#im not kidding i want to go back to the days when fanon didnt affect canon

[captainlordauditor]

make fandom niche again

[scripttorture]

So I’ve seen a few organized crime asks and wanted to ask something for a book I’ve been working on. How do I show characters living with things like chronic pain and depression and anxiety after being exposed to violence, without adding to stigma that mentally ill people are violent? I don’t want readers to think committing violence will not affect people in any way, but I also don’t want readers with mental illness to think their own disorder is a punishment for something they haven’t done.

That’sa good question.

Anda bloody difficult one.

I’vebeen pretty open about having mental health problems, intrusivethoughts about violence and how these stereotypes have effected me.

Butthat experience only really allows me to speak for myself. I can’treally speak for the  millions, of other people in the same position.Some of them are likely to feel differently. I’ve seen peoplerespond to @scriptshrink’s blog by saying they don’t thinknon-mentally ill people should write about mental health at all.Personally- I don’t agree, but we’re not a monolithic group.There are huge differences of opinion here.

So-other people may disagree. This is a subjective issue rather thansomething I can fall back on research papers and statistics for. Keepthat, and my biases, in mind.

Whenit comes to writing my philosophy is ‘balance’. Which in thisparticular case means that I’d try to add in more mentally illcharacters who are not violent criminals.

Oneof the easiest ways to do that in this scenario is to include thefamilies of these criminals.

Let’spause for a moment for a tangent into a real life case. Take a lookat the appendices of thisbook (freely available online here),we’re looking at Case Group B, Case No 3, page 168 out of 196.

Theyoung woman of ‘Case No 3’ was the daughter of a torturer and thecases are Fanon’s notes taken as a mental health professionalduring and after the Franco-Algerian war.

WhatI’m trying to highlight here is the way violence can impact themental health of witnesses and people who are only peripherallyinvolved as well as attackers and victims. I think including peoplefrom these groups could help because it gets to the root of whatyou’re driving at: that violence causes mental health problemsrather than the other way round.

I'dalways encourage people to include victims in their stories, if itcan be done in a way that allows them to be fully rounded individualsrather than objects.

Howeverthat’s not always possible if the story focuses on the ‘badguys’.

Otherwitnesses and public officials can also be used to show the effectsof violence. I suppose police officers are the obvious group to leapto but in places where the levels of violence are high there oftenseems to be a huge pressure on health care professionals. They’reexposed to much of the violence of organised crime and they’resometimes deliberately targetted (as in Mexico and Pakistan).

Ifyour story involves any of the criminal characters being injured andin need of emergency treatment- well @scriptmedic always used tosuggest trying to give medics more personality even if they’re onlyin the story for a short amount of time. A connection with thepatient over shared mental health problems could be a good way to dothat. Especially since a doctor could plausibly voice the obviousconnection: they feel this way because they’re exposed to violenceevery day.

Ithink if you can it’s also important to take the time to show thesemental health problems developing in your abusive characters.Establish that they were violent long before they were mentally ill.

Youmight not have space in the story to show that development from thebeginning of the character’s time in a gang. But if you don’tthere are other ways to work that in.

Havinga character reflect on their past is a possibility, or having someonewho knows them well point it out to them.

‘Youknow you never had to take those pain pills until you started doingx’

‘Youdidn’t have these days before you joined the gang-’

‘Youwere so much calmer when-’

Andso forth.

Youcould also approach this by looking at the way older more establishedmembers see younger members. If your older mentally ill character whohas seen a lot of violence now has this ‘kid’ trying to tagalong, wanting to learn the ropes, wanting to be ‘tougher’ and‘stronger’- It would probably be naturally for the character tolook back and think ‘I thought like that too, before the painstarted, before I needed the pills, before I spent weeks at a time inbed. This dumb kid has no idea what they’re asking.’

Bothof these tactics are… attacking the idea at the joints. The firstone is establishing that mental illness exists outside of violentaction and the second is establishing that the character was violentbefore being mentally ill.

Thereare probably other ways to approach doing this. These are just theways that stood out to me and that I thought would fit the scenariobest.

Ithink you’d probably also benefit from finding a beta reader orjoining a writing group.

Becausethis sounds like the sort of scenario where the execution is going tobe incredibly important to how this comes across. It’s not justabout picking a few strategies it’s about making sure they acrosseffectively on the page. And the best way to find out is to getpeople to read it. Ask them about the story. Ask them how theportrayal of mental health problems comes across. Ask for theirsuggestions for more elements or improvements.

Honestlythis helps so much. I can’t count the number of times my writinggroup have picked up on inconsistencies, unclear passages or justplaces where re-writing things a little could improve the emotionalimpact of the scene. Clarity, consistency and good use of atmospherewill go a long way to achieving what you want in this story.

AndI’ve found that it’s very easy to assume we’ve got all thosethings the way we want them as we write. Because we know what wemean. Showing other people our work and getting their feedbackreassures us when we havegot it right and helps us figure out what to do when we haven’t.

Ihope that helps. :)

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