Okay, so the main point of this is for me to put forward this concept for a character I thought of and see what the crowd thinks. This character started off as a fairly aggressive person. Her aggression was a way to try to get her parents to actually pay attention to her. This backfires, and causes the parents to treat her like yesterday's garbage. This, however, only serves to make her angrier, and strengthened her violent tendencies. Eventually, after quite a long time of this going on, the parents stop putting up with it, and they kick the girl out to live on the streets (They're not exactly parents of the year). Eventually, she meets this boy who also lives on the streets (Of his own volition), who actually does care about her. They refer to each other as their sibling and really do care about each other, but the girl can't quite buck the aggression, as it's become her nature. Now, the one thing the girl doesn't want is to actually become the kind of person that her parents thought she was (Malevolent, cruel, "monster-child"). The problem arises when she actually does become that person. One day, she's pushed way over the edge and does something atrocious (I'm not exactly sure what yet, but it would probably involve her causing the deaths of several people). This would take place in a fit of rage; when she isn't thinking about anything other than what's pissing her off. When she finally realizes what she's done, she can't take it. It turns out that she actually is a "monster-child", cruel and malevolent. I know this can go several different places, but I want this to cause her to repress all of these terrible memories, including her parents, and shoving them into some split personality she develops in order to cope with it all. I would also like her personality to change. To me, it makes sense that, if she can't remember her horrible parents, or how she used to act violently, then she would have no reason to act violently now. I've done some research on this subject before, and I think that this scenario has a high likelihood (along with a bit of fantasy-novel logical leaps) of achieving this effect. So, I'm wondering if I've got this all wrong, or maybe this doesn't sound as interesting as I think it does? Really, I'm just looking for any criticism on this. I really would like to write this character, but I need to make sure that the starting premise isn't flawed before I can start creating the rest of her.
Memory repression is usually because the specific memory is traumatic. One incident isn’t going to wipe out years of history because the themes are connected unless amnesia is involved. More realistically, she would always be second guessing and analysing her behaviour and forcing herself to act the opposite of what she once did. There are certain aspects of people that just don’t change. It’s pretty much the basic foundation of their personality and those traits don’t change. Our experiences lead us to develop certain behaviours that can be contrary to these base traits. So this aggression doesn’t just become a trait of hers, it’s likely always been there but she’s pushed it down from the beginning because everyone’s always going on about not being mean and nasty and cruel. The extent to her predisposition for aggression may not be as exaggerated as she makes it out to be to get her parents attention but the fact that she can’t shake the behaviour completely suggests that it is a base trait of her personality. Now this incident that occurs will be so severely against her morals and boundaries she’s set for her behaviour that she is traumatised by the very thought of herself being capable of doing such a thing. But as it’s in a fit of anger it is not an inherent trait in her personality. She’s not going to do it again. From this point on she will force herself to suppress and reject everything she associates with that trait. All her behaviour, thoughts, actions and decisions will be under a fine toothed comb of internal judgment to keep herself in line. As it sounds, it’s not healthy. She’s repressing her natural traits, doing things she’s not likely to ever do otherwise and is rejecting her natural self. It’s a dark hole to jump into. Try not to make it a split personality issue and go for an internal torment type of thing.. is what I’m saying. The memories are there but she’s purposely ignoring them, shoving them away to become the person she thinks she needs to be for her parents approval. In my personal opinion, split personalities are lazy and needless extremes. It’s an entirely different issue then what you seem to be trying to convey and I think you don’t need an entirely seperate person to be present. Your story would have more depth if she still had the memories but repressed herself and tried to change how she acts and thinks rather than splitting her in two. Split personalities really should be reserved for possessions, two people morphing into one and telepathic connections or if you were to be writing about a split personality disorder in order to portray it realistically or at least semi realistically.
Damn. Well now I have more to think about. Her not being able to remember her life before this incident she caused is actually fairly important, as her not having this knowledge sets up several conflicts later on in the story. I was hoping that she would logically suppress her past along with this incident because they're thematically connected to her being a "monster-child," but I suppose I'll have to think of another way to make her forget all of that. I don't want to just have a villain do it because, the way the story is supposed to go, I'd have to add a completely new villain with the ability to wipe memories, and my cast of characters is a bit bloated as-is. Edit: I've just realized that there actually is a villain with no ability that could be given the ability to mess with the mind in some way, so that's solved. I'm gonna be honest. The split personality thing is a bit different than it's supposed to be. The two parts of the girl each have a different power, because she originally had two powers, but the two halves each got one. They're also able to talk at the same time. Actually, the more I think about it, this character probably shouldn't have MPD, but it should probably be something along of the lines of the villains were worried that she, with two abilities (That's taboo and a sign of a stronger-than-average person, by the way), was going to be dangerous if turned against them, so they forcefully separated her abilities along with her mind to make her weaker? Maybe something more fantasy-esque like that? I mean, I wouldn't want to write about something like this and get it horribly, horribly wrong. Thank you. I often find that just posting and hearing a response or two is enough to help me critically look at my problems and then come up with a way to solve it.
Does your power thing have anything to do with predispositions towards certain types of abilities. Like a power balance. If that’s the case you could say she is an ultra rare dual power holder. So she’s balanced within herself. The split would then cause the parts of her predisposed to one side to hold one power and vice versa. That split could be traumatic enough for one side to get the darker memories and the other to get excerpts of them cause they’re essentially tearing her very being in two. Doubtfully an even split as well. I mean like yin and yang type balance
Speaking entirely from a writing perspective, what do you want to say about this girl and the subject of violence and aggression? Explore your own feelings with this character. If you were in her shoes, and discovered your aggression had just done something awful to somebody else, how would you feel? And, more importantly, what would you do? What would the consequences be? Would you accept the consequences ...prison, suicide, making amends? Would you go into denial? Would you try to hide what you'd done or your part in it? Would you try to blame other people (including your parents) for it? How would YOU react? Dig deeply here, and don't just jump on the first bus that goes by. Also, there is the friend (the street boy) to consider. How would he influence you in this situation? I think a situation like this one needs a personal perspective to work. I would caution you not to treat it as simply a 'plot' structure exercise. Figure out what you want to say about this girl, her aggression, living on the street, bad or inept parenting ...whatever you feel got the girl to this point in her life. Is she naturally an aggressive person? If so, what does it feel like to react to everything that happens with anger—anger that explodes into action? (As opposed to anger that just simmers away and eats the person up from inside, which doesn't sound like your girl.) Envision an ending or two, and follow the thoughts that would get you there. What if everything in her life was hunky-dory? What kind of person do you think she would be then? Is this notion realistic? Is she entirely a product of her environment, or does her core personality factor in as well? How much of her situation did she create herself? Is she willing to look at this? Some people think before they speak or act. Some people speak or act before thinking. Some people want their own way all the time. Others are happy to negotiate, while some are happy when somebody else dominates them. Some people never seem to be happy, no matter what happens. (The glass-half-empty people.) Some people experience terrible childhoods, yet grow up to be very well-adjusted adults, who are determined not to allow the bad things that happened to them affect how they see the world, or how they treat their own children. Other people simply repeat whatever bad stuff happened to them as children, and can't seem to break out of that self-destructive cycle. Some people cling to the past as an excuse for the present. Some people prefer to leave their past behind and move on. Explore what makes people tick in these kinds of scenarios, and you might get some very useful ideas. You might want to look into the philosophy behind Anger Management classes, which will give you some ideas as to what anger is like, where it comes from, how it manifests itself, and what it can do if it's not managed. It'll give you a perspective from the other side of the issue, and you can always use that information. This has a lot of potential. Don't be afraid to follow it into dangerous or unforseen territory. That's what will provide a blast of insight. What you do with than insight will make your story for you, and help you decide the direction the story should go.
Okay, @jannert, I've taken your advice. I've thought hard about this from several different angles, and I've gotten a pretty good idea about what I really want from this. But, before I write down that list of wants/don't wants, I'm going to respond to all of yours points. I want her to serve as an example that violence and aggression aren't unjustified. I want to say that there are perfectly okay reasons to beat the crap outta someone. But I also want to show that being passive isn't bad either. I think what I'm trying to say is that I want to write a character that shows the pros and cons of violence as well as peace. She'd be the true middle-of-the-road character in a story that entirely lacked them. But, I mean, like, she isn't supposed to be perfect or anything. She's just kind of the true-neutral character of the story. I'm not sure if that makes sense; I'm bad at explaining things. I would definitely run away for a while. And then, once I had finally realized how horribly guilty I felt, I would go back and try to apologize. After that event, I would always feel bad around the people I hurt and be much more careful about what I do when they're around. I would like to believe that I would accept the consequences and try to fix it. Probably not denial, I'm at least pretty good about owning up to when I screwed up. If it were bad enough, I would definitely not try to hide it. I would blame others for a bit, and then admit that it was my fault after I've felt sufficiently guilty. I'd like to say that this isn't how the girl would react. She would run away and never come back, cutting all ties with the people she's hurt and hoping that she'd never see them again, lest they make her feel awful all over again. This does change by the end of the story, but, for now, she runs from her problems. He unintentionally makes it worse. In the context of the story. He hides the girls past and what she's done from her in an attempt to keep her from the painful memories, as well as possibly lapsing back into the overly aggressive girl she was. He thinks he's helping, but he doesn't understand that his actions are actually keeping her from growing as a person by confronting her actions and trying to fix what she's done. I think that what I want to say with her is something along the lines of: It doesn't matter what you are, what matters is that you accept yourself. From the moment she finds out the other voice exists, she rejects it. She doesn't want to believe that she's someone who would openly hurt another person. The rest of her story is based around her learning to accept that there's a significant part of her that likes to fight, and even hurt, people. She will also learn to balance the part that likes to hurt and the part that hates it. If everything were fine, she'd still hate the aggressive part of her, but she would have more people around her that are better equipped to help her work through it. After that, she'd probably become a professional fighter, like a boxer, so she could get her fill of aggression without getting in trouble. I think that it would work more for the story if she were naturally aggressive, and not just a product of her circumstances. So, following that, she's the reason that she is without a home, as she chose to give in to her aggression rather than try to curb it. At the start of the story, if she still had those memories, she'd never admit it. She would blame her parents to the moon and back. Sans memories, however, I think that she would be more open to admitting to her own fault in this case, considering she ever found out about this. Okay, I think that answers all of your questions. Now, onto what I've decided I want from this. Do Not Wants: I don't want this to serve the sole purpose of an eleventh-hour power spike. (I mean, it kind of is. But that's not the main point) I don't want this to characterize her as "the broken character." I don't want this to be the core of her character. (Yeah, it's a big part of it, but only a part of it. She's her own character apart from this) I don't want her and the other voice to be seen as the same character. (Yes, they're both parts of a single character, but that's the only thing they share) Wants: I want these two different parts to be seen as their own separate characters. I want them to find a middle ground that satisfies them both. I want this to explore the differences between being extremely violent and extremely passive, and why both are wrong. I want this to show my own denouncement that either being violent or being passive is wrong, as well as show the merits of both. The Most Important Part: After some thinking, I think I've settled on exactly why I want this in my story. This girl's story is about her running away. She runs from the things that scare her, she runs from the trouble she causes, she runs from the things that would oppose her. Always running, running, running, and never stopping to actually acknowledge the reality that her world is harsh and that she will eventually need to face it. There's actually a part of her that knows this, hence the second part of her. Her big arc climax comes when she realizes that her passivity is actually causing the people around her to suffer, and she must learn to find a balance between being aggressive and being passive. I think the other voice surfaced because that's how I usually visualize these kinds of things, as an actual mental battle between the "good" and "bad" sides of one's mind. So, I guess the other side exists in order to facilitate the inner struggle between passive and aggressive in a more physical manner that I, personally, would like to see. So, once the other side comes into the story, the passive side, which is more dominant right now, rejects it. The dominance changes a couple of times during the story. Their story can be boiled down to them having a long-running debate about whether it's better to be passive or aggressive. This arguing causes problems, like not being able to decide what to do when they really need to act right then and sending people mixed messages. This goes on until the passive side is forced to acknowledge the need for the aggressive side, and the two find common ground. After they find this common ground, they're stronger and, more importantly, happier. I'm not sure if that answered everything, but those are all of my thoughts on the matter.
Yeah, that's pretty much the case. Each side gets a different power. The memory thing is a bit off, though. You see, the passive side has had control of the body the whole time, so the aggressive side doesn't have much to do besides think and work on things mentally. Usually, it'd just watch whatever the passive side is doing, but, sometimes, it would work on recovering its lost memories. Eventually, it recovered all of them. So the aggressive side does have the darker memories, but by its own actions after forgetting them. The passive side doesn't get the memories but, due to the aggressive side having recovered them, will often react violently and uncontrollably whenever things related to the incident she caused are around her.
I don't know if what I'm looking for here is actually MPD, or if what I'm doing isn't suited for that kind of thing. I'll have to look into it more.
I like your thought processes. You're thinking about your characters and what makes them do what they do, and you're also figuring in your own feelings about the issues they face. I like that you say the girl will NOT probably do what you would do yourself. That's fine. As long as you know what your own feelings are, you can give her the space to explore hers. I would hope you'll also consider the issue of discrimination—the ability to discriminate between trivia, and important issues which deserve to be aggressively confronted. If rage is the fallback reaction to every negative thing that happens to a person—from burnt toast to rape—the enraged person will just end up doing damage to themselves and this knee-jerk reaction will water down the effectiveness of whatever action they take. Somebody who loses the rag and gets aggressive at every little setback, or screams at (or hits) every person who looks at them crosseyed is not going to be effective. Pretty soon, their rages won't matter, and their concerns won't be taken seriously. "There he goes again...." Easily dismissed, and labeled 'childish.' Most folks will avoid these explosions by avoiding the people who are likely to explode. If that's the reaction the enraged person wants—to be left totally alone by everybody—well, fair enough. If, however, they also want to be loved ...well this isn't the way to go about it, unless they are attracted to masochists. On the other hand, somebody who only blows a gasket maybe four times in their whole life—and blows only when the object of their anger thoroughly deserves what they get—will make a huge impact when they do. This relates to unpredictibility and also effectiveness. Rage doesn't make you effective, because it blinds you and drives others away. Decisive action, on the other hand, can be remarkably effective, especially if it's unexpected. There is also a difference between the kind of chronic passivity that allows another person to walk all over you, and the kind of non-aggressive response that stands back and thinks about an issue and what's best to do about it, before putting a foot down. I would strongly suggest that you explore Anger Management websites, or even get up close and personal and join a group. It will certainly open your eyes, as to how people react to things that make them angry, why they react the way they do, what results happen when they react with rage, and some insight into channeling this rage into a more effective response. It's all research. Research gives you ideas you might not have thought of on your own. It certainly does no harm. (I'm not suggesting you send your characters to Anger Management classes, by the way! I just think the outlooks these classes or websites can give you will help you think up more aspects to your story.) Good luck, and congratulations on tackling such a difficult and multifaceted subject. The more realistic you can be with your story, the more impact this story will have. We all know people who get aggressive and angry when maybe others wouldn't, given the same circumstances. It's an interesting issue to explore.
I'm not sure if any of this might help. I do think that characters tend to be most realistic when dynamic within their personalities. Because even the most die-hard perfectionist still tends to be imperfect all the same. It's maybe all about parts of how and who one presents as opposed to the actual whole. There can maybe be a tendency for someone to only try showing those parts he/she wants seen. Even though we are observed best and most by others outside our own selves. This is perhaps also true in real life. My own main character comes across initially as almost a hero-like figure. Only there to be a wrinkle thrown in toward the very end. At first, I was worried if this would have a negative impact on my story and what I'm wanting to get out there. It is not only until recently that I feel gives the story an even more human-based and generally realistic element. Anyone who may not appreciate that is maybe looking for some sort of fairy-tale as opposed to a realistic portrait.
