Character Clinic: Preventing Whiny Characters

Mollie sent in this character clinic back before I closed my site to freebie assessments. I just now realized that I still had about 5 or so in the queue! (Sorry guys and gals!)

Mollie is writing a YA fantasy about 17-year-old Seraphina, the last living Nephilim on earth. Her mother moved them from England to the U.S. after her father went missing in the British military. Her mother died, but not before Sera said several things to her she now regrets. She was raped earlier that year at school.

Mollie wants to know: How can I make her seem real and react to the death of her mom, the supernatural gifts she's been given, moving to a new country, etc., in a way that is believable without sounding whiny?

What Mollie has brought to the table blog is this question:

What is the line between having issues and being whiny?

People read books about characters with issues. Most main characters have been through at least one traumatic experience, if not more. Writers can definitely fall victim to the trapping that the more issues, the sadder the backstory, the more intense trauma, etc., will make their character more real and relatable.

Authors don't want to minimize pain or handle it poorly to where the reader is rolling their eyes at the whiny angst and melodrama (which YA is especially known for due to the dramatic nature of teenagers).

There is such a thing as too many issues. I wrote a post that was subsequently reblogged over 39,000 times on Tumblr that addressed this very issue. This is something people are thinking about. Is there a point when you can give your character too hard a time?


I have a couple of suggestions for how you can portray her pain, but not overdo it. Here's my take:

1) Have someone else notice it.

We don't utilize the observations of others much in our own lives. We are egocentric people, and we go through life thinking about ourselves...our actions and words. But we don't act or talk in a vacuum. Utilize the other characters to notice, for example, how reluctant she is around men, or how she shies away from physical contact of any sort. You don't have to put the reader in her head, listening to her internal monologue about how scared men make her.

2) Make sure she doesn't complain ALL the time.

Readers will actually take a little whine if the story captivates them. (Um, Twilight, anyone?). A good way to do this is to avoid emotion words. Sounds odd, I know, but focus instead of showing her emotion. Trust the reader enough to know that they will pick up on the emotion without you hitting them over the head with it.

3) Utilize a little humor and/or sarcasm.

This can be accomplished through the character's voice or even the narrator's. When a character knows how to laugh at herself, even if the moment is more serious...this can lighten the mood for the reader.

4) Have her be proactive about her pain.

It's one thing for a character to sit around and lament their woes day in and day out. But it's another who laments their woes and actually gets off the couch to try to do something about it. If she's got issues with the rape, have her seek counseling services. If she regrets what she said to her mom, have her journal her thoughts or write her a letter to leave at the graveside. The gestures don't have to be life-changing, and it actually makes for a better story when the character makes some misguided gestures to alleviate their pain.

Let's Analyze

What other ways could someone prevent having a whiny character? What examples of whiny characters come to mind, so that we can learn how NOT to do it?

A Therapist's Take on Silver Linings Playbook

I saw Silver Linings Playbook over the weekend, and I have to say....this is one movie that gripped me start to finish. Excellent acting and real-to-life portrayal of life with mental illness.

Bradley Cooper astonished me. Until now, I've always thought of him as the quintessential  good-looking romcom actor, but he proved himself with this flick.

Don't read any further if you don't want a few spoilers!

Here is a synopsis if you want to reacquaint yourself with the movie.

The Good

1) Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert DeNiro blow the acting out of the water. 

All three suffer from significant mental illnesses (Cooper has bipolar, Lawrence is a reformed sex addict with recurring bouts of depression, and DeNiro has a serious gambling problem combined with OCD-like superstition. When they first meet, Cooper and Lawrence share a funny, yet inappropriate, dinner conversation about the types of medications they have taken. Cooper has no filter on what he says, and combined with Lawrence's reckless, brash, and devil-may-care attitude, they make quite the pair.

2) The family dynamics are so true to life of families dealing with mental illness.

Cooper's older brother is the "good" son, the overachiever. He rubs his successes in his brother's face at their very first meeting after Cooper gets out of the mental hospital. Cooper's mother checks him out right after his 8 months is over, against doctor's advice, and brings him home. She enables not only her son's issues, but also her husband's. DeNiro is amazing as the superstitious bookmaking (gambling) father, and he shamelessly feeds his addiction by using his Cooper and putting him situations he's not ready for.

3) There is a great mix of laugh-out-loud and gut-wrenching moments.

The dance competition that Cooper agrees to be a part of with Lawrence is just one of the funniest scenes I've ever witnessed. Their attempt at a "dirty dancing" style life ends with her crotch in his face for several moments. Great big belly laughs! There's also another hysterically dysfunctional scene when DeNiro is negotiating the biggest gamble of his life and the scene is so chaotic and loud...it's just something you don't want to miss.

On the other hand, it's so sad to realize that Cooper walked in on his wife, snapped, and nearly killed someone. The song that was playing while his wife had the affair is a constant trigger for him, and he goes into a rage when he hears it. When Cooper goes off his meds, thinking he's doing better, he had a breakdown that wakes up the entire neighborhood. It had me and my therapist friend holding our hands over our mouths, totally wrapped up in the drama.

The Bad

The therapist would lose his license in real life.

Not sure how the the author of the book portrayed the therapist, but in the flick, he behaves unethically. He plays the song that triggers Cooper while he's in the waiting room, an uncontrolled environment. Cooper loses it and scares everyone in the waiting room, and the therapist just says, "I wanted to see if it was still a problem for you." WHAT? If a therapist was going to do something like this, it would be in session where no one would be in harm's way.

The therapist runs into Cooper at an Eagles game and tells him that on that day, they aren't therapist and client, but "brothers." I get that he's referring to rooting for the same side in a sports competition, but you are always in a therapeutic relationship with a client...no matter where you are. You're never friends.

Perhaps the most damning thing he does is go to Cooper's house after they all get arrested at the game for fighting. The therapist is there while the very dysfunctional scene ensues with DeNiro and the gambling, and stands by while his client is placed in a horrible situation as part of a parlay of the bet. He says nothing. He attends the dance competition and gives the whole incredibly unstable betting thing his silent seal of approval. In all honesty, he should lose his license.

Let's Analyze

As you can see, the good far outweighs the bad! Go see this film if you haven't already. If you have seen the film, what did you think of it? Wasn't the acting amazing?

Weekend Funnies: Hardest OCD Decision EVER

 

 Thanks to my husband for tagging me with this photo on facebook!

Friday Free Association Chain

The word is....

STEREOTYPE.

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!

Medical Issues Masqurading as Mental Illness Part II

I'm so honored to have Jordyn Redwood back today! If you missed her post Monday, click here. Once again, we're crossblogging on each other's blog. My post today focuses on types of serial killers.

It's all yours, Jordyn.

______________________________________________

Acute Intermittent Porphyria

I’m continuing my two-part series on medical conditions that can initially present as psychiatric ones. Last post I talked about Cerebral Salt Wasting Syndrome which can happen in patients who have suffered head injury.

Today, something new. Something I hadn’t even heard of until now.

I work with physicians on a daily basis in my job as a pediatric ER nurse. Now, all of them are smart but a couple are UBER-smart and if your kid is the zebra in the forest you would definitely want one of these two ladies to be on.

I posed Jeannie’s request to one of these women and the first thing to slip off her tongue was Acute Intermittent Porphyria. And then when she said it was a genetic condition—my ears were all sorts of perked up more because I am a medical nerd at heart and love learning new things.

Just what is Acute Intermittent Porphyria or AIP?

AIP is a group of rare diseases that are passed down from families where the important part of hemoglobin (which is attached to your red blood cells) is not made properly as the result of a deficiency of certain enzymes. Heme is also found in certain muscles.

AIP is an autosomal dominant disease. The leading problem is neurologic damage that can first show as psychiatric manifestations like anxiety, agitation, hallucinations, hysteria, delirium and depression and these patients are commonly misdiagnosed as having a psychiatric illness. There are 1-5 cases per 100,000 people but can be as high as 60-100 cases per 100,000 people in northern Sweden. It affects women more than men. Hmm—I wonder if this lends to the initial psychiatric diagnosis. Most patients become sick between the ages of 18-40.

The normal sequence during an acute attack is abdominal pain, followed by psychiatric symptoms and then peripheral neuropathies. Patients can be symptom free between attacks.

One important step in the diagnosis is to check the patient’s urine for porphobilinogen and I can tell you that this is not a common urine test at all.

Treatment is to decrease heme synthesis and reduce the precursors of porphyrin. This is accomplished by giving the patient high doses of glucose (sugar) for mild attacks and hematin for severe attacks. Narcotics can be used effectively for pain control.

What do you think? Have you ever heard of this particular genetic disease?

If interested in learning more—please follow the links that I used as a reference for this piece.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_intermittent_porphyria

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002188/

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/205220-overview

Thanks so much Jeannie for hosting me! It’s been a pleasure to be here with your readers.

And if you’re a writer looking for medical help—I run a medical blog for authors (what Jeannie does only on the medical side.) You can find it at www.redwoodsmedicaledge.com.

Jordyn Redwood is a pediatric ER nurse by day, suspense novelist by night. She hosts Redwood’s Medical Edge, a blog devoted to helping contemporary and historical authors write medically accurate fiction. Her first two novels, Proof and Poison, garnered starred reviews from Library Journal and have been endorsed by the likes of Dr. Richard Mabry, Lynette Eason, and Mike Dellosso to name a few. You can connect with Jordyn via her website at www.jordynredwood.net. 

______________________________________________

Thanks, Jordyn, for taking the time to inform us of these amazing disorders that we could wrangle into our fiction.

Let's Analyze

After reading about Cerebral SaltWasting Syndrome and Acute Intermittent Porphyria, what are your thoughts about leading readers along a merry chase? You get them thinking that a character has a serious psychological problem, only to resolve it with a medical problem that's easily treated?

Medical Issues Masquerading as Mental Illness - Part 1

Life surprises me, especially with regards to how people connect. My guest blogger this week, Jordyn Redwood, and I discovered each other through our blogs. She runs a blog devoted to helping authors write medically accurate fiction.

Sound familiar? It's what I try to do with this blog, except I focus on psychological consistency and feasibility. Jordyn and I are crossblogging this week on each other's blog, with my post today focusing on common characteristics of psychopaths, and her post featuring medical issues that sometimes present as psychological ones.

Writers, this stuff is invaluable, so I hope you continue reading. Without further ado, here's Jordyn!

____________________________________________________

Cerebral Salt Wasting Syndrome

I’m honored to be here at The Character Therapist. I’ll be interested to hear some of Jeannie’s thoughts on the character issues going on in my latest medical thriller Poison. I think there will be plenty for her to diagnose! Is there truly such a thing as repressed memories? Can hypnosis influence someone to do something they don’t want to do? Is brainwashing possible?

Hmm . . .

I’m taking the opposite side of Jeannie’s couch and talking about medical conditions that can initially present like psychiatric ones. Those that some physicians could even diagnose as mental disorders. This is one reason why it is preferred that a patient see a licensed physician first—particularly with what may be initially thought of as a psychiatric complaint to rule out a medical cause.

During my years as a PICU nurse (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) I took care of a young girl who had been involved in a car accident and suffered a head injury. Over the course of a couple of days she became increasingly agitated and paranoid. We do try to calm children by giving them distraction activities (games, watching TV, etc) to keep their minds off what is happening medically. It was around Christmastime and I put on the older, Claymation version of Rudolph and the Yeti.

Well, as this young patient of mine watched this movie it caused her to completely come unhinged and she also began to have hallucinations of bugs and other things crawling over her. In light of her head injury, the physician first thought of a medical cause but if a patient were to present with the paranoia and hallucinations and the medical team didn’t know about previous head injury (like a patient who perhaps was knocked over the head with a beer bottle several days before, was knocked out, but seemingly okay after that and never sought treatment) we might first assume a psychiatric issue.

What this patient had was a condition known as Cerebral SaltWasting Syndrome. Cerebral salt wasting syndrome usually develops in the first week following brain injury. A good friend of mine’s husband actually developed this syndrome after he’d fallen out of a top bunk onto a cement floor incurring several serious head and neck injuries. Other brain events that can lead to this condition include brain tumor, brain surgery, stroke and a brain bleed. It can also occur in the absence of brain disease. 

The exact mechanism is not clear but what happens biologically is the kidneys begin leaking excessive amounts of salt (or sodium). The body is very sensitive to increases and decreases in sodium. Normal levels are 135-145 mmol/L.

The patient can have hallucinations, confusion, lethargy, agitation, headache, altered consciousness, seizures and subsequent coma. Severity of symptoms is directly related to the level and loss of sodium. The lower the number the more symptomatic the patient is.

Treatment: These patients need to be admitted in the hospital. Sodium levels cannot be corrected too quickly or more problems can ensue for the patient. They must be monitored under direct medical care. Usually, hypertonic (IV solutions with a lot of sodium) fluids are given to the patient to restore sodium and balance fluid. Once the patient is stable—they may need to take salt supplements.

Good news is the syndrome usually spontaneously resolved in 2-4 weeks.

____________________________________________________

 
Thanks so much for this info, Jordyn. Don't forget to come back on Wednesday for Part Two in this series!

Jordyn Redwood is a pediatric ER nurse by day, suspense novelist by night. She hosts Redwood’s Medical Edge, a blog devoted to helping contemporary and historical authors write medically accurate fiction. Her first two novels, Proof and Poison, garnered starred reviews from Library Journal and have been endorsed by the likes of Dr. Richard Mabry, Lynette Eason, and Mike Dellosso to name a few. You can connect with Jordyn via her website at www.jordynredwood.net.
 

Weekend Funnies: OCD Cat...You Gotta See This!

"Don't step on the cracks!"