The Psychology of Writing: Character Development and Sadness

From The Lion King to The Lord of the Rings, every great story features characters that experience sadness. Grief is a natural part of the human condition, and learning to write sadness believably is an integral part of developing a fleshed-out character. Like anger, which we discussed previously, sadness often falls prey to melodrama. A better understanding of sadness—its causes and symptoms—can help writers (like you) develop sadness in a character without resorting to unrealistic melodrama.

So, in today’s post, let’s talk about:

• What causes sadness
• Physical signs of sadness
• Internal sensations of sadness
• Mental responses to sadness
• Cues of long-term sadness
• Signs of suppressed sadness

What is Sadness?

From a psychological perspective, sadness is a natural response to something that often seems beyond the individual’s control. Feelings of helplessness produce sadness, for example. People who believe that they are at a disadvantage, who have suffered a loss, or who feel overwhelmed by life and the situations around them are going to experience sadness as a result. These all stem from a loss of control and/or a situation or emotion that seems beyond an individual’s control. Feelings of hopelessness and instability result, and sadness forms. 

Loss is perhaps the most common trigger of sadness, whether that be the loss of something tangible like property, treasure, money, or a loved one; or something more psychological, such as comfort, stability, or control. These losses can be further agitated if they are accompanied by feelings of helplessness.

If the sadness becomes especially severe, it may transform into depression. As I recently discussed as a part of my Character Development using the 5 Stages of Grief article, sadness in this case is marked by a harsh realization of reality. When first confronted by something sad, depending upon the severity, some characters may unconsciously choose to deny that the cause of the sadness exists. Once the reality of the situation sinks in, sadness (or depression) comes to the forefront. In this moment, the sadness is a mental, conscious realization that something truly has happened to cause the sadness, and that the sadness is real. In this way, sadness is very much a reminder of reality—a reminder that suffering and pain exist.

Physical Signs of Sadness

Sadness overwhelms and exhausts the body, often leaving distinguishable traces of weariness, fatigue, and an unconscious (or conscious) desire to escape the cause of the sadness and be alone.

Many of these physical symptoms involve shrinking the body in an attempt to make one’s self look smaller. These might include hunching the shoulders, bowing the spine, ducking the head downward, hugging the knees, or drawing the limbs close to the body. Characters who experience sadness are likely to hide their faces, or keep their faces turned away from others around them. This is often because they don’t want anyone to know of their inner feelings, see their pain, or possibly notice the tears in their eyes.

In addition, the character may perform unconscious rituals during times of sadness, such as touching mementos of loved ones, muttering a prayer to themselves, or rubbing at spots on their body that “hurt”—usually the heart or chest area.

Characters overwhelmed by sadness are able to focus on little else. If they aren’t able to find isolation away from others, then those around them will likely pick up on physical manifestations of sadness—a listless gaze, a monotonous voice, a tendency to respond slowly, and a magnetic-like desire to stare at the floor (or in another downward direction, such as at the hands or knees).

The important thing to remember about “physical symptoms” is that the sad character is unlikely to realize they are exhibiting a majority of the symptoms. These are signs that usually go observed by outsiders, alone, though the sad character may consciously be aware of some things—a desire to be alone or to process dialogue slowly, for example.

Internal Sensations of Sadness

The internal sensations are those that the sad character is completely aware of. These signs may go completely unrecognized (or at least, unobserved) by onlookers. Internal sensations are still completely physiological (or pertaining to the physical body), and are not to be confused with mental responses, which we’ll address next.

As we’ve already mentioned, exhaustion is a large part of sadness. Internal pressures and agitations, especially in the throat, eyes, and heart are very common. The character’s throat my feel tight, for example, or their chest might ache from uneven breathing or strain.

 

Mental Responses to Sadness

Unlike anger, which often causes agitation to stimuli, sadness often results in a dampening of sensitivity to stimuli. When a character is sad, they usually want to be alone. If they can’t physically be isolated from those around them, the character will mentally isolate themselves with their sadness and the stimuli that caused it.

For this reason, characters experiencing sadness are unable to focus on what lies directly in front of them. Conversations become difficult to follow, responses and mental processing slows to a crawl, and the sadness at the heart of the character’s problem consumes every ounce of the character’s gray matter. Their minds become focused on the sadness—unable to see past it, in fact—and they often develop tunnel vision of the future, seeing it as hopeless.

Some characters—the less introverted ones—may seek consolation with the outside world. They don’t want to hold the sadness within them and try to find an outlet for it. This includes: conversing with trusted friends, visiting counselors, or even seeking escape through television, drinking, sleeping, or absorbing themselves in a favorite hobby.

Cues of Long-Term Sadness

Sadness is marked by a sensation, much like a wave of unhappiness that washes over the character. If these waves continue to crash on the character, the sadness may escalate to depression—a long term, severe sadness, marked by loss of appetite, sleeping disturbances, disinterest in hobbies and daily life, and self-neglect.

Even if the sadness does not escalate this severely, sadness that goes on for several hours or days can reveal similar symptoms. A continuously tear-stained face, wet eyes, un-even breathing, excessive sighing, and expressions of hopelessness are all signs of sadness that has been dragged past its initial “first wave” or feeling of sadness.

Cues of Suppressed Sadness

Depending on the character’s disposition (and the situation), he or she may try to hide or suppress their sadness. This means that they try to hold it in for a variety of reasons—to save face, to be “brave” for others, to attempt to “force” themselves to recover, to avoid getting attention from others, or even to try and erase any evidence of the stimuli that caused the sadness.

Characters trying to suppress sadness will do two prominent things: (1) seek isolation and (2) hide their faces and emotions. Seeking isolation is typically the preferred method for suppressing sadness, as it’s simply easier. However, characters forced to be around others—and who can’t find physical isolation—will do their best to avert (or cover) their faces from others in order to hide any traces of sadness or simply avoid conversation and attention (in many cultures, making eye-contact is an invitation to speak to another person). In order to gain moments of respite, the character may use the bathroom frequently, go on long car-rides, or distract themselves with busy-work, food and drink, or reading, in order to appear busy to those around them.

Sadness is a difficult emotion to contain. It flows out in the form of tears, a shaking voice, broken (or tense) posture, mental sluggishness, fidgeting, and listlessness. Because of this, it’s incredibly difficult to disguise and can easily be read on the face or in the heaviness of the character’s movement. Those trying to hide or suppress their sadness do so by hiding the tell-tale facial expressions and removing themselves from the presence of others.

A Final Note on Sadness

In my recent article about Character Development and Anger, I discussed the fact that anger often falls victim to melodrama in character-based writing. Sadness also falls into this trap, perhaps even more so. For this reason, it’s vital that your sadness be balanced by realism and humanity. 

Pay close attention to what causes the sadness (the stimulus) and how long the character has been enduring it. Sadness is marked by realization of a loss or hopeless situation; it’s a strong emotion that springs from an acknowledgement of reality. Traumatic incidents are often first characterized by the character denying the existence of the stimulus, only to later recognize it, unconsciously label it for what it is, and respond with feelings of sadness.

By now, you’ve probably picked up the fact that sadness is a process. If the character responds instantaneously—and dramatically—to a stimulus, then you might want to take another look at your scene. It’s highly possible that your character is acting out of melodrama. Sadness is a gradual realization, and it’s often characterized by a need to hide one’s emotions, not express them to everyone nearby (unless, of course, it is in the personality of your character to do so).

One way to cut back on melodrama is to condense moments of sadness as much as possible. Rather than spend a whole chapter detailing the effects of a stimulus on a sad character, abridge it to a paragraph or two (or a page or two). Highlight the most powerful, important points of the stimulus, how it causes the character to grieve, and what reactions the character puts into motion as a result. When dealing with sadness, less is more. A simple, meaningful paragraph or scene can mean a lot more than an entire chapter dedicated to tears and internal monologue.

For more information about writing sadness and other character emotions, I highly recommend The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi. The lists and charts in this article are all adapted from that book. All rights reserved.

You may also like:
The Psychology of Writing: Character Development and Anger

The Psychology of Writing: Character Development and the 5 Stages of Grief 

7 Ways to Disguise a “Didn't-See-It-Coming” Plot Twist

5 Tips for Writing Chair-Gripping Suspense

5 Tips for Writing Action-Packed Fight Scenes

The Psychology of Writing: Character Development and Anger

Sooner or later, your character is going to get mad. And I don’t mean “mad dog” mad. I mean steam-out-the-nostrils mad. Because anger is such a human emotion, it’s important to be able to portray an angry character without resorting to melodrama. Finding that realistic, human balance isn’t always easy, but it can be made easier if you—the writer—take a few minutes to research this natural, emotional response.

So, in today’s post, let’s talk about:

• What causes anger
• Physical signals of anger
• Internal sensations of anger
• Mental responses to anger
• Cues of long-term anger
• Signs of suppressed anger

What is Anger?

Psychologically speaking, anger is a natural response to a perceived threat. When a character encounters a stimulus that they feel endangers something important to them (a person, object, belief, value, etc.), they are likely to feel angry as a result. 

I recently discussed anger as a part of Developing Characters through the 5 Stages of Grief. The same principle applies there. When a character is grieving—when they have lost something precious to them—they feel threatened, and anger is a natural response.

Some view anger as a part of the flight-or-fight response, meaning that—when provoked—the body begins pumping adrenaline and preparing for immediate action. Anger is an immediate response to a perceived threat. When characters show classical symptoms of anger (yelling, grinding teeth, glaring, etc.), they are acting in much the same way a cornered animal would. The function of anger—at least, from the provoked character’s perspective—is to warn a threat to “back off.”

Because anger shows correlation with the flight-or-fight response, it puts the character’s body under stress. Their blood-pressure goes up, their heart beats faster, and their adrenaline is let loose in their body. Long-term anger can be both emotionally and physically devastating, as increased blood pressure (and other physiological factors) can affect a character’s health in the long-run.

Physical Signs of Anger

As anger is an emotional defense against a perceived threat, most of the physical signs of anger involve the character making himself/herself appear to be more intimidating than the stimulus.  This may include grinding the teeth, holding the chin high, glaring, and speaking low or with a growl in the throat.  

Rather than let anger loose on an emotional rampage, however, some characters will try to keep anger in. This results in very different physical signs, including: sweating, repetitive movements (pacing), tightness in the muscles, and reddening of the face. We’ll talk more about these later.

These physical signs of anger are most likely to be recognized by an outside observer and not the angery character. While the character may be aware of some symptoms, such as sweating, a lot of these physical signals may occur without them realizing (or intending) it.

Internal Sensations of Anger

The internal sensations are those that the angry character is completely aware of. These signs may go completely unrecognized (or at least, unobserved) by onlookers. Internal sensations are still completely physiological (or pertaining to the physical body), and are not to be confused with mental responses, which we’ll address next.

Mental Responses

Emotions provoke thoughts. Thoughts dictate actions. When characters are angry, their judgments and inhibitions often become clouded. During this time, they are likely to become more sensitive to even the smallest threatening stimuli, overreacting to these stimuli as a result.

When a character is occupied with anger, they develop tunnel vision. Their mind becomes a battlefield of emotions. They are often unable to focus on anything else besides their raging feelings and the stimulus that provoked them. When something, or someone, tries to distract them from these feelings and thoughts, the character will usually become more irritable, and the embers of anger will be fanned even hotter.

Cues of Long-Term Anger

When I think of anger literally burning, I think of Hades from Hercules.

As previously mentioned, when anger is allowed to boil for an extended period of time, it can have detrimental consequences on a character’s physical and mental health. It’s often been said that anger is a fire, and that’s perhaps the best analogy for it. Fire, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It can be used for “controlled burning” for example, in order to clear out old things and allow new ones to flourish. However, leaving a fire to burn unsupervised—or refusing to put it out—will ultimately do harm to everything in its path. It will devour both the old, useless things and the new, promising ones.

If anger is allowed to blaze unchecked, it may evolve into something even more sinister, such as rage or revenge. I’ll likely be discussing these separate emotions at another time.

Cues of Suppressed Anger

Some characters are more patient than others. The character’s personality will have a lot to do with how they respond to perceived, threatening stimuli. To some, withholding anger may be seen as favorable—due to religious beliefs, personal standards and values, professionalism, or other factors.

Even the most patient or pious character, however, is not exempt from emotions. Anger, like any other feeling, cannot be chosen, only controlled. Some characters will decide to let it ravage freely. Others will try to rein it in. Those who fall into the latter category will respond to anger differently. They are more likely to seek isolation where they can vent silently to themselves, for example, whereas “anger unleashers” are more likely to directly confront whatever has enraged them.

A Final Note on Anger

Like sadness, anger is an emotion that often slips unintentionally into melodrama due to its wild and unpredictable nature. In order to keep your character’s anger believable, pay attention to the situation, circumstances, and stimuli that creates that anger. Has an important part of your character’s life (values, self-image, family, property, etc.) been perceptually threatened? If not, then they probably don’t have any reason to be angry.

Don’t unleash anger all at once (or with too much dramatic flair) unless your character is written that way. Realistically, most characters will “feel out” the situation, even if only for a moment or two, before they respond. Some will portray more subtle anger (laughing harshly, speaking snarkily, or giving the silent treatment). Others will directly confront the stimulus that caused their anger and try to threaten it into leaving them alone.

When writing anger, know your character. Know their weaknesses and personal beliefs. Know what they are most passionate and defensive about. Know their basic boundaries. If one of those basic boundaries are threatened or violated, you can be sure anger of some kind will follow.

For more information about writing anger and other character emotions, I highly recommend The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi. The lists and charts in this article are all adapted from that book. All rights reserved.

 

You might also like: 

The Psychology of Writing: Character Development and the 5 Stages of Grief 

7 Ways to Disguise a “Didn't-See-It-Coming” Plot Twist

5 Tips for Writing Chair-Gripping Suspense

5 Tips for Writing Action-Packed Fight Scenes

First Impressions, Right Impressions: 5 Tips for Introducing a New Character

**Special Guest Post by Victoria Grace Howell** Character Interviewing: How it Can Help Your Blog and Your Writing

Today Meek-Geek is featuring a special guest post from writer and author-to-be, Victoria Grace Howell. In this article, she discusses how writers can use character interviews to increase interest in their original stories and cast (and how to properly conduct said interview). Please read and enjoy!

In case you missed it, I was recently featured on Victoria's blog with a post about Villain Motivation. Be sure to check that out too! Happy reading, everyone! 

____________________________________________

Bryce, Caleb and Pro from my science fiction novel Subsapien Biomech

We all want our characters to be developed, and there are many techniques to do so. Today I’m going to show you a technique that has helped me flesh out my characters. 

So what is this character interviewing?

Character interviewing is when you “ask” your character a series of questions and answer them as your character. I think of them like cast interviews for a movie aka your book. Asking your characters a series of questions and figuring out the answers helps you develop your character more thoroughly. The better you know your character the easier they are to write especially if he/she is one of your main characters, but this also assists with side characters that don’t have point of view roles in your novel. There are several ways to acquire questions.

1. Yourself – You can either think up questions or use some of the loads of character development charts you can find on the internet.
2. A Friend – Getting a friend to ask the questions in better than yourself usually because they usually think of questions you wouldn’t.  That makes you think a little bit more and tap into parts of your character that your own questions wouldn’t.
3. Multiple People – Asking multiple people is the best because you get a wide variety of questions. Ask your group of writing buddies, friends and family or do what I do—post a character interview prompt on your blog.

Character interviews help your blog because your readers get to have a taste of your characters, and you get good amount of reader interaction. I’ve been doing character interviews for a while now, and I’ve always gotten great response and lots of views especially with my enhanced method. 

These are the steps I take:

1. Bio – I prepare a bio of the character. I keep it to only two paragraphs in length. I include six things in it: the character’s age and position in the book (main character, side character, villain, ect.), his/her’s goal, he/she’s personality, he/she’s setting and a few unusual facts about him/her. This way the readers get a good idea of who they are. Most of the time I include a picture of a celebrity look alike or a photo I found on Pinterest to go along with it so the readers know how I imagine they look like.

Example Bio:

Mor from Red Hood

Mor is a seventeen-year old aspiring red hood or werewolf huntress.  She lives at the red hood manor positioned near silver mines on the west side of the Queendom of Silfurlund. Half-mechanical werewolves have plagued her country for three hundred years and only women with the hereditary Spirit of Silver can keep these enemies at bay. When she was very young, her father went missing in the war which has given her extra drive toward the defeat of the beasts. Both Mor's mother and granny have been legendary huntresses, saving hundreds of lives and becoming great legends. It is Mor's dream to continue this legacy.

As is tradition, she owns a wolfhound to assist her in her missions to protect the nearby villagers. He is her constant companion and named Sielgair. Claes and Dina, a silver miner's son and a fellow red hood to-be, are her two best friends and perfect opposites to her plucky personality. Though at times Mor can be hot-headed, her bravery and tactical abilities are unquestioned by her fellow red hoods in training. Her skills with double silver axes and black powder pistols have put her at the top of her class. At eighteen Mor will be able to graduate and become a full-fledged Red Hood. That day couldn't come soon enough.

2. Post Early – I post my bio, prompting the readers to ask questions, about a week in advance. This gives the readers plenty of time to ask questions. Don’t forget to thank all the commenters!

3. Format the Post – I like to collect the questions as they come and then format the post the day before posting. This way I have all the questions together and can arrange them in a good order. If I get doubles of a question I just pick the first person’s question or if that’s another person’s only question, I pick that one. I like to format the post in a clear way with lots of white space. Another thing that’s fun to do is to have me and the character do actions within the interview like smiling, shifting, etcetera to make it feel more real. I put all actions between asterisks.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview with my fantasy character Mor for an example of formatting:

Me:

*nods* Question two: What's your favorite dish?

Mor:

I like roast goose and mince pies, but I can't get enough of tarts. Black currant, raspberry ... Any tart I will eat it.

Me:

I like them too. And Jedi Kyra's last question: And one more; what are you most looking forward to about becoming a Red Hood?

Mor:

It's a tie between the travel and no more lessons to be frank. *laughs a little*

For the full interview you can check it out here.

Sting and Serra from my science fiction novel Subsapien Grafting

A few extra tips:

Be sure to answer all of the readers’ questions – Unless it’s a big spoiler answer all their questions. The reader took the time to comment so make sure to include them. 

Answer like your character would – Make sure to answer the questions in your character’s voice. This helps you get the hang of their voice. Even if you disagree with the character’s answer it’s the character answering the questions.

Thank the Commenters – Thank the people who left the questions within the post. They took the time think up questions for you. Acknowledge their effort.

And there you have it! That’s how to do a character interview. I hope it helps your writing. ^ ^

Have you ever done a character interview before? Have you ever read one before?

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