I’ve gotten a few asks requesting some research resources for writing characters who have Bipolar Disorder. I don’t have Bipolar, nor am I a mental health professional, but I have found some helpful resources from people who experience it in order to get you started.
Please let me know if you have any reading recommendations, and if you’d like to share your experiences!
Also note: apologies I haven’t been able to answer asks the way I used to, as adult life and grad school keep me rigorously occupied. But I always appreciate the people who take the time to write to me!
Putting in a plug for Maria Bamford, a comedian with Bipolar. She keeps bootleg stuff off youtube, but her entire catalog is on Spotify and I cannot recommend her enough. Here’s a clip from a Comedy Central special.
Seconding the rec for Carrie Fisher. She died right around the time I was first getting diagnosed myself and is still a huge comfort.
I have a diagnosis of Bipolar Type II myself and am glad to be a resource for questions as well.
Inpsychologyandneuroscience,executive dysfunction, or executive function deficit, is a disruption to the efficacy of the executive functions, which is a group of cognitive processes that regulate, control, and manage other cognitive processes. Executive dysfunction can refer to both neurocognitive deficits and behavioural symptoms. It is implicated in numerous psychopathologiesandmental disorders, as well as short-term and long-term changes in non-clinical executive control.
Executive function (EF) is a broad term that refers to the cognitive processes that help us regulate, control and manage our thoughts and actions. It includes planning, working memory, attention, problem solving, verbal reasoning, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, initiation of actions and monitoring of actions.
Most people on the autism spectrum have some degree of impaired executive function. Because executive function is such a complex concept, it can be hard to understand how it impacts our lives in practical ways.
For me, it’s not so much an unwillingness to do things or being lazy or putting it off. It’s that I can’t make myself focus on them. Sometimes other things take precedence in the hierarchy of my mind. Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting for this ephemeral thing that I can’t name. I will sometimes feel stuck in place, unable to move or think. In those instances, it’s like being mute but with my body. It’s a very hard thing to pinpoint. Sometimes, the thought forms in my head, and then it’s gone before I can act on it.
For me, it leads sometimes to chores not getting done, or to forgetting to go to events if I don’t set myself a reminder, or even doing things like reading or charging my computer or doing laundry.
your character should be morethan a tragic backstory. more than i lost my parents at a young age so now i rebel against the world. more than i have all these wicked skills without proper background or training.
sass is great, and so is silence — but when aren’t they using their biting wit? when do they speak up? do they use their ass-kicking skills for good? for evil? have they lost people along the way — actually, it’s inevitable, so what happened after the funeral? did your character attend? did they seek revenge, or search for answers at the bottom of a bottle?
don’t toss around tragedies if you’re not going to apply them to your characterization. alcoholics aren’t just loud and physically abusive; ptsd doesn’t mean you’ve boarded up the windows and refuse to leave your house. you won’t always continue to hate your parents after they’ve died. you will doubt your life decisions. being rich doesn’t make you sexy. being smart doesn’t make you socially awkward [ alternatively, it doesn’t make you the most attractive person in the room. ] even if you’re wicked smart, you’ll still get some things wrong.
do your research. if you put your character through traumatic events, not everyone walks away unscathed. but being haunted by the ghosts of your past doesn’t make you attractive either. it’s a nitty gritty, dirty fucking business. you get mad, your world loses color, you feel alone, and sometimes you ask yourself why you’re the one who lived.
treat your character like their own person. just because you wouldn’t say something to someone doesn’t mean they’ll keep their trap shut. it doesn’t mean they’ll want a big wedding or fast cars or apple pie made the way your mother taught you. maybe you’re pro-life and your character is pro-choice. maybe it’s vice versa. just because your character is a dick doesn’t mean it should be a reflection on yourself. but if they’re going to be a dick, and you want it to be believable, give them a reason to be a dick. a reason to hate the world, only slightly less than they hate the people living in it. maybe more. maybe it’s maybelline.
being smart and young and witty and attractive doesn’t mean your character will be respected. it doesn’t mean your character deserves to be respected. older, more experienced characters may trust your character less because they’re so damn young, no matter what you do or say to try to prove them wrong.
Are you really…. not supposed to…. describe what your characters are wearing….
I think there’s a great deal of misinformation on this topic.
I believe it’s fine to describe what your characters are wearing. However, like all things, it should serve some kind of purpose.
For instance, describing winter clothes helps impart to the reader a sense of how cold it is. Describing summer clothes helps explain how warm it is.
Describing an outfit before a social event gives a window onto the character’s sense of fashion, or explains their reverence (or lack) for the event; for example a character can wear a black suit to a funeral, or watch from a distance while wearing a t-shirt and jeans. These impart a different attitude.
An outfit may be described purely to give a little more interest to a character; to give the reader a bit more insight into who they are, through the way they present themselves. It may have no greater significance to the wider story but this is still a reason to do it.
So the “purpose” doesn’t need to be super-vital to the story. It canbe just because “describing this to the reader helps them appreciate the character or scene”, but that’s still a purpose.
I like that last comment because I think it can apply to a lot of things in storytelling! Anything that shows some element of your character has a purpose to the story even if it doesn’t exactly advance the plot.
Okay, I was wondering when I was going to end up writing this.
Okay abled bodied parents of disabled children/children with disabilities, listen up:
We’ve got some problems between you and the disabled community.
Let’s start with the fact that you’re dominating the discussion on disability and this is wrong. Unlike us, you don’t personally have to live with the decisions to advocate for “on our behalf”. Nor do you have to live with the language choices you promote.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a seat at the table, but we need to be leading the discussion and it is very clear we aren’t. Part of the problem is you either infantize us or claim that we must not be disabled if we can perform some arbitrary list of tasks your kid can’t do (some they might be able to do if you actually accommodated their needs in a way that was actually respectful).
Let’s talk about those language choices. I get you want to see your child “first”, but that isn’t actually how the world works. Society can (and does) use people first to deny your child accommodations, especially when they’re adults. Again, you don’t have to live with this language structure, we do. Let’s try not being allergic to the word “disabled”. That would solve a lot of problems right there. Also, the euphemisms are even worse than people first. Your kid will resent you for calling them special needs, differently abled, or anything of that sort.
Also, none of this actually addresses any of the actual societal issues that we face. You know, the things you benefit from via abled bodied privilege like having a society built for your needs, normalizing apdative tools and tech to make them less costly, dealing with the entire SSI/SSDI/Medicare/Medicaid system when it comes to disability, especially for adults 21+, prevelant forced poverty due to said systems and/or extreme unemployment and underemployment. The sub minimum wage is another issue that we could really use help addressing.
The final point is that with you dominating the conversation, you’re creating a false narrative that certain disabilities are only in childhood and stop at 18/21/what other magical made up number we all know doesn’t exist. Autism doesn’t stop at 18, neither does ADHD, any learning disability, cerebral palsy, etc. But due to this false narrative, getting services and medical care as a disabled adult is more difficult as there are doctors who literally believe we don’t exist. And guess what- your kid has to grow up and deal with that and you don’t have to directly live with it.
Abled bodied parents and others are free to reblog this but those who leave rude responses or try to make it about themselves will be ignored since they’re proving my exact point.
Literally everyone will ask if you broke your leg(s). Everyone. Even people you don’t know. Theyll ask a lot and think you’re extremely fragile.
bruises show up within the first day of rolling around, and they can really suck
people will try to grab your chair if they think you’re struggling and it can be hard not to snap at them for it
static electricity is a huge issue. You will probably either continuously shock your leg when you’re rolling around or do what I did today and zap someone so hard as you pass that both of you nearly keel over
people will call you out as a faker if you do anything even remotely fun ever on your wheelchair. Wheelies? Obviously your legs are fine lol not like you have to go down fucking curbs /s
puddles are the worst and if there’s a curb with a puddle all around and you have some ability to walk its a better idea to just stand up and navigate the chair than to fall backwards into said puddle
weird looks from people are inevitable, especially from people who don’t like you
bus drivers will often push your chair and give you advise you don’t want to hear, even if you tell them nicely you can push yourself. Its really hard not to get mad at them for it
no wheelies in school. Though if you do it in the elevator when no one else is with you you can’t really get caught.
speaking of wheelies, always be ready to throw at least one arm behind you in case you fall. They say tuck your chin in but its easier and more reliable to throw your hands back and keep your neck up so you don’t hit the floor. Sore arms are way easier to put up with than head injuries
don’t even bother to try and roll back up curbs. You will either be there for an hour or fall backwards. I managed to do both.
90% of classrooms that aren’t special ed are not very wheelchair accessible.
people will automatically assume you’re faking something if you’re not considered dumb enough in their standards to fit in with disabled students (aka high class ableism at its finest)
people are going to give you weird looks if you don’t suddenly start sitting with the other disabled kids
standard backpacks usually dangle way too much to keep on you easily, so try to pack light
built in storage on wheelchairs cannot sufficiently carry books
don’t try to hold an umbrella. Period. Especially not with your teeth. It doesn’t work.
don’t try to give the bus driver your ticket while you’re stuck on the ramp. And speaking of, its easy to start falling down the bus ramp so be careful, and when in doubt throw on the breaks
and finally if you’re like me pray to god you don’t go nonverbal when someone is trying to push you and you don’t want them to because it is hard to get them to stop if you can’t speak
able-bodied people can and should 1000% reblog this, some of these things I’ve seen on tips about using a wheelchair but a lot of these weren’t things I’ve seen
Seriously, never, ever touch someone’s mobility aid without their permission.
A very helpful guide, both for first-time wheelchair users and those around them!
If you’re doing NaNo, you’re probably realizing that the details and plots you wanted aren’t translating well on the page. That’s fine. NaNo isn’t the time or place for consistency.
When you come across something you want change, start writing your story as if you had been writing your new idea all along. Leave yourself a small footnote to explain to your future self what you intended from this point on and why you made this change.
Nobody’s perfect, same thing with characters. Every single character needs flaws. Flawed characters are way more interesting than emotionally well-balanced ones.
hi there! I’m in the process of making character profiles and in my search for some descriptions I stumbled upon this little gem.It’s a list of 638 character traits including positive, neutral, and negative traits you can use to describe your characters. I found it super helpful so I figured I’d link it here for my own record and other writers. you can also find the full list under the cut.
I’m not going to lie, I was a little baffled when we first got this request. I don’t usually read guides on portraying characters with specific character traits that more or less ‘define’ them - as I believe that tends to lead a person to portray their character in a very linear way. The truth is, you, as a writer, have the creative freedom to write your character any way you prefer and please, with as few limitations as possible - which is, and always has been - the beauty of roleplaying. Though I feel that to write a realistic character, one should focus on making them multifaceted and avoid stereotypical molds. That being said, let’s move forward, shall we?
Want to develop your character and help science at the same time? I’ve created a questionnaire that will ask you a ton of things about your OC. Once I get enough responses, I will use the data to find trends in how people create characters, and then make some cool graphs with it.
The survey has over 500 questions, almost all of which are optional if you don’t want to answer that many. It touches on everything, from your character’s appearance to their personality to their favorite color, and much more. All kinds of characters are welcome, whether they’re human or non-human, fantastical or realistic, anything goes. Characters from stories, roleplay characters, and characters without any story are all accounted for.
Content warning for references to violence, sexual assault, death, abuse, and every other nasty thing you can think of. All of it is in text form and there is no in-depth discussion of any of these topics, just questions about whether these things have happened to your character. Aside from some barbie-style nudity and cartoon people in swimsuits, all images are tame. There is a nsfw section for those who want to develop their character’s saucier side, but it is easy to skip over without having to see any of it.
Please reblog this to spread the word! The 2015 survey got over 5,000 responses. Let’s see if we can beat that this year.
Some werewolf mythos I consider canon for this verse (but anything could be changed if you’re not into something in particular). I’m using my character Finn as an example through most of all of this, which you may feel free to use as a supplement of sorts to your own character or plot ideas, et al. I don’t mind. That’s what I want!
Disclaimer: I don’t know if this could be considered a guide or mythos meta, but it mostly came from me and my ideas (and ideas I’ve read before) and it’s not what’s usually seen of werewolves, so take that into account if you read this.
Also expect a few typos. They shall be fixed in a bit.
The Crime Museum in Washington D.C. has a great website for anyone with an interest in crime and criminology. Not only that, but they have a whole friggin library full of anything you want to know.
I mean look at this
T H E Y H A V E E V E R Y T H I N G
Need some info on famous serial killers?
YOOO I’ve never heard anything about female serial killers!
Yeah, remember the Craigslist killer?
Okay, but I want some stuff on the basics of forensic anthropology for a fic I’m wroking on. Anything?
This is one of my most frequent asks (followed by how to depict trans men, but that merits its own post.) As such, I wanted to hand pass the mic to trans women with a masterpost!
A disclaimer: many of the resources included below apply to trans people of all genders, but all are from trans women, and apply primarily to trans women.
Several months ago I posted the original Character Development Checklist, because why wouldn’t you need dozens of random questions about your character?
In my humble opinion, there’s no such thing as too many questions. How can we ever know too much about our characters? The reader might not see it, but everything the author knows will mold the characters and the story. How can that be a bad thing?
Which is exactly why I added dozens of questions to the original character sheet. Check out a link to the first one above, and scroll below for an updated version
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