how do i make my characters not indulge in self-pity

The most obvious step to take is not to write the self-pity. If you write about your characters getting on with their lives, they are getting on with their lives. First, cut out all (or almost all) "told" emotion ("Mary felt miserable") if you've written any. (Almost always good advice.) If the scene is now emotionally flat, replace it by an action that shows the emotion ("Mary sat there, silently, picking her Kleenex into tiny shreds.")


Then - except in scenes where you want self-pity, cut out direct ("How can I go on? she thought") and indirect ("How could she go on?") inner voice that exhibits it. Replace it, if called for, by action-oriented inner voice ("She would get a new coffee mug as soon as the store opened. And a pistol.") And make her get to her feet and do something - write more actions. ("She took out the broom and swept up every mote of the broken mug, sweeping away what she promised herself would be the last trace ever of John in her life.")

Dialog - as always, never have two people quite agreeing with each other. The two people in an interchange are each having a slightly different conversation. A says P; B hears it,associates it with Q, and answers that, and so on. If Mary tells Pauline how much she valued the mug that John broke, and Pauline tells her about the article about decluttering in Home magazine, Mary's pity party has been cut off.

Good luck...

There are several things you can do:

-Break up the reflection scenes with action scenes, where the character actively does something to better his/her situation instead of sitting there mulling things over and drowning in self-pity.

-Look out for repetitive thoughts. Your character can absolute feel self-pity, but make sure not to repeat it too much, otherwise it gets really tiring. So if s/he's thinking, "Why is this happening to me?" let them think it once or twice, and that's it. Move on to the character tackling the obstacle.

-Have another character point out your character's self-pity. This can also act as a catalyst for your character to become more active, because the act of pitying oneself is quite passive and so will become boring pretty quick.

The key word is "indulge". If your character has one brief "oh poor me" moment, that's not an issue, but she needs to move on from it and do other things (see other suggestions above).

I tackled this with one of my MCs in a multi-POV story. My main MC is definitely prone to self-pity and I consciously wanted that. The problem is another MC was sounding too much like the main MC. I cut it out by deciding what I wanted this other MCs main positive trait to be (which was his determination and never-gonna-give-up attitude) and replacing that with the self-pitying aspects.