writing insane

The best insane heroes I've ever seen are in comic books. I'm thinking the visual aid is a crutch.

Get some old copies of Faust by David Quinn and Tim Vigil (reading and visuals will give you an awesome idea of insanity, if they don't ruin you).

Also, Moon Knight (the Marvel Comics character is insane and at the whim of a God).

An insane character frequently may appear sane; the insanity is realized from the character actions; those actions being radically diferent than a sane person.

Sarah Monette had a character who was insane in Melusine. Maybe pick that up to see how she handles it?

I've found writing insane very tiring and scary.

From the perspective of the insane character, all that character's actions will appear justified, even if the reader can tell the reasoning used to decide on those actions isn't sound.

Nivarion said:

the best insane character i have seen in a while is Rand Al'Thor from the WoT.

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Egwene is more insane than Rand.

But what sort of insanity? Sociopath? Psychopath? Or just plain drool-on-the-chin, straightjacket loony?

I'm better at writing somewhat disturbed than flat-out insane. An oddly disproportionate number of my characters suffer various mental ailments, but for the most part not to the point of total insanity. I find that the "totally insane" character often comes across as rather shallow and too difficult to understand properly. A mixture of sanity and insanity seems to come across in writing far more convincingly. You can never be too sure about such people. And can even identify with them, in a lot of cases.

Which is either scarier or easier to identify with--somebody who talks in utterly nonsensical word salad or is totally catatonic all the time, or somebody who acts normally for the most part, but harbors really strange, paranoid thoughts...?

This might be just me though.

Personality disorders are useful.

SPMiller said:

From the perspective of the insane character, all that character's actions will appear justified, even if the reader can tell the reasoning used to decide on those actions isn't sound.

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Agreed. It's tempting to write an insane person just doing crazy things for no reason at all, seemingly at random. Tempting, but not realistic. People with mental disorders will fixate on specific things; their illness takes on a pattern, and usually there is some sort of reasoning, however irrational, behind what they are doing.

Be careful when writing about someone with mental illness, too. It can come across as cheap to just use their insanity as a tool to make the character do whatever crazy thing you want them to do in order to advance the plot. This is especially the case with symptoms like visual and auditory hallucination.

The world of mental illness is incredibly varied. Delusion differs from hallucination; psychosis differs from neurosis which differs from schizophrenia. Mental and emotional problems are distinct from one another.

A little research would help a great deal. Try a college textbook on Abnormal Psychology.

Traditionally, insanity is mental disorder to a degree that causes a person to flout societal norms and risk injury to himself or others.

I like insane characters. They can make for great villains (like Hannibal Lecter or Alex Forrest), good antiheroes (like Dexter Morgan), or creepy side-kicks or witnesses (like Renfield from Dracula).

In fiction we can find the cold cruelty of the psychopath or sociopath (Hannibal or Dexter), the ravings of the psychotic (Renfield) the instability of the borderline personality (Forrest) and the split personalities of Dissociative Identity Disorder (e.g. Jekyll and Hyde). Other disorders used in fiction with perhaps less danger/risk attached are neuroses, (e.g. Indiana Jones' fear of snakes), autism (e.g in Rain Man, actually a developmental disorder), and Bipolar disorders (e.g. Sally Fields' appearance as Maggie on ER), depression and senility.

It's easy to write insane characters unsympathetically. To do this, just emphasise their differences, the risk of danger; give them no friends, family or loved ones; show them shunned; make their mental disorder somehow their own fault, and give the reader no explanation of why they're like this.

But I much prefer insane characters who are shown sympathetically. It makes them creepier, more intimate, more interesting (and if you make your insane character the main character then you must show it sympathetically or risk losing the audience). Lecter, Dexter, Renfield, Forrest and Dr Jekyll all have audience sympathy. To show a character sympathetically you can make them (sometimes) 'just like us' (e.g. Dr Jekyll, Hannibal Lecter), or being kind sometimes (Dr Jekyll, Dexter), or show them 'only hurting bad people' (e.g. Dexter), or 'only being a danger to themselves' (e.g. Renfield), or having friends or loving family (e.g. Dexter), or suffering bad things they don't deserve (e.g. Forrest), or their condition not being their fault (e.g. Lecter), or having great talent (Lecter, Rainman).

Insane characters often become major characters because they're so memorable. As major characters they'll need their own character arcs. Unfortunately for the characters, their arcs are seldom good. Insanity creates an innate character tension, because the audience wants the mad character to be 'just like us' -- and for any threat to disappear. For this reason, if authors can't cure the mad character, they'll often kill, institutionalise or banish it -- and if it appears in a sequel, then any cure is likely to be temporary anyway. In reality, some forms of madness are incurable (e.g. psychopathy), while some (e.g. some psychoses, bipolar disorders) respond to drugs and therapy.

In the real world, mental disorders are very common. About one person in three will experience some diagnosable mental condition in their lives -- so if we're not a bit nuts ourselves at some time, we'll know someone who is. Since mental disorders are so stigmatised, and in fiction are so often associated with violence, it's often responsible to separate the character from the condition -- and show somewhere in your story that sure, this senile old lady may be a chainsaw-wielding maniac, but most senile old ladies are simply helpless, forgetful and confused.

My acid test for how authors use 'Otherness' in fiction is FAB: Focus, Appropriateness and Balance.

Focus: Is this informative, accurate and well-researched, or just sensationalised, exaggerated and entertaining?
Appropriateness: Does the 'otherness' contribute to the story dramatically or is it just titillating window-dressing?
Balance: Does the story represent alternative views? (It doesn't have to represent them equally -- I just consider whether those views are acknowledged or ignored)

Hope this helps!

Poe wrote good insane characters. Telltale Heart is a great example.

Just remember that most people who are "crazy" don't see themselves that way, so if you're writing from their perspective, they will think they are acting normal, and everyone else is off.

-- Marcy

Smiling Ted said:

A little research would help a great deal. Try a college textbook on Abnormal Psychology.

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You want the DSM IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition)

BTW...like any other minority group, the mentally ill are often victims of stereotyping. I'm certainly not saying that it is wrong or bad to write about them, but remember that those with severe disorders suffer greatly. Schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, etc. are horrible things to endure.

Good luck.

bi-polar disorder, etc. are horrible things to endure.

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Actually it's half amazing fun - and the other half is crap. Kinda balances out in the end I wouldn't much fancy schizophrenia though.

I know a few bi polars ( and Stephen Fry did an excellent programme on it) and more than a few say they wouldn't trade it in for being 'normal'. I know I wouldn't.

I have to say writing people who have, shall we say, a less than stellar grip on reality is extremely draining. One of my guys has a mental / emotional breakdown, and I can only write him in chunks rather than blast through the draft because quite frankly it wears me out emotionally.

One of the best renditions of a psychotic personality I remember reading was Ramsay Campbell's 'The Face that must Die'. Deeply disturbing, and very believable.

Try Mr. Brooks (movie) and Rorschach (sp?) (Watchmen) for some "is he good or bad?" insane.

I loves me those many shades of gray.

In the Nobel-Winning novel The President by Miguel Ángel Asturias is a mentally disturbed man who murders an important government figure since everytime someones scream "Mother" to him, it upsets him.

The first 3 or 4 chapters are partially narrated on the POV of this man (only referred as The Zany) mixing reality, dream and memories

I tried dipping into madness for this piece, if anyone wants to check it out. I tried to break word order and punctuation rules to give the reader a real sense of "wrong".

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118405

Nivarion said:

he has no regard for quanity of lives, or it seems to others, life in general. (i find this interesting, because in the begining he is stalwartly against killing) he is emotionally dead, and purly calculating.

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You may be looking at an Antisocial Personality Disorder. These are also called psychopaths and sociopaths -- but not all are violent, and not all the time.

however certian things bring out his emotions, and this can cause anything from weeping, to extreme violence where any one and every one races to not be with in ten miles of him when he finishes with the inital source. (children are most likely to set him off, normaly in a good way. However, the death of a child makes him angery)

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Perhaps he has triggers to violence based on his early experiences? Perhaps the rest of the time he just enjoys manipulating people?

Ruv Draba said:

You may be looking at an Antisocial Personality Disorder. These are also called psychopaths and sociopaths -- but not all are violent, and not all the time.

Perhaps he has triggers to violence based on his early experiences? Perhaps the rest of the time he just enjoys manipulating people?

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I'm pretty sure the character being discussed is a sociopath.

Remember not all triggers lead to violence, there are other 'insanities' as well, and many of them are more interesting.

Ya know, when I need insane, I start with 'what is the sanest thing a person would do in this circumstance?' then I go to 'what would make it saner' (What would a sane person do in a slow line at the grocery? What would be the next saner thing to do? and after that?)

When you past the borders of very sane, you jump right into the 'in-sane'

A line from Megadeth's song Mary Jane comes to mind (yes, showing my age here) :

"If I know I'm going crazy, I must not be insane."

Given the opportunity to think about it, an insane person wouldn't know they are insane. So, what would you do if you...saw ghosts? heard voices? woke up with blood-soaked hands? saw and heard portraits turn their heads and talk to you? kept seeing and feeling bugs covering you? noticed patterns that stood out to you, giving evidence that big brother is watching...and abducting people? What would you do if you saw orc-like things attacking a young woman?

I guess I would pose questions, like above, and answer them--if I were going to start writing insane.

First, I agree with everyone else, sounds like APD.

Secondly ...

Nivarion said:

im not sure what type of insane i need is so that i can research it.

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This is where you learn how to research.

Go to the library, look up 'mental illness' and go to the general region the search results point you at. Pull some books that look decent. Skim them.

Or, barring that, Wikipedia.

Not hard.