Tips on How To Be More Inclusive In Your Stories

Characters With Mental Illness(es)

Before we start, I want to say I'm sorry for having this take so long! Also huge thank you to this books supporters! 💕

People who have mental illness are everywhere, so why don't we see them in books? 

Just like every other thing, writing a story just about mental health will not be interesting. Make sure there is a reason. Although (a) character(s) may have mental illnesses, the story still goes on and their life is still normal, just like everyone else's does. They are not ruined or broken, they are still people. 

Make your character relatable as possible. Your character still has personality traits and are normal human beings. They have similar issues to everyone else. 

Mental illness is common, they are not some 1 in a million person with anxiety. While many people do have metal disorder, it's still nice to look out for them, so maybe add some supporting and comfort people for said character. But, they are still human like everyone else, they don't need to be babied. 

Try and balance the internal and external effects of the mental illness. You don't have to go in detail about how sad they are for the reader to understand that said character has depression. Try not to go overboard on making them seem insane. 

A lot of mentally ill people do not realize that their thoughts and behavior is abnormal, your character may not realize either. I just wanted to put it out there that not everyone has the money to be diagnosed, so some do not realize that something is wrong. 

Specify the disorder. You do not need to directly tell reader what exact disorder your character may have, but you have to at least be aware of what disorder you are talking about. 

This may sound really dumb, but the plot is still important as it is for all stories, don't forget to actually have a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Your probably like "why are you telling me this, of course the plot is important", but you never know, there might be that one person that gets too caught in the character that they forget about the rest of the story. 

Once again, the mental disorder(s) probably shouldn't be center of the plot, but make sure the reader is aware. You could directly state it, or give hints. You could make them behave certain ways in specific situations or have little habits they have that might lead the reader to assume they may have a bit of anxiety or whatever illness it is you decided to add. 

Figure out where this mental disorder fit into your story? Does it add something to the plot? Add something to the character to help development? Where is it important? 

Your character can still do amazing things, even with their mental illness. 

DO NOT use mental illness as a tool you use to make the story seem a little more interesting. It can (and most likely will) offend people and is just really inconsiderate. Don't make the narrator unreliable because of their mental disorder. 

DO NOT write some suicide scene in detail. I know detail is important, but here I'll explain. There are plenty of in-depth books telling about some character offing themself, but studies have shown that this also leads to actual people going to commit suicide. This will harm people, and we want other's to be safe. So please think about this fact. 

DO NOT make your character violent or seem like villains. Only about 3% of people will mental illness commit violent crimes. 

DO NOT use derogatory terms. Words like "crazy", "insane", "psycho" are sometime used as a term to dehumanize people with mental illness. And God forbid you use the r-slur. Please try and find substitutes for words like these. 

Anyways, be daring, but be considerate. As always, PLEASE PLEASE DO RESEARCH! You guys are always free to ask me questions, but I am not all-knowing so please do research, especially with something as complex as mental illness. 

Up next is characters with different religions! 

-Tia 💜