When a Character Lacks Social Skills

I'm a people analyzer watcher. Occupational hazard.

As a result, I'm very in tune to when someone is "off." I'm not talking about the people you might see walking down the street talking to themselves, gesticulating wildly at the heavens, and glaring at others like you might try to snatch their spare set of pants tied around their waist.

No, I'm talking about the people who masquerade as "normal." Coworkers who smile and nod as if everything is fine, but secretly harbor demented ideals of world takeover. Clerks who ring up your more intimate purchases at Target more slowly, thoughtfully. Major ick.

Or even people whose little quirks indicate they harbor an as-of-yet-unnamed mental illness. (Lack of official diagnosis doesn't mean it's not there!)

I run into these normal "off" people all the time. Of course in my work, but also at church, in the grocery store, at the mall (most definitely at the mall).

I got to thinking...how can a writer convey a slight "offness" of a character without spelling it out?

Here's some suggestions:

1) Don't use their POV. 

Behaviors are the most descriptive manifestation of mental illness. Behaviors encompass both what a person says, does, does not say, and does not do. Having other characters simply noticing their oddities will clue the reader in.

For example, the POV character could be having a conversation with the "off" character and notice an uncomfortably long silence, as the "off" character has lost the social cue to follow the flow of conversation.

This goes for conveying all mental illnesses, though. If one character has major ADHD, you could have a POV character wonder what he or she keeps looking around at, or how they can't be still while watching the movie, etc.

2) Focus on social mores. 

This is probably one of the biggest clues that someone isn't quite right. Below are a list of pro-social behaviors and a few examples of how a character could exhibit "off" behavior in that arena:

Eye contact: don't make eye contact, make too much eye contact, glare/stare excessively
Personal space: invade too much, stand too far away, are too free with their touch, never touch
Greeting: greet someone too effusively, don't move to shake hands when one is extended, greeting is out of place in the context, don't smile
Compliments: never give them, never accept them, give too many
Conversation: knowing when to speak, when not to, disclosing too much about themselves, not being able to make "small talk," listening/showing interest in the other person, not "tracking" the conversation with smiles, nods, "mmm-hmms"

I think you get the idea.

Let's Analyze:

How else might you convey to a reader that one of your characters is socially "off?"

Weekend Funnies: A Phobia Fact

 

Can I get an Amen?

 

Friday Free Association Chain

The words are....

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL.

(Can you tell what I've been involved in this week? SO glad it's Friday!)

RULES: First commenter free associates (writes the first word that comes to mind) with the above word. Second commenter free associates to the first commenter's word, and so on. Remember - the FIRST thing that comes to mind.

Go!

Character Clinic: Will Knight and Fantasy vs. "Going Crazy"

I've got Jim's character Will on the couch this week. Will's 35, and a former high school history teacher with a spotty memory. He's obsessed with learning his family history, especially the true story behind his parents' break-up when he was nine years old. He's currently in therapy with a psychologist who is trying to figure out why Will is having vivid hallucinations of traveling back in time and revisiting events from his past. He lies down on a rock on the outskirts of town and is "flung"through time.

Jim is concerned that Will's experiences on the rock will ultimately make him think he's going crazy.

Picture courtesy of Idea go/Freedigitalphotos.net.

Jim, you wrote that your genre was "literary fiction," but I'd suggest including "with supernatural elements." Any kind of time travel automatically bumps your book into the fantasy/supernatural genre, and as such, you have quite a bit of license.

It's a fine line in various genres (in particular with fantasy) as to what might be perceived as crazy or not. If you have Will in a relatively staid existence and then throw in some time travel hallucinations, then yes, he might think he's hanging on by a thread.

I'm not sure how far with the hallucinations you want to go, but if it's ultimately part of a fragmented memory coming back to a whole for Will, then you might want to characterize them as repressed memories rather than hallucinations. If he has the feeling that these events happened to him, then I believe reader swho react better to repressed memories than hallucinations.

Hallucinations, unfortunately, are one of the biggest indicators of a serious condition called schizophrenia (and a couple of others, though this is the biggest). When people read about voices or delusions, they think "wacko." (And they'd usually be on the right, not-so-politically-correct path.)

Repressed memories are actually rare in my world, and for sure they are very controversial. There's great debate about whether people make them up, or are goaded into remembering things that didn't happen by very suggestive questioning, etc. I'd research this avenue to see if it's something that might be of better use to you than hallucinations.

If I've gotten something off, please set me straight in the comments below. I'm open to questions!

Let's Analyze

Have you read a book where the MC had either hallucinations or repressed memories? What did you think about the depiction?

A Therapist's Take on Veronica Roth's Divergent and Dystopian Fiction

I had a friend (waves at Heather) request that I read Veronica Roth's Divergent before singularly dismissing dystopian fiction. So I did, and enjoyed it. I haven't read The Hunger Games, though I suspect that I will now. Even so, dystopian fiction doesn't have much to recommend it to me (besides gazillions of copies being sold in the current trend).

Some Dilemmas with Dystopian

1) The World is Bad Enough Already.

Why would I want to use the little free time I have during which I usually engage in escapism to a better world, to read about a world that is worse? In Divergent, Tris lives in a world I don't want to live in. So how do you get people to read your book? What's the takeaway? Why should I emotionally invest in such a book?

2) You have Lots of Explaining to do.

You have to be a good writer to write dystopian. I have to want to stick it out through the rather lengthy explanations of why the world is now as awful as it is. What catastrophic event happened after 2012? How depraved did humankind get and why? And what's the new regime look like? This takes precious pages...and Roth does a great job.

3) You have to Suspend Readers' Disbelief.

There is crazy, futuristic stuff that happens in these books. Roth's initiation of Tris into the Dauntless faction had my eyebrows raising. Jumping off buildings? Falling into holes? Climbing in and jumping out of moving trains? Beating each other up? Mind-altering drugs? Who would sign up for this? Tris would and did....with a good enough reason that I never doubted her decision.

Review of Divergent

Chicago's population is divided into 5 factions, which weren't random, but rather a steeply ingrained version of high school stereotypes (let's not forget this is a YA novel).

Candor (the honest) = socially incompetent/awkward
Erudite (the intelligent) = nerds
Amity (the peaceful) = hippies
Dauntless (the brave) = jocks
Abnegation (the selfless) = religious folk
Factionless = rejects

Now I realize the above might seem a gross generalization, but as the novel progressed, I was still struck with how Roth accurately portrayed each sect from my own high school. I could relate to the factions, though each were taken to an extreme version I didn't personally recognize.

I imagine each reader was internally selecting which faction they would have joined if they had been 16 and about to undergo initiation. This draws a reader into the story immediately, and of course we wait with bated breath to know which faction Beatrice would join.

The book focuses on Tris' initiation into one of the factions, and an incredible, dangerous secret that sets her apart from the other initiates. Truly, Divergent is a story of a girl trying to find a place where she fits in. She's awkward at first, the equivalent of a girl who would be picked last for any sports team. Eventually she changes, physically and emotionally, to one more accepted and not so easily discounted.

Yet even within in her chosen faction, she's not always likely to do as they would hope she would do, which complicates her life, yet she seems unable to stop. She's still trying to fit in, but her own personality (and secret) make it difficult to do so. She's unique, and being a clone doesn't suit her, which is a nice takeaway lesson for young adults everywhere.

Roth, a Christian, wrote a romantic element in her book that maintains Christian values of purity and chastity while still keeping things exciting. She also addresses family relations that are far from perfect, which come with lasting emotional trauma and fear, competitiveness within friendships, and sibling connections that rise above dissimilarities.

It was a good read, and I'm glad I read it. I hated the way it ended, which essentially meant I immediately logged onto Amazon and got Book Two, Insurgent. You'll do the same if you read this book...but that means Veronica Roth did her job.

Let's Analyze

Have you read Divergent? What did you think about my breakdown of the factions?

Weekend Funnies: Comic Afictionados Debate

Click to enlarge....very funny if you're into DC v. Marvel comic debating....

Friday Free Association Chain

The word is....

AIRPLANE.

RULES: First commenter free associates (writes the first word that comes to mind) with the above word. Second commenter free associates to the first commenter's word, and so on. Remember - the FIRST thing that comes to mind.

Go!