Character Trait - Catastrophizing

Disclaimer: information contained in this post is meant only as a resource for creating believable characters.  It is not meant for diagnostic or treatment.  If anything in this or other posts reflects an issues with which you are struggling, contact a professional in your area.

Never thought I'd have fine print in my blog.  Hmmm....

Characters are more than entities that follow a main plot line.  Characters (main characters is what I am thinking of in particular) are as complex as any human walking in this world.  Characters that are written without at least some complexity will come across flat.  Flat characters are one of the ways we lose readers or even before that, fail to tempt an agent into reading more.

A great way to add complexity to a character is by having a really good sense of his or her thought patterns. These can also be called belief systems.

A whole slew of psychological research and literature (of the non-fiction variety) out there points a very large and authoritative finger at the fact that thoughts have tremendous impact on how one feels and behaves. 

Thought patterns are a quick way to define a character.  When you have a handle on a character's habitual ways of thinking, their behavior (show don't tell!) just naturally flows.  Here is a great thinking pattern:

Catastrophic Thinking

When a character subscribes to Catastrophic Thinking, he or she focuses on or magnifies the impact of negative experiences to the extreme.

How do we see Catastrophic Thinking in a character?

• The character will always jump to worst case scenario
• Worst case scenario is usually much more "creative" than others might come up with - take the first logical fear and magnify it by a thousand.
• The character will likely exhibit more anxiety than others - why wouldn't they?
• Catastrophic Thinking pairs nicely if you are writing a character in panic
• Other characters can reflect the irrationality of this type of thinking
• The character's behavior might be more extreme.  (Ex.  A character's 2 year old daughter is prone to tantrums.  He (irrationally) is convinced the tantrums are an indicator that his daughter will need inpatient psychiatric hospitalization as an adult.  Every time a tantrum begins, he rushes in singing "Raindrops on roses and whispers on kittens..." to soothe her.  It obviously fails to solve the tantrum.  Her screaming increases as does his conviction she will be in a straitjacket someday.  He sings louder adding in a dance, she crumples to the floor sobbing until they are both exhausted and - whew!  They escaped the padded wagon that time.)  Irrational thinking = irrational behavior
• News junkie.  While counter-intuitive, a character who has catastrophic thinking may be obsessed with the news.  Why?  Because the news is all horrible.  Did you hear about Little Susan's cat being rescued from the drain pipe?  No, because it was not horrible enough for the ten o'clock news.  And the horrible stuff a catastrophizing character watches justifies the catastrophic thinking.  Does it help?  No way.  But it gives your character a trait and a matching action and that is good.
• The character's mother as catastrophizer is a humorous way to go.  Perhaps cliche, but people love it because it is a caricature of so many readers' mothers.
• A burnt-out police officer character loses objectivity and (catastrophically) begins to see every possible suspect as having the potential to commit atrocious future crimes.  The officer might become overly aggressive, ripping an ear off a (innocent) suspect while trying to overtake him.

I write character-driven fiction.  Love it.  So for me, it is important to know why my characters are the way they are.  So where does a character develop catastrophic thinking?

• The character may believe terrible, horrific things will happen because terrible, horrific things have happened to the character in the past.
• The character was raised by an expert catastrophizer (that is a made-up word) who maybe was the one who experienced the terrible, horrific thing.  Can you really blame the character's mother, who survived a plane crash, to image balls of flaming steel hurtling through the air every time the character flies for business? Of course not.  Though we might consider her a bit off her rocker if she feels the need to buy a ticket and fly along each and every time.  Or maybe the character's mother chugs pot after pot of coffee so she can stay up and watch the news during the character's intercontinental flight just in case there was a crash.  And then, of course, she has burned a hole in her stomach and needs to visit a GI.  Poor woman.  My point?  A character can learn to be a catastrophizer by his traumatized, anxiety-ridden, coffee slugging mother.

I hope this helps.  May your characters be wonderfully flawed and their lives full of conflict so that your writing will be rich and well-received.

Rebecca

Writing depression in characters

Given that I am a therapist by day, I need to clarify a couple things.  The information provided in this post is for creative writing purposes only.  The information shared here is not meant to diagnose or treat any person reading it.  Because this is a topic that touches the lives of so many people out there, I want to say up front that if you are experiencing difficulties or find yourself struggling with some of the very same issues in this post, get yourself help by contacting a qualified professional in your area.  And of course, if you or someone you know is at risk for self-injury or suicide, get to the nearest hospital immediately.


Now for the meat of this post...  WRITING DEPRESSION IN CHARACTERS


According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly 16% of the adult population in the USA experiences lifetime depression.  We are all familiar with how it feels to be down.  Some of you might even suffer from depression on a more chronic basis.

If you are writing a character who is depressed, here are some things to bear in mind:

It is conceivable for characters to experience depressed mood for a variety of reasons.  Depressed mood and diagnosable depression are two different things.

A character can feel depressed because he lost his job.  Because it is the anniversary of losing his wife and child in a car accident.  A character can feel down because it has been raining non-stop all winter.

Depressed mood in a character can be defined with the following symptoms:

 

Poor appetite or overeating.

 

Insomnia or sleeping too much.

 

Low energy or fatigue.

 

Low self-esteem.

 

Poor concentration or difficulty making decisions.

 

Feelings of hopelessness

On the other hand, writing depression (technically referred to as Major Depressive Disorder in the DSM) in a character, will show two marked differences from merely depressed mood.  The first has to do with chronicity of depressed mood - typically going on longer.  The second difference you would see in a depressed character versus a character with depressed mood would be in the severity of symptoms.

The National Institute of Mental Health cites the following DSM-IV-TR criteria for Major Depressive Disorder:

Depressed mood and/or loss of interest or pleasure in life activities for at least 2 weeks and at least five of the following symptoms that cause clinically significant impairment in social, work, or other important areas of functioning almost every day

 

Depressed mood most of the day.

 

Diminished interest or pleasure in all or most activities.

 

Significant unintentional weight loss or gain.

 

Insomnia or sleeping too much.

 

          Agitation or psychomotor retardation noticed by others.

 

Fatigue or loss of energy.

          Feelings of worthlessness or excessive guilt.

         Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness.

 

Recurrent thoughts of death

The challenge is, if your character is displaying these symptoms (lack of energy, disinterest in pleasurable activities, etc.) in making it interesting. 

So if your character is depressed (either depressed mood OR Major Depressive Disorder), one way to show this mood is to have the outside world reflect how this mood create problems for your character, having his or her depression come in conflict with the rest of his or her life, have his or her fail at what they want partly because of it.  You don't want your reader feeling depressed  just reading about your character.

Hope this is helpful.  And by all means, let me know if you want more posts like this or what topics I can write about by drawing on my knowledge of mental health.

Happy writing,

Rebecca

Make panic believeable

Let me first put out this disclaimer:  The following information is not meant to be used as diagnosis or mental health advice.  The information provided is solely for creative use in writing characters.  If you are experiencing any difficulties or feel you meet the following criteria, contact a qualified professional.  As always in the case of an emergency, get yourself to the nearest hospital.

OK, now on with the show...

According to the DSM-IV-TR, a big, expensive silver diagnostic manual used by folks in the mental health world, a PANIC ATTACK must contain, among a few other things:

A discrete period of intense fear or discomfort, in which four or more of the following symptoms developed abruptly and reached peak within ten minutes:

1. palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate
2. sweating
3. trembling or shaking
4. sensations of shortness of breath or smothering
5. feeling of choking
6. chest pain or discomfort
7. nausea or abdominal distress
8. feeling dizzy, unsteady, lightheaded or faint
9. derealization or depersonalization
10. fear of losing control or going crazy
11. fear of dying
12. paresthesias (numbness or tingling)
13. chills or hot flashes

Panic attacks are typically so uncomfortable that a character would want to avoid having another.  A character's panic attack can be trigger by a benign event if there is underlying anxiety about something else going on.

For example, your character could have a panic attack suddenly in a busy college campus coffee shop.  The character may or may not associate the panic attack with the coffee shop.  But typically, something else is going on to cause the panic attack.  Perhaps your character's parents are divorcing, perhaps your character cheated on a final and never cheats and fears getting caught, lose her scholarship, and expelled and lose any chance to pull her family out of poverty.

Be well,

Rebecca

Character Trait - Rationalization

We know that good characters have more going on that the things directly related to the plot.  While thinking errors can definitely be applied to plot, they can also be used to add depth to your characters.

The character trait of Rationalization is one such thinking error.

Rationalization is where a character finds reasons, explanations, and excuses for everything he or does.  There is a general lack of taking responsibility.  This is different from blame in that the character is not pinning blame on another person but rather on circumstances.

Why would a character do this?

- He or she was never held accountable for his or her actions
- He feels ashamed easily and cannot bear to have done something wrong
- He learned early on to not take responsibility
- The consequences for such actions are too high

How would this kind of error in thinking play out?

- A character who subscribes to rationalization as a habitual way of thinking is more likely to do things that are morally, ethically or legally wrong.

- An overly competitive character who fails and claims it was because she did not sleep well the night before

- Consistently late to things and claims everything from traffic to husband dilly-dallying

- A character sleeps with her best friend's fiancee and claims it was because she had too much to drink

Questions you  can ask yourself:
- How would the character react if confronted about this erroneous thinking?
- How ludicrous do you want his/her excuses to be?
- What do the popele aroundhim/her think about these excuses?


An important note about most thinking errors like this one is that characters are not likely aware that they do it.  For more thinking patterns to which your characters can subscribe check out: Ways Characters Think.

Happy writing,

Rebecca

Do your characters have hang ups?

In my other life, I am a psychotherapist.  What do psychotherapists study in school?  People.  Hang-ups, conflict, motivations, resolution.  We study communication - verbal and non-verbal.  Our work is done primarily through dialogue.

See the overlap?

It should not come as a big surprise that I write character stories.  Inventories where I think about a character's favorite color or zodiac sign do nothing for me.  I want to get in the nitty gritty of why my characters are who they are.  And from this fundamental place, details like favorite food or how they dress naturally arises.  This method is helping me to create believable, richly layered characters.

The other day as I was working on a character, I realized that what I can offer the good people who choose to follow this blog is a bit of what I know.  

I know people. 

I have spent thousands of hours learning about what drives people, where people get hung up.  Where they get in their own way.   Seriously, my MA should have been a MA/MFA combo.

So stay tuned...I've got some things in the works.  And may the compiling of my other career serve you in your writing endeavors. 

Be well,

Rebecca

Is your character stressed?

 


In 1967, psychiatrists Holmes & Rahe set out to study the relationship between stress and illness.  They surveyed 5,000 people and asked if they had experienced any of a list life events in the previous two years.  Through the study, they were able to rank stressful life events from most stressful to the least.  Here is what they came up with from most stressful to least:


 

1. Death of a spouse
2. Divorce
3. Marital Separation
4. Jail term
5. Death of close family member
6. Personal injury, illness
7. Marriage
8. Fired at work
9. Marital reconciliation
10. Retirement
11. Change in health of family member
12. Pregnancy
13. Sex difficulties
14. Gain of new family member
15. Business readjustment
16. Change in financial state
17. Death of close friend
18. Change to a different line of work
19. Change in number of arguments with spouse
20. A large mortgage or loan
21. Foreclosure of mortgage
22. Change in responsibilities at work
23. Son or daughter leaving home
24. Trouble with in-laws
25. Outstanding personal achievement
26. Spouse begins or stops work
27. Begin or end school/college
28. Change in living conditions
29. Revision of personal habits
30. Trouble with boss
31. Change in work hours
32. Change in residence
33. Change in school/college
34. Change in recreation
35. Change in church activities
36. A moderate loan or mortgage
37. Change in sleeping habits
38. Change in number of family get-together
39. Change in eating habits
40. Vacation
41. Christmas
42. Minor violation of law

How is this list helpful to writers?

First, if you one of your characters are experiencing one of these, it can be helpful to know where on the list it falls.  If they are experiencing one of the top stressors, then you know you need to write them REALLY stressed. 

Second, take a look at the list again.  When a person (or character) experiences one stressor, it naturally follows that they may be experiencing stress in other categories as well.  For example, your character has just had his leg shot while on duty.  This main stressful event is going to impact recreation, change in work hours, change in sleeping habits, revision of personal habits, and on. 

When we look at the different ways conflict can effect our characters, then we can write them not as flat, fictional ideas, but as multi-faceted beings.  And that is likely to grab our readers.

What do you think?

Rebecca

Z

If you are stopping in for my final installment of the A to Z challenge, welcome.  My theme has been Show Don't Tell.  Not many choices for the Z post.  So I give you a walk down memory lane to the old Batman and Robin comic or show.

Zap

Zip

Zoom