What do I mean by relevance? I refer to how this attribute of a character, their mental disorder, is important to the story, the character, and development. If you mean to simply tack it on as an afterthought, to promote a Mary Sue-ish character as something more than that, then why bother? However, if you take the opposite route, if you take it to build this character, you may find that this character may be far too two-dimensional to fit into the story. There should be a healthy balance of the different facets of a character. I, being male, do not classify myself as a male straight off, and your character should not be classified straight off as having this disorder or that. Surely, there are more important things about this character than that.
Given this, then, we should also take care to not disregard our character's mental disorder, for while it is not
the defining quality of that character, it is quite important. There is, as we have gone over before, a healthy balance of things.
Choices covers a great deal of topics, from such choices as degree of lucidity (which differs in different mental disorders, and will be discussed further in a later chapter), personality, appearance, and other things. Those topics not directly dealing with the purpose of this guide will not be discussed in this section.
One of the more important choices to make in creating a character is what sort of mental disturbance your character has. A non-comprehensive list can be found
here. These disorders have been culled from various lists, including the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), which is partially recorded in
this link.Important disorders of note (i.e. disorders that, in my experience, are the most often used in RP) are the many schizophrenias and schizophrenia-like disorders, the dissociative disorders (particularly dissociative amnesia), the personality disorders, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, delirium and dementia and eating disorders. It is crucial to note that not all, or even most of these conditions have symptoms involving hallucinations, visual, auditory or olfactory. One need not perceive things that aren't there to be "insane". They simply must have something wrong going on in their mental functioning.
What is the reason for your character's condition? Abuse is commonly linked to dissociative disorders, while schizophrenia has links to a partially biological basis. Delirium and dementia are commonly found in the old, and eating disorders are frequently caused by bullying, such as that caused in one's school years, or perhaps being in a job that requires a state of leanness. Whatever the causes of the disorder, one must present it believably, such as that the reason given (possibly in your character's history?) won't require much head-scratching from a reader's perspective to link it to your chosen mental disorder.
Tragedy causing a character's mental instability (for example, having a character's parents die in a trolley crash while the character is still a small child) is a slightly overdone thing, but if you have an excellent idea, go for it. However, by
no means should you go off and write something entirely out-of-the-way unless you can pull it off
gloriously.
(A side note: By no means does tragedy just mean a death. Being abused, whether sexually, emotionally or physically is a tragedy as well. Being violently and painfully injured or tortured is a tragedy. Basically, anything violent and sudden can count as a tragedy.)
Lucidity is how "clear" one's thoughts and ideas are. Think of it as a character's state of consciousness. If one is in a coma, full-blown and basically a vegetable, they would be on the opposite side of lucidity from a person who, although lacking the ability to even move, can think thoughts clearly and eloquently. For one trapped in that condition (a real-life condition termed
Locked-In Syndrome), life can be a living hell.
Coming back to our original point, the different disorders may have different degrees of lucidity, and in different portions of life. For one with anorexia nervosa, they may function and think normally in life, but in regards to their body image and proper nutrition, their thoughts are deeply disturbed. For one with dissociative disorder, their thoughts about food may not be distorted, but their perception of life and time can often be grossly distorted. For one with paranoid disorder, their ideas about almost anything might be disturbed or strange, and for one with simple schizophrenia, all perceptions might be incorrect. Perceptions of hallucinations generally point to a lack of lucidity in a character.
For all the good that having an amazingly fleshed out character does you, it doesn't do you anything if it doesn't fit in the plot of the RP or story you're making it for. Consider the role that your character's mental disorder has when you try to formulate or fit a plot. If you've written your character with a large reliance on the mental disorder to flesh out your character as opposed to other facets of them and subsequently find there's practically no room for your character to grow in that regard, consider going back the drawing board and perhaps develop other things concerning your character. Likewise, if you see that your character seems to be lacking a bit in the description regarding his or her mental disorder and how it affects him or her compared to how you'd like your character to progress, you may want to build your character again from the ground up.
- @b. - Interaction With Others
Considering everything we've previously discussed, this section should be quite obvious. One must stress the idea of
continuity, which is an idea that will be further delved into in following chapters. Your character, whether fully aware of their actions or almost totally unaware that their thoughts are irrational, must act and react in ways that
make sense to them. This need not mean, of course, that they act rationally even if they're practically insane - however, what they do must have something that they perceive to be a reason. Insanity does not equate to flippancy - indeed, most, if not all people with schizophrenia are not even aware that they have a problem, and believe it's the world, and not them, that lacks sanity.
One of the more important things to figure out is how your character will end up at the end of the RP. Will they have returned to a (semi-)normal existence and no longer suffer from a mental ailment, or will they die along or at the end of the RP? Not allowing the character to have closure in their plot before the RP ends is not usual practise, although if you wish to write in a sequel to the RP, it may do you some good to preserve that character and their attendant mental problems.