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Originally Posted by mindless1
Would anyone on this site like to read and critique a memoir sort of story I have written that is based on my experiences with schizophrenia? I will post the link to it where it writeen in the shill section.
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Absolutely.
A lot of schizo-affective symptoms are present in sleeping disorders and other non-chemical illnesses. But one thing I'll say right off the bat is that you'd be better off in the third person (i think) than a memoir style in the first.
I have two really good reason for this:
1. when you're dealing with these sorts of psychoses you have the illusion (usually) of a character being acted upon by an outside agent, hearing voices, having commands beemed into you, or having one's body possessed by a demon or whatever. To me these would all be symptoms of that schizo-affective state, that also tends to feel like you're trapped inside of something. So you could be thinking also, Transvestites and Gnostics, prisoners both literally and those who are imprisoned in their own minds.
2. That was sort of tangenty - the third person gives the illusion of objectivity. It needn't really be objective, it merely needs to appear that way. This is called the third person limited (as opposed to omnicient). And also the third person is better because it allows you to feign certainty (as anyone who believes in the possibility of omnicience would exemplify without fail). Through that outside eye, you can color the details specific to the character's psychosis. Sort of wrap him in it like a warm blanket.
But at any rate, this just my opinion on what I think is the best way I've seen psychological horror written, and fundamentally, that's the sort of thing you're dealing with. The trick will be to turn the memoir into a fiction, if that's what you aspire to do.
I'd like to see your ideas on the subject, it's one I'm very much interested in, having written a short fiction on the topic myself. I figured when I was writing it that I should make it as ridiculously freudian as humanly possible because I wanted to acheive a sense of dark satire and I have a really diseased sense of humor and I truly hate Freud, with all my heart I hate him.
But anyway it behooved my art to read him, and other psychoanalysts and I think it would behoove anyone who finds this topic interesting to do the same. Carl Jung is interesting.
about writing a character that is different about writing a memoir
