My MC gets into a relationship with a man who has pretty severe PTSD, they end up moving in together and sharing a bed. He has a nightmare and grabs her which gives her a few bruises, she understands that he didn't do it on purpose, but he's still pretty torn up about it. By having her sort of say 'It wasn't your fault' and still stay with him, am I somehow excusing violence against partners? It's not like she jumped up the next morning and went 'no this is fine' because she was spooked (1/2)
By him doing that. She worked through it with him as part of their character arcs, but I still get some unhappy feelings about her not reacting more negatively. Domestic violence isn’t ok, and I don’t want to send that message to anyone who reads my work. (2/2)
CW: domestic violence
In the Shrink’s opinion, this wouldn’t count as domestic violence so long as you make the following clear in your story:
It wasn’t intentional or a subconscious reaction to anything your MC did. It was truly an accident.
Have your character show genuine remorse.
Your character needs to take steps to make sure this doesn’t happen again. In this case, this can include:
Sleeping in a different place than your MC until they’ve got their nightmares under control.
It can’t be part of a pattern of repeatedly causing injuries to their partner. Even if it truly was an accident each time, not being careful around their partner or taking steps to prevent future accidents is abusive.
Accidents sometimes happen. It’s not always a sign of abuse. What matters is what your character does in the wake of it.
Character has a fear of losing/hurting her fingers specifically. Like, she'd rather lose a leg than lose her pinky finger on her non-dom hand. What should I call this fear? I can't find a somethingphobia that fits this fear
From the therapy side of things, it’d be classified as a “blood - injection - injury type specific phobia.”
You’re right in that there’s no one “somethingphobia” word that I could find that matches it exactly. “Traumatophobia” comes closest, but that’s just fearing being injured.
But using that as a base, the Shrink came up with a word for you: “Dactyltraumatophobia”. I make no promise that it follows the Greek syntax exactly, but it’s close enough for government work.
Writing Caretakers Who Abuse Children: Risk Factors and Observable Behaviors
CW: All kinds of child abuse (physical abuse, neglect, child sexual abuse, emotional abuse) are described in detail. Domestic violence, drugs, alcohol, are mentioned.
This is a post to skip if you’re not sure, Shrinky-dinks.
This is adapted from “A Guide for Mandated Reporters in Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect,” so it focuses on things that abusers frequently do that are observable by non-family members.
Hi HeyWriters! I was wondering: do you have a tip to create a weak point on main characters? I´m making a story, but I´m having trouble since my main character is TOO overpowered. Could you help me with this?
(All of this is written under the assumption your character has superpowers or “special” abilities, so forgive me if you meant a different kind of power.)
I created a character concept when I was twelve. She had all the superpowers of my favorite heroes and then some. As time wore on she gained more and more until eventually my adolescent brain invented logic and realized she was actually ridiculous. Here’s how I depowered this character, who’s name is Ace, without completely ruining her coolness.
Step One:
Don’t be greedy. Any ability that does not contribute to the story needs to go. It’s taking up space that could be filled with credibility. I decided early on that Ace didn’t need most of her abilities, and by the end of the story she only relies on a few to get the job done. Also, if a character can do more than one thing that are all basically the same thing some of those should probably go (invisibility and camouflage, superspeed and teleportation, etc.).
Step Two:
Apply real-world science. If you try to make your depiction realistic, you’ll want to have an idea of how these abilities might work and how they might not. Of course, you should suspend disbelief for some things if they’re truly essential to your character, but others can be adapted. For Ace there are some powers that only work under the right circumstances, and others that her body rejects or that give her physical pain when she uses them. Most importantly, special strengths come with special weaknesses. Sensitive hearing means loud noises are more jarring or harmful, regeneration means metabolism speeds up and the person needs to eatas much as a body builder. Any superpower you pick out will have a drawback, I guarantee it; if not a physical one then a social one (I’ll get to that).
This scene from The Incredibles is an excellent demonstration of superpower drawbacks.
Step Three:
Consider how the character feels about all this power and why they obtained it in the first place.Ace was not born with abilities, but over time she chose certain powers for the purpose of defending herself or others. Some of her powers fade away when she stops using them, like any skill you fail to practice, and some abilities she just plain old refuses to use for personal reasons. Some are too difficult or time-consuming for her to master, and some even trigger memories of her traumatic past, so she avoids using them.This way she has a choice in the matter, and her choice is not to bite off more than she can chew or what she doesn’t want in the first place.
Step Four:
How do other characters feel about all this power? Perhaps some or all of your character’s powers intimidate, frighten, or anger others in the story. One of Ace’s friends dislikes how unstoppable she is, and others are taken aback by some of the things she can do or how she looks when she does them. On the whole, she hides what she can do, or picks small things to do instead of big things, downplaying her own power when necessary. How your supporting characters react to the force of nature that is your MC is the most important aspect of her power.
Here’s an example from the X-Men of how other characters might react.
For additional opinions and advice, read this https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-characters-that-are-too-powerful/ and take to heart its ending line: “There’s only one fix that avoids all the pitfalls of overpowered heroes: refrain from making them really powerful in the first place.”
Yes, Ace is a flawed concept and all the advice I just gave is only a patch kit for that flaw. However, overpowered characters continue to excite readers and viewers alike, so I would never suggest we dispense with them altogether. Just, when you’re getting a headache from how overwhelming your character is, it’s good to consider dialling it all back and focusing on the power of their personality instead.
—————————————————-
Super apologize for taking so long to respond, and thanks for asking in the first place.
Hey there @masterofenthropy! If it’s okay, I wanted to chime in on this a little bit.
Everything @heywriters says is absolutely phenomenal advice. But I run a medical blog for writers, so let me give you two options that can help weaken a too strong protagonist that pop into my mead.
1) Give them an illness that gets in the way of their daily lives. This can be anything from a mysterious, undiagnosed autoimmune disease to asthma. Consider Something that will increase their challenges moving forward.
For a temporary illness, try influenza or gastroenteritis (the flu or the “stomach flu”). You can be as powerful as you like, but try fighting evil with a fever of 103 and puking and pooping every ten minutes!
(For info about living life with chronic illnesses, consider giving @scriptspoonie a glance!)
2) Maim your character. And by “maim” I’m saying “Give them a significant injury that gets in the way of their daily life.” If they’re a detective, break the wrist on their gun hand. Parkour expert? Literally any orthopedic injury will do. Broke legs and ankles impair mobility and may limit your character to crutches, while a broken arm reduces lift weight and a shoulder injury reduces strength.
Concussions, even minor ones, can cause issues with headaches, dizziness, decreased energy levels, sleep disturbances, difficulties making decisions, and short term memory retention issues for days, weeks or even years afterwards.
Torn ACLs, knee injuries, back injuries…. These all slow people down, but a determined protagonist can overcome them (with the right help and aides). Or your protagonist can not “overcome” them, and succeed anyway – a much better technique.
3) Have your protagonist have a mental illness. Medical problems aren’t the only way your character can be limited. Mental illnesses can be just as debilitating to your character as any physical weakness.
Female* - women are more than twice as likely to get PTSD than men**
Race* – African Americans and Latinos are at higher risk than whites
Age – younger or older people are at greater risk than those in mid-adulthood
Poverty / low socioeconomic status
Previous / coexisting psychological disorders
Less functional coping styles
Family dysfunction and/or family history of mental illness
Previous history of trauma exposure
Hyperreactive nervous system, especially involving the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis
Genetic predisposition
Dissociating during the trauma – the more dissociation, the more powerful it is a risk factor
Greater distress at the time of the trauma or immediately after
Feeling anger, shame, or guilt about the trauma
*This isn’t because of any ‘inherent’ weakness or shit like that. It’s a risk factor because these groups are more likely to experience a traumatic event than those who are not in these groups.
**The Shrink again apologizes that not enough research has been done on genders aside from male and female.
Trauma Characteristics:
Intentional acts of violence (as opposed to accidents)
For instance, rape is much, much more likely to produce PTSD than a natural disaster is
A threat to the character’s life
Physical injury
If the trauma was in war, the amount of combat exposure and involvement in killing others
Witnessing death, especially when the scene is grotesque
Loss of a friend or loved one due to the trauma
Life-threatening illness and notably painful medical events / procedures
Unpredictability and uncontrollability
Sexual victimization
Traumas of longer duration or greater frequency
Adapted from Principles of Trauma Therapy: A Guide to Symptoms, Evaluation, and Treatment ( DSM-5 Update) 2nd Edition; Briere & Scott, 2014.
CW: Child abuse (physical abuse, neglect, child sexual abuse, and emotional abuse), the effects of which are described in detail. Injuries, body horror, burns, cutting, self-injury, suicide, eating disorders, sex, pregnancy, eye injury, animal abuse, substance abuse, alcohol, drugs
This post is very in-depth and potentially extremely triggering. I had to delete some of my default tags to make sure I got as many triggers as I could in. As such, I have decided to have this linked as a private post so people browsing my blog can skip it if they need to.
Talking to a guy who knows my parents but doesn’t know me very well, and he tells me that his friend (indeed, a very nice and talented actor) recently put out a horror movie. And I’m interested until I hear the words “So it’s about this guy with OCD…” and at that point my mom and I give each other a sidelong glance.
I say, “I don’t know, because I have OCD and it’s a pretty serious thing for me.”
To which he follows up, “Oh, you don’t have it like this guy! You’re totally functional!”
Okay, dude. Yes, I am standing before you in a fancy club, dressed nice, and looking relatively balanced. But you do not know me. You do not know OCD.
You do not know that I have been non-functional, and that in order to maintain my current balance of sanity, I take daily medication and see a weekly therapist, and I still have downward spirals and panic attacks.
OCD can add to a story, for sure. The Aviator is a great example–albeit, it was on the voyeuristic side, kind of “check out what a weirdo this guy really is”, but his condition was portrayed in a realistic and *sympathetic* manner, because it focused so hard on his anxiety and entrapment.
I don’t need a horror movie about my disorder for a couple reasons.
1. I already live the horror movie that is OCD.
2. Just like people with psychosis, schizophrenia/schizotypal disorders, dissociative identity disorders, and any other number of mental disorder that makes us act in unusual and yes, sometimes frightening ways, I don’t need it to be the hinge for your horror flick, a handy device that makes more people like you scared and misunderstanding of people like me.
3. And for people with the above disorders who may not be diagnosed, they don’t need to be told that they are dangerous monsters and cause them to avoid treatment out of fear. (This goes double for people who experience paranoia or delusions as part of their symptoms.)
This post ended up way longer than I meant, but really, truly, hear me out creators:
MENTAL ILLNESS IS A TRAIT AMONG AN INFINITE VARIETY OF PEOPLE. IT IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW, AND IT IS DEFINITELY A POOR PLOT DEVICE FOR THE HORROR GENRE. YOU CAN DO BETTER.
But imagine that the protagonist is the one with the OCD.
She is targeted by a serial killer who enjoys toying with people, gaslighting by proxy, and ‘maybe I’m going crazy’ works perfectly on all his victims until this one.
Because she knows the difference. She checks that her door is locked a dozen times before leaving the house, so she knows she didn’t leave it open. She unplugs every appliance in the house before she leaves, so she knows she didn’t leave the television on. Her clothes have to be organized in a very specific way so she knows that someone’s been touching them.
Of course, the horror movie aspect comes in when, because she has OCD, nobody believes any of this. Not the police, not her friends and family, nobody. “Everybody just forgets sometimes” or “It’s just your mind playing tricks on you” mouthed by people who don’t understand that she doesn’t EVER forget, that her mind plays tricks on her all the time and this is not like that, this is someone else *doing* it. she has more than enough experience to tell the difference.
When she reports whispers coming from inside the walls, she gets asked if it could just be ‘in her head’. No. It can’t. She knows what the inside of her head sounds like and it’s nothing like this. But nobody believes that.
She can’t leave the house because every time she does, someone comes in and touches and moves her things but nobody believes her. Her family come over to try to ‘calm her down’ which is absolutely zero help. It doesn’t matter how many traps she sets to prove that someone is in the house, nobody believes she didn’t trip them herself. In desperation, she turns to the people in her therapy group. Someone is in my house, moving things, whispering things, and nobody believes me, I need help or I’m pretty sure he’ll kill me.
And they show up, en masse, with improvised weapons and toolboxes, and they search every inch of her house (without making a mess in any way because they totally understand that that would upset her) and when she says the voice comes out of her bedroom wall they start measuring every room and wall and *that* wall might be thick enough for someone to hide inside so they tap on every inch with a rock taped to the end of a broomstick so they’re not in arm’s reach and that bit sounds hollow and that and that and that but *that* bit doesn’t and the serial killer bursts out to find a) way more people than he expected and b) OCD protagonist wielding a butcher knife.
When he’s doubled up on the floor screaming and clutching his bleeding abdomen they call an ambulance because they are not murderers unlike this guy and he gets pulled out and taken to hospital and her friends from therapy offer her a scrupulously clean spare bedroom and help cleaning up the blood and fixing the place up again and anything else she needs.
Six months later she’s back at work, and hears a receptionist talking about how her ex is being kind of creepy and she’s sure he’s sneaking into the house when she’s not home but her friends think she’s totally overreacting and maybe she’s just crazy -
OCD protagonist tells her that no, she is not crazy, and anyone who discounts her fears like that is not a friend. If she doesn’t feel safe, she needs to take steps to protect herself. Would she like to know how to rig some little traps to let her know for sure if someone’s been in the house? OCD protagonist knows some good ones.
:D this is EXTREMELY relevant to my interests and now I’m mad this movie doesn’t exist because so few promising horror movies are coming out this year
This seems like a good place to mention that I especially love narratives where the MC’s mental illness or neurodivergence helps them out (aside from the ‘white autistic man is good at math’ trope because that’s been done to death) in situations that neurotypical people would have a hard time with - this reminds me of what I tried to do with Sally in The Ninth Daughter, where there’s a monster that specializes in manipulating reality without people noticing - but Sally’s schizophrenic and used to checking and re-checking the world around her for reality, so it doesn’t work on her.
You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
