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In my post-apocalyptic novel, my MC Eris is severely traumatized by the death of her family at her own hands. Because of this, she has extreme aversion to social interaction and even physical cont...
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T13:05:33Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/48351 License name: CC BY-SA 4.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
weakdna says reinstate monica
·
2019-12-08T13:05:33Z (about 5 years ago)
In my post-apocalyptic novel, my MC Eris is severely traumatized by the death of her family at her own hands. Because of this, she has extreme aversion to social interaction and even physical contact. In the real world, if something like this happened, Eris might be suffering from PTSD, depression, paranoia, etc., but this is not the real world, and no one is concerned with self-diagnosing themselves with an illness. However, I have witnessed various authors come under fire for rarely/never addressing the fact that many of their characters are traumatized (JK Rowling and never mentioning Harry's trauma or possible PTSD, Suzanne Collins and only mentioning Katniss' PTSD with the fact that she has "nightmares"), and I wouldn't want that to happen to me or my work. So, in some way that fits into the story, should I "diagnose" Eris? Should I address her obvious trauma, or just let the reader bear witness to it but never outright call it "trauma"? What are the pitfalls of both choices?
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-10-03T14:53:18Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 12