30 Day Writing Meme - Day Twenty-Eight
Yes, I'm seeing it out to the bitter end.
See the full list of questions here.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
Yeah, I have a few.
In my fantasy trilogy, Gyeth is my most visible disabled character: he's been blind since birth. It's one of the reasons Atro balks at naming him his heir, because there's a lot of rumors and misinformation and misunderstanding going around about how Gyeth is an idiot without the brains to lead a nation just because he can't see. Which isn't true, because Gyeth is probably the most capable out of all the potential heirs to lead. But there's a lot of ignorance and preconceptions surrounding him and his disability that he has to struggle with. Then there's Merrus, who spends a good portion of the trilogy suffering from major PTSD (I'm not sure if this counts as an actual disability, but since it greatly affects the way he sees and reacts to people and they to him, I'm including it). The initial cause of it stems from years of childhood abuse--physical and emotional--at the hands of pretty much everyone in his village with the exception of his own parents, but later events don't help much. Which is something that could be applied to a lot of fantasy heroes, but I'm trying to stay away from, "And then he realized his destiny/became king/recovered the sacred stone/found the love of a good woman and it healed him of his terrible childhood." Because it's not that simple, even in a fantasy setting. I want my characters to have complex psyches, and I'm trying to show Merrus as someone who doesn't completely heal from the terrible things that have happened to him. And that leads straight into his ending.
In TES one of my main characters, Jarol, has the magical equivalent of a learning disability. He can't wield magic very well not because he's untalented, but because whatever part of his brain is responsible for magic in this little fantasy world doesn't function correctly. Enovi, another one of my main characters, is suffering from early-onset arthritis. At the point of the story I'm writing now she's still young and it's mostly manifesting as some stiffness in the mornings. But it's progressive and going to get a lot worse as she gets older, and that's going to determine a lot of her decisions.
Hmm. I think that's it, as far as major characters go.
See the full list of questions here.
28. Have you ever written a character with physical or mental disabilities? Describe them, and if there's nothing major to speak of, tell us a few smaller ones.
Yeah, I have a few.
In my fantasy trilogy, Gyeth is my most visible disabled character: he's been blind since birth. It's one of the reasons Atro balks at naming him his heir, because there's a lot of rumors and misinformation and misunderstanding going around about how Gyeth is an idiot without the brains to lead a nation just because he can't see. Which isn't true, because Gyeth is probably the most capable out of all the potential heirs to lead. But there's a lot of ignorance and preconceptions surrounding him and his disability that he has to struggle with. Then there's Merrus, who spends a good portion of the trilogy suffering from major PTSD (I'm not sure if this counts as an actual disability, but since it greatly affects the way he sees and reacts to people and they to him, I'm including it). The initial cause of it stems from years of childhood abuse--physical and emotional--at the hands of pretty much everyone in his village with the exception of his own parents, but later events don't help much. Which is something that could be applied to a lot of fantasy heroes, but I'm trying to stay away from, "And then he realized his destiny/became king/recovered the sacred stone/found the love of a good woman and it healed him of his terrible childhood." Because it's not that simple, even in a fantasy setting. I want my characters to have complex psyches, and I'm trying to show Merrus as someone who doesn't completely heal from the terrible things that have happened to him. And that leads straight into his ending.
In TES one of my main characters, Jarol, has the magical equivalent of a learning disability. He can't wield magic very well not because he's untalented, but because whatever part of his brain is responsible for magic in this little fantasy world doesn't function correctly. Enovi, another one of my main characters, is suffering from early-onset arthritis. At the point of the story I'm writing now she's still young and it's mostly manifesting as some stiffness in the mornings. But it's progressive and going to get a lot worse as she gets older, and that's going to determine a lot of her decisions.
Hmm. I think that's it, as far as major characters go.