and they were having an argument about the hero's irresponsibility when they got into an accident. The hero's brother died, leaving the hero with survivor's guilt. To add insult to injury, the hero's brother was considered the "perfect" brother, the responsible one--yet he was the one who died. Enter the heroine, who was the girlfriend of the deceased brother. She finds out she is pregnant, and the hero wants to "make things up" to his brother by marrying her and giving the baby a name.

Jennifer wants to know: Would this reaction make sense? Are there any other common factors found in people experiencing this type of guilt?

Before we get to your specific scenario, a brief overview of Survivor's Guilt might benefit my readers. Survivor's guilt is a phenomenon that occurs when a person experiences a traumatic event and lives when one or more people died. This could be war, a car accident, terrorist attack, hurricane--any event where some people die and others do not. The survivor perceives himself to have done wrong just by surviving.

Survivor's guilt used to be it's own diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until 1994 when it was subsumed under Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It carried with it many of the same criteria as PTSD does now, including depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, withdrawal, nightmares, episodes of uncontrollable crying/laughing, and a loss of interest in things that one brought pleasure. (Very similar to PTSD.)

This type of trauma response can result from 1 of 3 situations: (1) individuals feel guilty for surviving or being uninjured when others were killed or injured; [your hero fits here] (2) they were unable to rescue someone or had to leave someone dying in the disaster; or (3) it was not possible to overcome "the bad guys" (Holen, 1993; Simpson, 1993).

Some of the questions your hero will be thinking:

• Why did I live when the he died?
• Should I have died so he could live?
• Would he have had a better life, more to live for? 
• What more could I have done to save him?

What makes your story doubly interesting is that your hero has both active and passive survivor's guilt. According to clinical psychologist Yael Danieli, there is both "real" and "imagined" guilt. She distinguishes between them in that real, conscious guilt comes from an actual act of commission or omission on the part of the survivor that may have contributed to the emotional endangerment/harm/death of the other. The fact that your hero and his brother were arguing in the car might indeed have hindered the brother's driving reflexes in some way.

Imagined (also called passive) guilt is guilt a person's feels when they wish they could have acted differently, maybe more heroically, and as such would have prevented the harm that befell the other person who died. Usually this guilt happens in the absence of having knowingly acted in a harmful manner (i.e., the person didn't do anything that would have hurt anyone else), but not always. Your hero could have been talking about roses on the side of the highway when the other driver hit them and there was absolutely no fault of his in the accident. But because of his passive guilt about the argument, he's moved on to active guilt about playing a role in the actual accident.

[A caveat: one question to ask yourself about your hero is this--is he a control freak? You mentioned he wasn't the most responsible of brothers, which would lead me to the conclusion that he's not a control freak, but I ask this question because those people who are frequently have an even harder time dealing with survivor's guilt. The feeling of utter helplessness in the face of what might seem to be a random, senseless event leaves them unable to cope. They would rather believe that they could have done something differently to counteract their feeling of ineffectualness.]

So he's got this beast called survival's guilt. Would it lead him to want to marry his brother's girlfriend to give the baby a name? Short answer? Sure. Many survivors try to join in the "recovery effort" after a traumatic event--and trying to help others impacted by the loss is a major way to do this. It might be a proactive way he could relieve the guilt, assuming that relief is something he actually wants. But for some reason, this doesn't ring especially true to me, almost as if I'd think he'd rather wallow in the guilt, you know? You mentioned that he was some sort of slacker. Irresponsible. That his brother was the "perfect" brother.

My gut tells me that your hero would have many dormant feelings of worthlessness or not being as worthy as his brother emerge after the accident. Old messages of him never "measuring up" or not being as good as his brother might have been triggered, which would possibly illicit all manner of self-condemnation, inner turmoil, or acting in such a way as to prompt rejection or disdain from others so that his internal feelings and external factors gel.

So for a guy like this (if I indeed pegged him right), marrying the girlfriend would have to serve some greater purpose. You didn't mention anything about love in the character sketch, and a pregnancy is time-limited, so it appears that the marriage would be very close to the death of the brother--within the year. I got to thinking that if he had loved this girl all along that would make the marriage all that more bittersweet and tormenting, like he finally got what he wanted--but at the expense of his brother. That's emotionally intense!

How would your character make an arc that leaves the reader satisfied that he'd dealt with the guilt and moved on?

Aaron Haas wrote about survival guilt in Holocaust survivors in his paper (found in Lemberger, 1995). In it, he writes, "Guilt is the penance one pays for the gift of survival." Psychologist Donna Marzo wrote that instead of having a person focus on their guilt, they should focus on the gift of survival. In your book, that could mean a gift for your hero to change his ways, mend his relationships, be better than he was. It's a second chance. Let his internal arc swing this direction to give your reader a nice cathartic conclusion as he embraces life and living.

Good luck with this! Any other questions, leave them for me below. Hope this helps.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway for Janice Thompson's new release, Stars Collide. Click here!

Treatment Tuesday - Good Kid Gone AWOL

This week's assessment comes courtesy of Vickie. She's writing about Brad*, a 15-year-old boy who is smart, but timid. His father recently died in Afghanistan, leaving his mother a widow and Brad a big brother to his sister still in grade school. He's been bullied for months at school, and the book opens with Brad stabbing the bully, as he feels that taking matters into his own hands would be the manly things to do. However, a teacher steps in to stop him and he reflexively slices her too. Turns out he cut his favorite teacher who has tried to help him the most. Crushed by guilt and fear, Brad runs.

With the bully in critical condition and the police out looking for him, Billy tries to communicate with his teacher through anonymous letters with no return address. The letters are quotes from passages he's read in novels...clues to what he's thinking and how he sees life. The teacher sees these letters as a cry for help and works with the police to try to find him and bring him back home.

Vickie wants to know: What's realistic for Billy's mindset through all this? What will he try to communicate through his letters? What kind of encouragement does he most need?  What would convince him to come back? How would the court system deal with him? What options would he have once he turned himself in? If and when she sees him again, what would be the best way for his teacher to react/respond to him?

Brad is a troubled teen, obviously, as the "normal" teenage brain doesn't conclude stabbing someone is the best defense against a bully. I mean, the first thing that came to mind when I read that was Dexter (the serial killer who works for the Miami Police Department as a blood spatter analyst -- love the show!). Dexter's dad prevented him from going after a high school bully with a knife during one of the many flashbacks during the first season.

At the very least, Brad has an Adjustment Disorder with Disturbance of Conduct. The onset (start) would have been whenever the bully started bullying, because that would be the identified stressor. Brad's response of stabbing the bully is in marked excess to what would be expected of enduring the stressor of being bullied. Conduct Disorder, which is much more serious, can actually be ruled out due to Brad only having 2 of 3 needed criteria. Intermittent Explosive Disorder can also be ruled out, because it seems that this is the first and only time Brad has shown aggression.

If I had Brad in my office, I'd want to question him on his feelings about dad's death. he could be experiencing Bereavement, a clinical condition that can be the focus of treatment. It could be that he is experiencing "complicated bereavement" in the form of a delayed grief reaction. Since grief affects people in different ways, I'd want to explore if he thought he could be closer to his dad somehow by showing himself to be tougher or acting out of character in a more aggressive, I-can-take-care-of-myself-and-my-mom-and-sister kind of way. Adolescents are more likely to respond to grief with behaviors rather than emotions, and that might fit Brad's overreaction to the bullying to a "t."

On to the questions. As for Brad's mindset during his time on the run, if he's as smart as you say he is, my guess is that he's worried about the repercussions from stabbing the bully. He'd probably want to stick fairly close just to see if the bully dies in surgery or whatnot. He'd also want to make sure that the teacher's wound is physically taken care of, since she means so much to him. Since I don't know how he's handling his father's death, this may or may not factor in.

What would he communicate through the letters? This stumps me! I have no idea. This would depend on how close he and the teacher were, how much he trusted her not to reveal certain things to the police, whether he had ready access to books to pilfer these quotes from, or if he has certain sections memorized? And why would he communicate this way? It's like a code. (Just asking here, because I love the idea....but you'd need a solid reason. Would the teacher know the code? Like, would she recognize the book he's quoting from and realize that, say, it's location in the library would say something about where Brad is? Theorizing, here. And if that's the case, wouldn't she need to be his librarian or something?) There are just a lot of ways to go here!

As for encouragement, I'd think he'd want to know that no matter what happens to him legally and academically, he'd not be thought of less by this teacher who has been the only one to help him through his struggles. I imagine the guilt is overwhelming that he hurt her and betrayed her by not discussing things about this bully in more depth, as she probably had no idea he was about to go all Dexter on her. He's want to know that she forgave him, and only wants him to be safe...not running.

As to what would convince him to come back...perhaps if he felt he was needed, somehow? To play on the fact that his mother and sister really need him to come home, as they are having a terrible reaction to him being gone so soon after learning about his father's death? That would really lay it on thick in the guilt department, though, and he's already feeling a lot of that. It would depend on how much he felt like his presence at home was some sort of balm to his mother and sister in helping them get through the pain of his father's loss. You'd know if this was a big enough motivator for him to return, not me.

I have no idea how the courts would handle him....you'd have to ask a lawyer like Cara Putnam or Rick Aker. I've personally emailed them both various questions and gotten great feedback. I already mentioned above what would happen to him as far as school goes. My dad was an administrator at a high school, and I'm very confident that Brad would get expelled. I can't imagine that he'd only be suspended. My guess is that juvenile hall might come in there somewhere. You'll have ot research this further, as I can't be of much help.

And finally, how could the teacher respond to him if and when she sees him upon his return? She doesn't need to respond to him timidly, as if scared he might break out a knife and slice her again. Any trepidation on her part would set poor Brad back months. Open arms, Vickie. She'd need open arms. I tell this to parents whose children behave in awful ways: Your children might be disturbed, or might have made a terrible life decision that they will feel repercussions from for the rest of their life, but they are still your children. I guess the same could apply with a teacher/student relationship.

That's all I've got, Vickie.  I hope it helps out with your characterization. Thanks for writing in. Any additional questions for this character are welcomed below.

This service is for fictional characters only, so any resemblance to real life examples is entirely coincidental. Any other fictional character assessment questions can be directed to charactertherapist (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Treatment Tuesday - Strong Heroes, Even Stronger Motivations

[You have until Friday for a chance to win Deborah Vogts' Snow Melts in Spring! Click here!]

This week's assessment is from Jaime. She's writing in a second time about her historical suspense to tap the psychology well about her hero, Seth.*

Seth is a strong, silent, brooding man haunted by past war crimes he committed alongside his nemesis. Seth, whose background is the US Calvary, confessed to his crimes and took his nemesis down with him. He still feels like he owes penance, though, so when a new crime is committed by the bad guy, Seth turns himself in to appease his guilt (and thwart the bad guy by pulling such an unexpected card). He's currently on the run from the nemesis, but when the bag guy threatens the woman he loves, he decides to face his past.

* Names have already been changed to protect the fictional. Gotta love that!

Jaime wants to know: Is there a different psychology behind Seth's "guilt factor" that could bring a different spin to Seth's reaction? Why would a military man consumed by guilt not just face his opponent and end it rather than continue to run away and then take the blame for something he didn't do? How do I make Seth look strong while not losing my entire story?

Reading your sketch brings up some questions for me, not just as a therapist but as a reader. You wrote that you have a hard time believing yourself that he wouldn't just face his nemesis, fight him, and get it over with. You even wrote that turning himself in for a new crime he didn't commit almost seems weak to you, which makes you like him less as a hero.

I say you need to stick with that reaction! If you, as the author, aren't so keen on his behavior--and ultimately his character--then you have two options:

1) Change the behavior (easier way out)
2) Change his motivation (harder, but will pack more psychological punch)

If you change the behavior, you have him fight the guy, win, and then have what might be a very run-of-the-mill novel. Good guys fighting bad guys. Not a bad formulaic equation, but nothing special, either.

If you change the motivation, then you give a new twist that old plot line. My brain started turning as soon as you said the good guy "turned himself in" to thwart the bag guy. (Yes, yes, you also said to appease his guilt...but the thwarting is much more interesting. Guilt is a powerful motivator, sure, but the type guilt he's carrying around is more of a deficit in his Esteem Needs, which is pretty high up on the Heirarchy of Needs pyramid.)

I'd consider a lower needs deficit for his motivation, probably Social Needs. Why on earth would Seth turn himself in for the bad guy? This question led me to the next, more important question: What is the relationship between Seth and the bad guy? Is it simple (i.e., good guy v. bad guy) or is it more complex (i.e., good guy v. former best friend or half-brother)?

I don't think you need to change Seth's character so much as you need to layer it more (which is the psychological punch I was talking about). Characters usually tell us how they want to be written. You've got the strong, silent type who likes to brood. He's former military, so we can all imagine he's a muscular, "git-r-done" kind of guy. So make his motivation for steering clear of the conflict greater than his desire to even the score or fight.

What would keep him away, keep him running? It doesn't have to be a weak, pansy reaction for him to have. Could the bad guy be holding something over him, like a terrible secret? What if Seth doesn't want the girl he loves to find out, and only when the bad guy threatens her--and the secret might come out and "ruin" his life--does he feel the need to stand up and fight (that, and he loves her).

As your sketch reads right now, it's pretty vague why he's not wanting to stand up to Bad Guy. Could he not want to go after the bad guy because to kill him would be to kill the only family he's got left--or even knew he had? (Seriously leaning toward something like this personally. Man....think about the possibilities!) Then he'd be running to protect the guy from himself, from his guilt-infused anger, possibly? What if running was the more noble thing to do? No reader alive would think him weak if you made the motivation for his behavior more solid and something people can relate to.

These are just a few of the brainstorming ideas I had while thinking about Seth and his behavior. It makes sense for him to stand up to Bad Guy when Bad Guy starts threatening the woman he loves. If you give him a great motivation prior to this juncture in the novel, then the showdown will be just that: a showdown! Pitting his motivation to run with his motivation to protect the heroine....good stuff, Jaime. Good stuff.

Hope this helps. As always, if I'm totally off or have misunderstood in some way, please comment! I love running "sessions" between authors and me (and others!). :)

Treatment Tuesday - Guilt Through Association

This week's assessment comes from Laura. She's writing romance featuring her hero, who grew up with rich parents and all that entails (private education, luxurious holidays, designer clothes). But when he was 18, his dad was arrested and he discovers all the wealth he enjoyed came from crime, causing him to feel so guilty and ashamed that he cuts off all contact in town (including a girlfriend) and starts a new, simple life--one that comes from his own efforts. His career is centered on helping people because he feels he needs to make amends for profiting from his father's crimes.

Laura wants to know: What would his unacknowledged inner need be? What would he need to learn emotionally?

She also plans to bring the ex-girlfriend back into the story 13 years later, along with a child he knew nothing about. Alaura wants to know what type of person would this woman need to be to help her hero grow emotionally? The girl will come from a wealthy background, and Alaura is trying to figure out what the heroine's emotional need would be and what she'd need to learn about life with the help of the hero.

Almost without exception, I'd say his inner need would be validation. Validation that what he has done with his own two hands is good, that it is enough to erase the tarnish of having lived in plenty while in the shade of crime, however unknown to him at the time.

This rings true for almost every one, but males have a different ruler to measure up to. Most males want this validation from their father. Beginning back with Freud, psychologists have attempted to quantify the effects of needing a father's blessing, but really, I don't think anyone can guess just how much can ride on it for an individual. In your hero's case, his ruler no longer compares with his dad. I imagine he'd probably seek some other man he could model and emulate. Just because he might despise what his dad did, and the circles he ran in, doesn't mean that the inner need to have some sort of fatherly validation--some sort of blessing--wouldn't be as high as the next guy's.

As to what he'd need to learn emotionally, I'd probably start with learning to trust again. As a young boy, he probably trusted his parents to do right by him and others. To learn of his father's affairs would have been akin to learning his father was a traitor. It would not only throw him into a guilt-fest, but it would also bring to question everything he thought he knew about someone he probably loved very much--maybe even admired for being so "successful." Your hero probably wanted to be just like his dad when he grew up...before he knew the ugly truth.

Not everyone will betray him in such a fashion, but once bitten, twice shy. An emotional wound from childhood (and yes, 18 is still young enough to experience a wound that lasts for eternity), even not a romantic one, will color how he views other relationships. I imagine the 18-year-old harbored quite a bit of anger toward his father, and even though he picks a field of work where he can help others, that doesn't mean the anger isn't latent, lying there under the surface. You might want to think about him having some sort of physical outlet--like a hobby that involves blood, sweat, and tears--for him to pour out his underlying frustrations at a cruel world.

It would make for a nice character arc in the end for him to work through the anger (or what-have-you) and no longer have the need for that outlet (would make the reader sigh in relief if you maybe made the hobby a dangerous one--like rock climbing or something). Of course, to be truly in a healthy place, he's going to have to come to a point of at least acceptance, if not forgiveness, of his past and of his father. Forgiveness doesn't have to entail forgetting, of course, but just coming to a place where he is no longer driven by a need to remedy having condoned his father's actions.

So now let's factor in the heroine's return into his life. With her being from a wealthy family, another point of growth for the hero will be to accept the fact that not all wealth is bad. If she can be sensible about her wealth, lie not-living-in-excess-just-because-she-can about her wealth, then she could show him that money isn't the evil. It's what people do to get money...or what people do with money...but the green bill itself is neutral in those schemes. It'd be great for her to be in some sort of charity work, really doing something worthwhile with her money.

Her emotional need could be to know without a shadow of doubt that his man won't leave her again. She must have been pregnant when he left, and not being in contact for 13 years...she must have really held a grudge or not wanted him to have any place in her child's life. Assuming you work through the logistics, and she now wants to introduce her son to him, she would never do so with the thought that the hero would jump ship again. So she might introduce her son as her son, leaving out the hero's relationship to him. Innocent encounters that would win over a hero reluctant to get involved connected (for lack of trust). And once he finds out the connection, he might still have to work through his fear that he'll disappoint his child like his father disappointed him.

Hopefully this will get you started with some internal conflicts to work with! I appreciate you writing in. As always, any additional questions sparked by my assessment are welcome in the comments section.

Q4U: How many of you have written in a character with an internal problem revolving around their parents? What kind of problem was it? I'm doing a little research here for my next Thursday Therapeutic Thought series and would appreciate your help.

This service is for fictional characters only, so any resemblance to real life examples is entirely coincidental. Any other fictional character assessment questions can be directed to charactertherapist (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Treatment Tuesday - From Playboy to Committed Husband

This week’s assessment is from Alice, who gave me a possible scenario to weigh in on. Alice is writing a contemporary category romance about a man who is determined to never be in a position where someone relies on him emotionally because when he was a teen, his brother was in a serious accident and the hero and his family blamed him for it. So the hero goes for casual flings and a playboy lifestyle in an attempt to distract himself from the guilt he feels. Years later, the brother dies, which compounds the hero’s guilt.

What if, around the time of the brother’s death, the hero gets really reckless and has a one-night stand that results in pregnancy? Could it be feasible for him to feel he could atone for his brother’s death by marrying the woman for the sake of the child in a marriage of convenience? In other words, “he’s been responsible for the loss of one life and he’s not going to destroy another.”

Alice then wants to know the following: What could happen to change his stance on not allowing himself to enter into a loving relationship with the woman and his unborn son? What emotional stages would he need to go through to get to a place where he gradually changes and ends up as a committed, caring husband? How could the heroine aid the change?

Alice, I say it’s more than feasible. GO FOR IT. People are always looking for ways to atone for their sins. To the observer, maybe some of the ways they choose have no outward correlation, but as long as you give him sufficient internal motivation, and let the reader know that this man firmly believes he can atone for his brother by making sure his son is taken care of, then it’ll pass with flying colors.

Even more so would be if you up the stakes for the hero by giving him a backstory full of angst with his own father. Maybe his father only tolerated him, or didn’t show him any affection, or was always blaming him for things. Maybe he was adopted, and all he was told about his biological parents were that they didn’t want him or couldn’t take care of him. Then, when he sees that he has the means to take care of his son, he feels he can somehow even atone for his own biological parents’ downfall.

You could really play with his backstory quite a bit to make for even more tension-filled reading. If his bio dad was a player and left his pregnant teenage girlfriend who then later gave up the hero for adoption, that would add a different dimension to the hero’s decision to enter into a marriage of convenience than would the scenario where he enters into the marriage simply to prove to himself that he can do right by his son…or that he can be a better father than his own, who never told him he loved him or was proud of him.

One thing to remember about parenting is that you learn from modeling. Typically, you either grow up to be the exact same kind of parent as your own parent (scary thought, huh?) or you do a complete 180 degrees and do the exact opposite as your parent because you remember how it felt. So think about that dynamic as you make the hero a future dad. What was his own father like? Why or why not would he want to behave similarly or the exact opposite?

Going on the assumption, then, that he feels sufficiently compelled to enter into a relationship with this woman, you’d need to make his change of heart believable…so he’s not just going through the motions of marriage…he really wants a marriage in all sense of the word.

For some potential plot points, I’d consider allowing him to come through for this woman during a critical time in her pregnancy. At a time when she really needs him, he’s there for her and she makes it clear she wouldn’t have made it without him. Or perhaps he even saves the baby somehow by rushing her to the hospital to get attention for a symptom she didn’t consider all that unusual, but if he hadn’t made her get a check-up, the baby could have been in danger. Something like that would really give you a great opportunity for the heroine to encourage and compliment this man on his care and support of her…something he’d feel surprised about, because he considers himself unworthy of it. But praise is powerful…especially from a beautiful woman who happens to be carrying your child. :)

If they marry before the baby is born, then I think having her do little things to take care of him would really go a long way. Especially if his childhood was more “every man for himself,” then when this woman, whose belly is growing because of his own recklessness (well, that’s a mutual recklessness…but you get the idea), begins to pick up his socks or do his laundry or have him supper when he gets home…I think that would be something his solitary soul would really crave deep down. Of course, you’ll have to have this almost insurmountable obstacle at the end of the book where it looks like it won’t work out, and you could have him in the house, missing her feminine touch. The socks are piling up, that sort of thing. This isn’t as dramatic a change of heart so much as a gradual one that he suddenly realizes…one in which the heroine might not even realize what a role she played.

People are relational. God created us that way. He created Eve for Adam and said it was GOOD. He doesn’t intend for people to be isolated. Now, not everyone is made to marry, but they are made to have friends, to have relationships. So you’ve given your hero a great “flaw” of selfishness and self-sufficiency. He doesn’t want others to rely on him, but deep down, he really doesn’t want to rely

on others, either. Why? Because somewhere in his past, someone has failed him. So he masks his own hurt and insecurity internally by saying he’s not trustworthy or reliable.

This is a defense mechanism called reaction formation. (Read more about it here.) He behaves in such a way (playboy lifestyle) that is the exact opposite of what he really wants (love and security). The beauty of reaction formation is that it’s only an effective coping style for the short term…it eventually will break down and this will feed your character arc perfectly.

Hope this has been helpful. As always, any questions are welcome in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer them.

This service is for fictional characters only, so any resemblance to real life examples is entirely coincidental. Any other fictional character assessment questions can be directed to charactertherapist@hotmail.com.