One of the more difficult challenges you face when you
create a story is that the hero needs to be smart enough to get out of a jam,
but dumb enough to get into it in the first place. I wonder if an illness could
be used to explain the lapse.
I wrote about character motivation before. You can read a
couple of my earlier discussions at the links at the end of this post.
I've thought about the possibility of illness as a motivation
for a character's behaviour for a while now.
Can Illness or Pain Affect
People's Behaviour?
Illness and pain have affected many of my own decisions.
More that once I made bad decisions because some pain or illness distracted my
thoughts. I remember meetings where I agreed to something I later regretted because
I just wanted the meeting to end so I could go home to bed. I expect that other
people have done the same thing.
I read recently that up to a third of people have to cope
with chronic pain. Not everyone reacts the same way. Pain can lead some people
to become very selfish, while others may have the opposite reaction and develop
greater empathy for other people.
"The Crying Woman"
I can think of only one character I created where pain or
illness could impact their decisions. The character Johnny in "The Crying Woman" has an
illness. When I wrote the story, I didn't consciously think about that as a
motivation for his character. I did use it as an explanation for why the
character Mary didn't recognize him.
In the story Johnny shows a lot of empathy. When I wrote the
story, I thought this was based on his previous experience with Mary. It could
also be that with his experience with his illness has made him more aware of
the struggles that other people have in life. This must be a factor, since his
situation is much worse than hers, and yet that doesn't diminish his empathy.
Other Stories
Pain and illness do show up in many stories.
·
There are stories where pain or illness are
obstacles that a character needs to overcome.
·
There are stories where pain or illness is used
to create empathy for the character.
·
There are stories where pain or illness is used
to remove a character from active involvement in the story.
I don't remember any stories where pain or illness is used
as a character flaw to cause a character's bad decision. This may represent the
limits my own knowledge. There may be many stories where pain and illness are
important factors in a character's behaviour that I am just not aware of. Maybe
other people can name examples.
Opportunities
This strikes me as a missed opportunity. As I noted above,
many people have to struggle with pain and illness in their lives and these
pains and illnesses directly impact their decisions.
I don't want to become an evangelist and push others to use
pain and illness for character motivation. However, in future, I will be open
to these as motivators in my own stories.
Related Posts
Don't Let Your Heroes
Be Stupid
http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/dont-let-your-heroes-be-stupid/
Can Cognitive Biases
Help Me With Character Motivations
http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/can-cognitive-biases-help-me-with-character-motivations/
The Crying Woman
http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-crying-woman/
This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog
