The Dark Side of Writing
Mental health has received a lot of press lately, due to society’s malaise during and after the COVID pandemic, and even lately in the professional tennis world. While psychologists say writing in a journal on a regular basis is beneficial to mental health and physical well-being, they don’t have a lot to say about the professional writer, the one who’s trying to make a living at it.
Consider all the successful, well-respected writers who have committed suicide: Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Anne Sexton, Arthur Koestler and David Foster Wallace. Could a certain personality type, prone to depression, be drawn to writing as a career, or is the profession itself responsible? Here’s what I think:
The professional writer must endure the demands of meeting deadlines, pleasing a fan base and maintaining a high level of quality, if he/she hopes to be taken seriously. I’m not just talking about writer’s block, although that’s a real struggle—likened to stage fright—for many great writers. I’m talking about the inherent pressure cooker of daily writing and its effects on an individual’s psyche.
But the burden to perform is only one contributing factor to why writing is one of the top ten professions to suffer depression. Add irregular pay, rejection by agents, publishers and even readers, as well as the fact that you’re baring your soul to utter strangers, and it’s no wonder writers often succumb to depression.
Besides all that, writing is a lonely endeavor, even if you’re part of a writerly support group, as I am. You have to be surrounded by quiet (or perhaps soft music in the background to get the creative juices flowing), while you sit for hours at a computer until your eyes cross.
Then you run your text by a few trusted friends or fellow writers, and immediately, your newborn gets bombarded with everything that needs changing or that your beautiful baby lacks. One’s ego can’t help but deflate, but you soon learn to take it in stride and develop a thick skin. The initial flush of excitement over creating something no one has seen before is thus replaced by the daily slog of revision and editing.
So is there a solution? All I can offer is what works for me, things that help keep my spirits high and contribute to my physical and emotional well-being.
Allow yourself lots of breaks. Your creative strength declines greatly after a couple of hours of work.
Don’t forget to eat and drink. This is easy if you have a spouse or significant other. If you get too engrossed, they’ll remind you when it’s mealtime.
Go outside once a day and get some exercise. It gets the mental juices flowing.
Do something fun every day. I love to play tennis or conquer a game. Otherwise, I start to feel like a slave to my words.
Realize that serious writers live with the compulsion to do this thing called writing every day. It’s an addiction, and as with every powerful addiction, you need to go “cold turkey” to master the beast. In other words, tell yourself, “not a lick of writing today” at least one day a week.
And don’t be afraid to reach out to someone, if you're feeling discouraged or blue. They may be in the same boat, but too ashamed to tell anyone.
Building believable characters
Just like any construction project, building believable characters requires a blueprint (see below). If you have this information in your head before you start to write, that’s great. But it’s helpful to write it down, to refer to later. Your character is not a-contextual. He/she has a history and a purpose that should fit your setting. Realism is added when he/she is based on someone you know, or is an amalgam of people you’ve met.
With this in mind, the next caution is, don’t make your character perfect, even if he or she is the “good guy.” That’s also true of your villain. None of us is all good or all bad, and the inconsistencies of our personalities make us interesting.
Even after filling out the checklist, live with your character for a while. As you go about daily life, ask yourself, what would he/she do in this situation? Another technique is to pretend to interview him/her like a recruiter. Ask pertinent questions. “What work have you done? What’s your education? What was your most defining moment? Why did you do this or that?” To yourself ask, “What will you do in my story? Why? What makes you better suited than anyone else for this character position? What would I find out about you in a background check?”
Introduce him/her at a moment of change in his/her life, preferably something dramatic. Saying “In 1969 at 8:45 a.m., Calen Bartholomew Ambrose was born at Mercy Medical Center, Nampa, Idaho” is encyclopedic and much less interesting than saying, “When average old me, Calen Bartholomew Ambrose, met my first fairy on an early spring morning, I nearly jumped out of my skin.”
Don’t stop the story to reveal everything about the character all at once. Like the skin of an onion, peel back the layers one at a time. And “show” what makes the character tick, rather than “tell.”
“After an hour and a half of running, I was dragging my feet, mentally willing myself to move forward. I counted my slow steps in groups of a hundred, the centaur herd so far ahead I no longer heard their thundering hooves. They were right. I was a sorry excuse for a champion. But I kept going. I wasn’t going to let them laugh their heads off at the wimpy familiar.”
CHARACTER CHECKLIST
Please change and adapt this to suit your needs.
Physical
1. What is your character called? (Why? Nicknames? Reflects age, background, ethnicity, social class) __________________________________________________________________________________
2. Where is your character from? (location, family situation - siblings, childhood, education)
__________________________________________________________________________________
3. Where does your character live? (country, small or large town, trailer park, estate, alone or with family, married, children, etc.?, How did he/she end up living there and why does he/she continue to live there? How does this person feel about it? Plusses and minuses of living there?)
4. What is your character’s age? (Is he/she technologically savvy? Still get money from parents or have aging parents? Eating habits, level of activity?)
5. What is his/her physical description? (Height, weight, tattoos, scars, eyes, hands, physical tics, habits, mannerisms, skin/hair color, most outstanding or disturbing physical feature.) Note: Leafing through magazines to look for pictures of character look-alikes can make the person more real.)
Mentally:
6. What does he/she do for a living? (white or blue collar, level of income, speech, foreign language) __________________________________________________________________________________
7. What is his/her worldview? (How does he/she see others? How does he/she fit into the world? Who’s his/her best friend, worst enemy? How does he/she confront people, or does he/she?) __________________________________________________________________________________
8. Quirks: (favorite expressions, people or things he/she is afraid of, how he/she deals with stress, things that get him/her enthusiastic, excited, mad. Favorite color, food, car, clothes, exercise, etc.?) __________________________________________________________________________________
9. Inner thoughts: (Conflicts? What are his/her greatest doubts/fears? What does he/she take pride in?) __________________________________________________________________________________
Emotionally:
10. How does he or she deal with conflict or change externally? (Stomps off, pounds a fist, changes the subject, heads for the bar, does yoga?) What are his/her hobbies? Why?
11. If someone insults your character, how does he/she react? (Will the character just suck it up, come back with a retort, excuse himself/herself to find someone to vent to, etc.?) __________________________________________________________________________________
12. Religious Beliefs? (church attendance, agnostic, atheist, devout, lukewarm, backslider, etc.?) __________________________________________________________________________________
13. Motivations? (What drives this person? How does he/she react in a life-threatening situation? Can he/she be corrupted? How would that happen? What is his/her greatest achievement? What does he/she regret? What or who does he/she love? What or who does he/she hate? How does this person exact justice/revenge? What is his/her outlook on life—angry at the world, optimistic, happy-go-lucky, lazy, Eeyore-ish? What does he/she want most in life? Want least?) __________________________________________________________________________________
A final reminder: A main character needs to be more pro-active than reactive. Passivity is death to the protagonist and your story.