Writing PSTD in a character, help

[Tinyflame]

I believe it was possibly Hemmingway that said it, and others here: write about what you know.

 

[whiteraven]

write about what you know.

While I understand why this is being suggested here, it's *extremely* limiting to tell a writer to write *just* what they know. If we did that, there would be NO fantasy, very little fiction, and the writers who have researched and really tried to understand another viewpoint or opinion would be silenced. Not sure that is the way we grow, as people or a society.

I've been thinking about this, and it also allows presentation of an issue or illness or struggle to only be one-sided. If only people with PTSD or their supporters wrote about it, can you imagine the distorted views and the biases? I think we have to be *very* careful when writing about something unfamiliar or when creating characters with challenges not similar to our own, but I think it can be done with extensive research and someone familiar with whatever challenge it is following behind and verifying that it rings true at least to their experience.

 

[Rose White]

extensive research and someone familiar with whatever challenge it is following behind and verifying that it rings true at least to their experience.

Agree with you @whiteraven. Well said. I have a friend who is a writer and he takes classes and has won awards and in one of his classes one of their assignments was to specifically write from the perspective of someone completely unlike them. He researched with TED talks and then the only verification he had was reading it in front of his class.

Charles Dickens wrote in Bleak House from the perspective of a young maiden. I suppose his journalistic career was his research? Also he was just inhumanly good at writing though.

I didn’t read Fridays references but perhaps a delicate way to approach would be to have already done lots of research (Ted talks, reading public diaries, reading published work) and already attempted to write something and then asking if anyone would like to read it and give feedback? Although again I agree with whiteraven that asking active sufferers and supporters for feedback would be asking for loaded bias.

 

[DarkVixen]

I don’t have PTSD, and I’m trying to write a character that does. This character has to directly return to the source of trauma, and I want to make them dissociate accurately. How would I do that?

It's not really that interesting to dissociate as you've probably done it yourself. Ever drive to work but can't remember the actual ride there because it was automatic. That's pretty boring stuff right? Ever look out a window and daydream about nothing? Again pretty boring stuff.

Trying to take what's actually quite normal and make it into some bizarre condition is just exploitation of an already traumatized group in society.

 

[user27357]

More advice: Google is your friend. Use it.

and a library card. Or amazon. Read Heller, read Vonnegut, read Hemingway. then give up because no one gets it like a true sufferer.

I believe it was possibly Hemmingway that said it, and others here: write about what you know.

I think you are right, but I have read a lot of his personal letters and many were to his editors and the idea was thrown around quite a bit by both. But on this subject, the man could be considered to be an authority although I doubt he ever spent a day and a night trying to get ashore with a marlin tied along side his small boat. But he wrote very little, every day, and learned early on to know when he was telling tales that weren't ringing true the next morning and out of sheer disdain for wasted time he stopped writing them. Even when it meant feeding his editors very meagerly, a bite at a time, a day at a time.

 

[Tinyflame]

That is really neat @enough , Idk that! And funny with the Marlin, yes! I think his description of his internal climate and even that of his thoughts of the marlin's thoughts, along with his understanding of human nature and struggle, is what made it gripping. (And his bloody hands in the struggle..)

Oh I didn't mean one shouldn't use imagination (such as scince fiction), or creative thinking and expression. And everyone is unique; it's not easy to convey emotional tone and suspense, nor would one want something to be cookie-cutter.

I just think, if I described what a person did for example, or they described what I do, but we had no working knowledge (much) or experience with it, likely we may get it quite wrong. Simply because we don't know what we don't know. A lot of research is right.

But I have to say, even ptsd is only one part of who we are or what we have. And we fight hard to be seen as something other than being defined by it. So I could see it as relevant to character development, but every character (or person) should be unique apart from it. A fact, or plot twist, rather than a defining feature?

 

[Sideways]

It's not really that interesting to dissociate as you've probably done it yourself.

Definitely agree with the sentiment of your post, but for those of us with a dissociative disorder, it’s definitely not a ‘normal’ experience!