Hello, I'm looking to take the readers mind into my mind, I don't know how that sounds but I'm looking for them to question their minds. The way I'm looking towards that is to tell some of my personal experiences of course some adding some drama into them and making it confusing. I have depression and panic attacks and adding some schizophrenia to the story doesn't seem like a bad idea. My idea for the character is him to be inside his mind a lot of time and over think common situations. I know its barely an complete idea but what do you guys think? any tips or ideas?
I like your idea. Delving into someone's thoughts is a tough process though. What kind of emotions are you going to show?
That sounds so hard to do. For me, the single biggest turn off in reading is a dream. They are everywhere, and they are used in all kinds of circumstances, usually to eke out some internal demon the POV character has. I see it turning into one big dreamscape, where nothing happens except thought. If anything, I'd suggest developing 3 or 4 characters that are the same person but a different stages of their disease so that the reader doesn't get lost and has someplace to ground himself.
Thank you for answering, the idea changed into the creation of a schizophrenic guy. Yes, the main character is the creation and the second main character will be the schizophrenic guy of course. The main problem the character will be facing is that the schizophrenic guy is a serial killer. Thank you for your answer they'll be helpful
For me, I would have such an introspective character question whether his perceptions are too far from reality and seek confirmation one way or the other for an answer. I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; Then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man? Chuang Tzu
Hmmm... physiological horror is an interesting genre to write about. I like your idea though it's a basic concept, but you can elaborate on it a lot. If you're looking for inspiration though may I suggest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shining_(film) it might not be going off the same idea you have in mind, but it's still a great film/book if you're looking for inspiration. Anyways that's all I got for now.
Another source of inspiration: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Don't rely on the films, the book is a great example of psychological horror.
Psychological horror comes from two sources: Catharsis and uncertainty. If you wish to scare your reader through use of good horror instead of cheap jump-scares (which don't work in writing, unless you stick a tape-recorder into the page or something), you must first make the reader care and associate with the protagonist, then show the tortures the protagonist goes through, without explaining them fully. I once did a story (in my home country's language: Portuguese, but I'm in the middle of translating it at the moment) where the protagonist spent the entire story trying to reach a room in a tower he kept seeing in his dreams. I never revealed what was in the room until the very end, and my readers absolutely loved the horror of his ever-growing desperation and obsession with that particular room. Good literary horror comes from tension and fear about what can happen to the character you care about. It's not the kind of horror that makes the reader be afraid for one day then forget about it the next, it's the kind of horror the reader doesn't really feel until much later, when he's lying in bed and thinking about the story he read, and being too afraid to sleep because of it. So, if you want to do proper horror, subtlety, catharsis and uncertainty are musts. A good narrative flow is also quite necessary, though not a deal breaker in most cases.
I'm trying my hand at writing horror short stories, and I'm finding that my my favorite theme is for the protagonists to become the reason why people around them are getting hurt. If some guy comes at you with a knife, then there's a chance that you can defend yourself even if it doesn't work in the end. If you end up hurting others, then you can't solve the problem as easily, especially if you've gotten to the point where don't remember that you should want to. The four "D"s I've identified so far are: *Deceit: the antagonist convinces the protagonist to do something seemingly innocent, but which the protagonist later discovers has hurt somebody *Domination: the antagonist forces the protagonist to hurt others against his will *Degeneration: the protagonist gradually loses his moral compass to the point that she doesn't have a problem hurting others *Design (specific to supernatural horror): a mundane action that the protagonist cannot reasonably avoid has been corrupted into something that will continue hurting others I consider "Design" to be it's own category, rather than a sub-set of "Domination," because there is no antagonist for the protagonist to resist.
Stephen King's "Lisey's Story", though not exactly the type of character you're after, has a lot of introspection. Might be inspiring to read it, if you haven't. Telling the story in first person, using the character as the narrator is the only thing that comes to my mind, but that might be a given. I've never tried this kind of thing myself yet.
The best advice I can give you is to talk to someone who has schizophrenia or DID (which sounds a lot like what you're describing, minus the hallucinations). As far as inspiration goes look into Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Even if you decide to just watch the TV, it should give you a lot insight on the mind of a sociopath, although bear in mind that sociopaths do, in fact, feel emotions despite their lack of empathy. Or, at least, they're damn good at faking them. If Dexter is too unrealistic for you, then try watching Girl, Interrupted. It does an excellent job of portraying the little known female psychopath, but remember there is a difference between a psychopath and a sociopath (the psychopath feels no empathy, while the sociopath feels very little). Also check out Identical by Ellen Hopkins, the Karen Overhill story, or Sybil which all detail the lives of characters with DID.
My last completed was 1st person crime. There was a lot of introspection which a few readers said I did extremely well, however all said it needed more dialogue in some places. So take care no to overdo the introspection. You can show his over-thinking things in dialogue with someone else.
I've been really trying to hone this genre in my writing. I haven't had fantastic success or anything, but I really want it to be creepy, surreal, and off putting. I don't want to simply use the occult in general as a horse for my horror. Psychiatric disease is fun to tackle, especially with the horror genre. It's possible though, that it's very difficult to capture this in new and interesting ways. I can think of a few examples in cinema like, Enemy, The Machinist, Side Effect, just to name a few. It is definitely possible, and if you have some interesting ideas I would go for it. Just remember, is very common for these horror stories to portray the jaded view of reality from the perspective of the crazed individual, only to reveal the truth in the plot twist ending.
Be careful with that because it sounds like you're going the "split personality" route. If you're writing about characters with mental illness, you have to spend a good amount of time resarching that illness and represent it correctly.
The best book, in my opinion, that portrays somebody overthinking things is a book by Stefan Zweig called 'Beware of Pity'. It's an old book, set around world war one, but it is written like Zweig understands social anxiety as if he's a modern author. The book is a series of events, and after each event his main character will return home and over-think everything to the point that his next move is a reaction to the chess game he is playing with his own mind. He is motivated by how much he just wants to make his interactions with other people just work out and put his mind at ease. Of course, he continues to misread situations, make mistakes and make himself worse until he drives himself into a psychological corner and... dramatic results. The narrator's train of thoughts are a good example of how you could write a book like this, if you consider how to bring the style forward to a modern setting, and introduce horror/thriller elements. I remember reading that Zweig was a contemporary of Freud, and that the book was an attempt for him to use the ideas of psychology that were new at the time to write fiction. Zweig was writing it to deal with his own depression. It was unpublished in his lifetime due to his own internal issues, and his continual rewriting of it due to these problems.
I, also, like your idea. I have written a short story, The Dark, the idea of which is to examine the depression (of one character) and the delusions of another character. So, I do like where you're coming from, if I can say that.
The Dark came from an idea which questions weather the worlds of imagination and reality can co-exist. The delusions of the one character----he is a serial killer who kills only in his mind, a very interesting character to write about.
I write and read a lot of this genre, and I've won a bunch of the monthly contests in this genre. Here's my two cents: The reason that good psyche thrillers work is because the reader can empathize with the main character. This requires a great deal of characterization as well as John Doe'ing. The character needs to be relate-able, so his traits need to be generic enough at first that almost anyone can put themselves into their shoes. It doesn't need to be very generic however, in fact, it should be very personal to the character. For example: If anxiety and depression is something key to your character, put him first in a situation where anyone would feel that way. Asking a girl out and being rejected for example. All of us have been there, there isn't a man on Earth who's gotten a date with every girl he's ever approached, and he likely felt anxiety every single time he did so. Then after you've established a relateable situation to your reader, then you go go into much darker places. Maybe he hallucinates things the girls think or do. If you dropped the reader directly into the main character hallucinating that he can hear women's thoughts and they are laughing at him, you're too disconnected from what the reader knows that they're just reading words, not emoting with the character. But most of us have been rejected then wondered what they were giggling about with their friends later, so put your reader there first, then bridge the gap into the darkness.
In The Dark, one of my characters, a female, suffers from depression--- major depression --- as I understanding it. She fears the monsters that threaten her, the dark monsters of depression. One way for her to cope with this is her desire to live in her world of silence. So, yes, depression is key to her. And, really, the reason for the story.
Have you ever read The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman? It is old, but a classic and a forerunner of modern psychological horror, so a good starting point. It deals with paranoia and anxiety in a disturbing way and possibly supernatural way. And it's available for free. But one of the finest works of psychological horror in modern times is Needing Ghosts (1993) by Ramsey Campbell, a powerful study in paranoia, leading to a nightmarish climax.
