Triumph over disaster, hope springs eternal, never say die, the worm turns - they're all good themes to use for a novel. However, there is an inherent problem. A depressed main character can be, well, depressing to read. Once they're on the road to recovery their lives will be more fun to read about, but those beginning pages when it's established just how miserable/sad/downbeat their lives are can be miserable/sad/downbeat for the reader too. And that means the reader may never get to p 25 when it all picks up.
There are three solutions, and ideally you'd apply all at the same time.
One is to make the character self-aware. If your character lacks self confidence, then make them aware of that. Let them acknowledge how pathetic they're being, let us see them struggle to try to get out of the mire. If their well meaning friend suggests something, then don't have the character immediately stamp on the idea (it'll never work, I can't do that because...). Have them think about it in a positive way before being knocked back.
The second solution is for them to have some area of positivity in their lives. Yes, everything else in their life may have crumbled but their painting, garden, wood-working, whatever is still a source of pleasure and consolation. Make them skilled, knowledgeable or gifted in some way and show that there is some positivity in their life.
Thirdly, let them display positive qualities outside their depression. Just because the character's situation is sad, it doesn't exempt them from humanity. Actually the opposite applies - we may pay lip service about being nice to the sad and depressed, but not many of us actively go our of our way to spend time with them unless they are our nearest and dearest (and let's face it, we might well be staying with them out of duty rather than pleasure). So while the character may be sad, let them also be resourceful or ingenious. Let them be generous to others. Let them be loyal, brave and kind. Best of all, let them be funny...
Positive people planning with purpose is my motto, so while your character may be depressed work hard to make them depressed in positive way. Put bluntly, no one wants to read about someone who is moaning. So don't let them.
8 comments:
I suppose it depends on what your goal is for your writing. I disagree completely with your statement that “no one wants to read about someone who is moaning” because I’m particularly attracted to texts like this. Seriously, does any character in literature moan more than Holden Caufield? Having suffered from long bouts of depression in my life you’d think I’d hate reading about it but strangely enough the opposite is the case. My wife actually just raised an interesting point: people like to read about people who are the same as (or having a worse time than) themselves. I’m also one who hates ‘Hollywood endings’ – I have no problems with the protagonist never finding his or her feet. Works I have especially enjoyed would include Janice Galloway’s The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, The Yellow Wallpaper and, of course, all of Kafka and Beckett who I know depress the hell out of most people and yet both continue to have a huge following. What little Dostoyevsky I’ve read didn’t excite me but maybe I just read him at a bad time because the subject matter certainly appealed. Depression is hard to watch but it’s far more interesting on the inside so a first-person narrative works best. Being depressed is only a start. What makes depressed characters interesting is what they do because of their depression. Depression can be funny. In fact my humour actually improves when I’m depressed – my doctor had no answer for that one – but it’s like all kinds of mental illnesses, if you’ve not been there then you can read all the textbooks under the sun and still not understand what it’s really like to be depressed; it’s not just being sad all the time.
Or, alternatively, don't write about depression and take up engine driving instead
Jim, all the texts you quote have something to counterbalance the down-ness of the main character, which is exactly my point. Humour is brilliant, if you can do it, but anything else will do - good story telling, fab use of language, quirky characters, mystery, whatever! It's the moaning to the exclusion of everything else people (usually - there will always be exceptions) don't want to read.
Penny - LOL.
I agree with both of you! Great texts which I've enjoyed. Jim: I didn't enjoy Janice Galloway beyond the opening chapters and Kafka - well not a laugh a minute. BUT I do agree that depression can be interesting in some respects as it can release creative inhibitions. Trouble is, on balance, I find that people aren't comfortable with the explosion. I am afraid it is still one of the great unmentionable.s
Jim - meant to add that you would probably enjoy Jeannette Winterson's latest 'Why be Happy when you could be Normal?@
My wife has everything she has ever written so it's in my Amazon shopping basket as I write this. Thanks for the tip. I'll read it too, of course.
I'm reading it now Penny and loving it.
This depressed issue, completely interesting..
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