forum How do you write a mentally broken character?
Started by Deleted user
tune

people_alt 4 followers

Deleted user

How do you write someone thats so mentally broken, but not too broken?

@Dirt

Oof sorry I had to go yesterday.
Okay so say your character, saythey see their parents dieing or something as a child, this could go a bunch of different ways so
A. They could become deranged themselves and be mentally broken crazy type.
B. They could become closed off and not really to talkative. There could be something that triggers a mental break down or something like that. And they could even hurt themselves.
Any way that's about all ive got. Hope this helps and if not I hope someone else can. 😊

Deleted user

Thats ok Sol
and also thank you Alex
How exactly would they see and react to the world around them as they grow up?

Deleted user

Alright
soo
Lets say they were abandoned at birth
then got adopted by a single grandpa,
but he got murdered.
But finds a group of superheros who take her in
but witnissed the Thanos Dusting
Anything?

@Crisis

Yeah there's likely to be flashbacks and emotional trauma. Nightmares are more likely to happen to this character than flashbacks, and they'd most likely be a twisted recount of the event (twisted as in elements and events might occur in different ways) and as for the thanos dusting they are prob in shock

@sharkfinn_ey

I'd advice to learn a lot about ptsd and maybe trauma-related therapies as well. Also, learn about where the trauma came from. If it's for example a narsistic person in their life, learn and write every detail down.
Please don't make the traumated person a cliche and have love fix everything.

Caboose

Instead of Nightmares they would say Night Terrors. or "I can't sleep." If it's the snappening they survived then it's mostly a shitload of grief and guilt. Where they a random civilian or which fight where they a part of? Wakanda or Titan? I'ma give you one for Titan. You can sort of use either paragraph depending on which battle they were in so Earth or Titan but I'm doing it as one.

Titan: The rusty dust flies with the wind like it's completely weightless. This red distorted world a broken shadow of what it once was. It made me think "Is he right?" but that changed quick. The dust turned to black and grey ash. If you touched it you would feel worse, sickened, you could never touch it but it flowed in the wind and swarmed around you turning from flakes into a dusty powder as it mixed with your suit and face, you screamed but it didn't help the only other people around to help couldn't everyone was ash and it was burning your skin, warping and twisting your mind sending you into a frenzy to get it off. You hated disrespecting the dead, but the dead had gone too far it was time to stop.
It was still burning you, your skin boiled and soon you became ash but then you were back home. In clothes not a suit.

You were so happy and excited but then something was wrong. You stormed outside hunting for people anyone to warn them about what was happening, you knew it was too late but you should find someone.
You look down and notice the ground is soft you almost slip in it before you look down. More Ash. The whole town is covered as if a volcano had gone but you knew it was worse and you knew it wasn't just rock. It was people, fucking people, and again you were covered in it You look up and see a cloud, no a wall but not a solid one, one made of twisted faces, billions of souls raging at their unjustly death screaming and roaring, "You were The Avengers! You should've saved us! We're in Hell now and your coming with us!" (I know it's cheesy but I'm improvising here) "No! No! Nooo!" You screamed and you cried but the souls swarmed you. Ash flew everywhere getting everywhere, The souls began tearing at you getting vengeance for your failure. Soon you were like them.

Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust. Is there any proper way of going?
A large sandy rusted mass begins shifting the sand sifts past ans the mass moves and suddenly jolts. gasping for air looking for the souls. You are confused momentarily but you look over and see nebula and tony have shielded themselves in a tent from the dust. "Holy shit we thought you died!"

So I have 0 time to write another wake up scene, but it could be right after snap and you're in a hospital, so your character got wounded in the fight but stuck around enough to see the snap before passing out.

Enjoy hope these help.

Deleted user

Wow thats actually really good,
My character fought on Wakanda, but that was really good.
Really good,
Alright so
Night Mares
Night terrors
And Flashbacks
Also what exactly triggers flashbacks?

@Fyrebird

Well, let's say that the grandfather was killed by a blade. The sight of a blade could trigger a flashback. But maybe your character only gets flashbacks if the blade is covered in blood. And the flashback might not be an entire scene. It could just be the image of a knife dripping blood for a couple seconds, before reality sets in again. It changes depending on the person, but usually its something they can see. It could also be a specific scent or sound.
Hope this helped!

Deleted user

Oh I thought that was a example
whoops
But mean can your character be too broken
like on 1-10 where should I stop with breaking down my character

Caboose

Too broken is crying in the shower over melted Toblerone. And also it's never remembering the happy things about people. You have to make it seem like they actually lost someone so they might not say they're dead but just talk about them. So instead of "ugghhh My Grandpa died, Vengeance!" "Ya know my Grandpa gave me some advice on setting up a tent, Etc". So saying the fact that they're dead hurts so they'll avoid it.