I started this thread to discuss, as the thread title suggests, about writing insane characters. There are a few things that I'd be interested in hearing from the community.

First off, when writing or reading a story centered on an insane character, what do each of you prefer in terms of perspective? First person? Third person?
Personally, if the point is to horrify the viewer, I think that having a third person narration that "buys in" with the insane protagonist's skewed view of the universe would be horrific, because it allows the whole scene, not just what the insane sees, to be displayed in a distorted fashion that the reader knows is wrong.

Secondly, what kinds of insane characters do you all find captivating, and what do you each think are the best, or best methods of displaying each?

And lastly, if any of you are up for some self promotion, any recommendations of fictions that really get you and other reader's skin crawling, that's good too.

730500
Define insane. As in 'ax-crazy' insane or 'losing-mind' insane? I'm going to guess the latter, but just making sure.

I'm not sure if this is related, but I want a crazy Derpy story where she's too inept to actually kill anypony.

730500

I'll be frank: if a writer is trying hard to make a character seem crazy... it's going to sound amazingly forced. That's one thing that turns me off when a writer is trying to be serious: cranking the crazy up to 11 and exaggerating everything.

The best way to really make somebody's skin crawl is to, as the author, actually try to see things like the insane character does. Everybody justifies their own actions, but insanity is simply a problem with not seeing the world the way everybody else does. So the best way to make an insane character... is to make them seem as normal as possible when you're writing from their perspective. And let people realize what said person is doing when the perspective changes~

First person allows you to show the thoughts of the mentally ill subject more clearly, or for you to hide them all under a layer of denial and switch to third person at the end for the big reveal.

730500>>730505 He did say:

Secondly, what kinds of insane characters do you all find captivating

I really like the first-person perspective, OF the insane character. It's really hard to pull off, but when done correctly... it's practically art.

As for which kind of insane? The unpredictable type, like the joker, or Carnage (from Spider-man). The kind where you just don't know what is going on through their heads. They could be collected and calm, or just wild and crazy, either way they're still unpredictable. That's the kind I like.

As for promotions, I have yet to find a good story on here about an insane character.

Well, I wrote an insane character once, for the purpose of the plot, and he was a paranoid schizophrenic.

I wrote in third person.

1. third person limited. Let me ride on their shoulder

2. The thing to remember about a good insane character is everything can and should seem perfectly natural to them. They would never hurt a real pony, and skinning you alive is just their way of proving you are fake.

3. I found rocket to insanity to be decent. Dash's slow descent into madness because of her nightmares about pinkie were compelling.

Watch Valve's stellar 'Meet the Pyro'. This little animated short almost perfectly captures how to write insanity from a first-person perspective. Though in prose an author would want to tone it down, the elements are the same.

Third person ... is a touch trickier. First, we need to know if the narrator is omniscient or limited. An omniscient narrator will understand the character's insanity, and thus can comment on it, either directly or through another character's thoughts and reactions. Here, a way to cast insanity might be to present their thought process as contrasting with their actions. Insanity arises from the visible break between what they think and what happens, or even just between two or more contrasting viewpoints.

A limited narrator acts similarly to first-person, in that you would stage everything the insane character does from their point-of-view without revealing too much, and using a perspective switch or epiphany at the end for a 'twist' ending

730500 I find the best 'insane 'characters are the most calm. But in an instant will chew your head off. Like the Joker from the Dark Knight. Those kind of crazys make my skin crawl!

Insanity and horror are intertwined in a way; if you force it like SoloAcapello said, then the horror loses its value. For insane characters, what I imagine would work the best is to write it from the perspective of the character at first, and make the reader familiar with their rationality and way of thinking. As the story progresses, start to bring in the elements that allow doubt to creep in slowly, almost painstakingly; is the character actually crazy, or is it a set of coincidences and happenstance that make them appear to be crazy?

I wrote a story that focuses on how Princess Luna became Nightmare Moon, and while we obviously know who Nightmare Moon is and how she's related to Luna, Luna has no idea who Nightmare Moon is for the longest time. Luna isn't actually aware of the split personality she attains throughout the story until she tries to bring about everlasting night by eclipsing the sun, and her darker personality actually forces her into an unconscious state as it takes over.

730514
Sounds hilarious.

730500. Write in first person but have an inner voice speak to the character such as follows:

I walked over to the sink, noticing that my mane was an absolute mess. After combing it for a few minutes, I popped a few aspirin tablets to stave off the massive headache from last night's cider binge.

Oh come on now Twilight do you really think sprucing up your mane is going to get Applejack's attention?

"Urrgghh shut up Twinkle! I don't need this right now..."

But Twilight you've always needed me, and YOU'RE NOTHING without ME!

Speaking here as someone currently dealing with various doctors for mental health, (And top of my Psychology class, woo!) 'Crazy' just isn't a thing on Trixie's end. It's either writers trying to hard to make something that ends up, quite frankly, stupid. Or it ends up just being someone suffering from Psychosis, or Schizophrenia. At which point they aren't really crazy anyway from a professional standpoint.

Okay then. First person, but with added third person every now and then. In first person, you get to sympathize with the character, or feel how jarringly insane they are. The thoughts that go through their head might be significantly twisted. Or they can seem perfectly normal. Then, in the third person, there's reality. That's to prove how insane (or maybe sane) the character is.

I think it counts, so my personal favorite for insane story was Believing Stories.

730505 Any kind of insanity, though I did start this thread with the hopes of people offering advice on making a character people are more likely to be horrified than sympathize with.

730515 730516 So would you both say that a first person perspective would be best, with places where the aftermath is shown in a third person perspective? But what if you really want, (and given the plot bunny I have, need) to show what they are doing, because it is quite frankly, really on the line between what people would consider bad?

730536 I was personally thinking for my own story that I'd use what could be considered a "tainted" third person narrator, in that they can see some of the broader details of the world that the protagonist may miss, but nonetheless buys in with the insane character's worldview.

730520 730537 That's two mentions of The Joker: calm when everything goes their way, absolutely vicious when they are doing what people of a sane disposition would be opposed to.

730514 730548 Agreed, the potential macabre humor seems endless. But what about Dinky? You wouldn't make Derpy hurt her, would you?

730526 By third person limited, is it possible/acceptable to have the narrator share the insane fellow's worldview? So that when their sick and twisted side is revealed, the reader is even more uncomfortable because the worldview is being shared by this third party?

And lastly, I'm thinking of having this story be multiple chapters, and the focus is on the character's "exploits" as they go through their life. So the shock of what they are, insane, can't be a continual crutch for the horror. Nor can the horror come from the process of the insanity developing, as I intend to enter the fic at a point when the character is full-blown. Though, by "full-blown" I simply mean that they are entirely convinced that what they are doing is acceptable on some level. So the horror would be seeing what they do, how others react to it, and their continued insistence that what they are doing is right.

So I suppose that my fic idea is showing a character that quite frankly would completely ignore/ laugh at the quote "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

730500

OOOH! I have no idea really how to write them. Though in my opinion, there is only one guy who does it well. FlimFlambros and his story, For the Ones We Love. That antagonist. Insane.

730576

Actually, third person seems like it would be the best. I was referring to first earlier, but I always use third myself.

In third person, you can be vague about exactly what they are doing. I don't mean lie about it, but there's one thing that I like to call the 'inverse stinger'... which is more of a music term, but still. So, some crazy person does something absolutely horrendous (or absolutely silly)... but instead of going out of your way to show how bad (or silly) it is, describe it in passing like he or she is just having a cup of tea in the morning. Make a crazy event seem normal. So instead of a a massive paragraph detailing their craziness, you can draw attention the opposite way: by nonchalantly mentioning it like it was an unimportant detail. The reader will make their own impression~

But again, that's a little specific. In general, I just find that insane characters are seen as more insane when they think that they're perfectly fine. And to accomplish that, first or third person perspective can work quite well, so it's up to you on that part.

Fake first person (third person narration, that limits itself to describing only one characters thoughts), if you want to describe the technical details of their insanity, either makes them seem more likeable (he's doing horrible things, but he thinks it's for the best) or makes them seem horrible.

Third person omniscient while only describing the 'crazies' actions, makes for good horror. One thing that scares us about crazy people (talking movie crazy here) is that they are cappable of everything, not actually knowing what motivates them adds to that.

When I wrote Love in a Hopeless Place, Bonbon acted perfectly normal the entire time, even after she threw Twist to Zombie Lyra.
later, Bonbon continued to act completely normal, even as Lyra started to eat her.

When I did that I wanted Bonbon to seem absolutely normal, Nothing seems outwardly wrong, but she just snapped. How can you tell when someone's gone insane when they're like that?

I think the Subtle element is best.

not sure if that helps.

730500

How you depict an insane character? That depends on what mood you're looking to build. The thing I find that frightens me the most about insanity is its ambiguity, both from the perspective of the person who is insane and that of the people affected by the actions.

There is also the aspect of any person having had a major earth-shattering shock doubting their own sanity. That is what I was going for in Mankind Triumphant - Relic. In such a case you can immerse the reader in the protagonist's 'possible' insanity.

But this is a very broad category. Excellent idea for a discussion thread!

Dafaddah

730537

I remember Joker making a narration for the book, Killing With A Smile. He makes it sound real, but because of his nature, it leaves many people to wander if he was telling the truth or not.

It depends on how insane the character is. Based on the insanity you can then decide wheter a third person or first person perspective works better.

730576

I'm not into the outright horrify the reader, maybe build a little fridge horror by having the a character go insane a slowly start to change their habits, but the people around them don't really notice because they don't know everything about them.

PoV is important, you have to blend the characters around the insane character with the faulty reality of the insane character.

730515 Best advice in this thread.

730500

I've always preferred first person, especially because it allows a better glimpse into the character's mind and allows you to have an unreliable narrator, which are always fun. One of the best examples of this is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which is first person and the main character is schizophrenic and it often takes the reader a while to determine what's real and what's a hallucination.

When I started my story, Bricks in the Wall, I spent the first 1/4 of the story in my character's childhood and you get to know him before he goes completely insane. Then you get to the turning point, when he snaps and his mental functions decay to the point where

Seeing characters slowly lose their mental well being over a period of years can be effective.

730576
I'm more inclined to think Dinky would be the reason she snapped. The whole 'overprotective mother will rid the world of anypony who could hurt her baby' thing.

730500

First of all, if you don't to anything else, find a reputable textbook of some kind and look up Schizophrenia. Seriously, do it! Because I can't believe just how many misconceptions and misunderstandings there are about that disorder.

That's probably the main disorder that people want to emulate when they want to write "insane" characters, but often they don't realize it. Too many people confuse schizophrenia with dissociative identity disorder, which is not the same thing. If you head over here, you'll find Luce sharing a psychiatric textbook by Kaplan and Sadock. I have no idea if the links still work, but its one I use myself when I need to portrait mental illness.

Also, I think schizophrenia is overused as a condition of "insane" characters. There are many mental disorders that could be described in crude terms as "insanity", (but dont do it in front of anyone who works in the field of psychiatry, cus they will bitch-slap you to the moon!)

Autism for example. There's a whole spectrum to play with here, from simply aspbergers syndrome (which will be classified as a mild form of autism spectrum disorder as of later this year). to out-and-out Rain man. Oh, and don't tell me some of us here aren't suffering from a mood disorder or a personality disorder of some kind....

I think the reason people default to pseudo-schizophrenia is because they are stuck with the idea of playing insanity for horror, when there's so much else you can do with it. One of my comic stories, (which is loosely based on a real person, actually...) features a character with the delusion that she's actually the daughter of Spock (yes, from star trek), and that he communicates with her telepathically. And noone really reacts to this, they're just too polite to say anything.

My point is, one can make a story about an insane character and have it be very low-key. My main pet peeve with insanity stories are "oh, I've lost my mind, now I must go kill!" That's the sort of grave mischaracterization of mental disorders that leads to people getting uneasy if you mention you have, say, bipolar or borderline, cus they think it means you're going to reach for an axe at any moment or something.

731093

Thank you for this. Seriously. My best friend is a counseling grad student and we've had this discussion more times than I can count, since many things we read or watch default to the Hollywood brand of mental disorders. Be subtle and believable, that's all you have to do. Anyway, a bit of research into the subject is pretty much required if you're going to write about it.

Well, in my story Asylum, I've focused more on feeding the doubt over whether the main character is or isn't insane. 3rd Person limited works well for me because it allows a slightly expanded view on the goings on, but because I've limited myself to only having Twilight's thoughts be shown, we only have her as the narrator. Thus, you get to wonder how reliable a narrator she is. There are some darker moments where she sees things, but you're not sure whether they are hallucinations or if they are signs of something else.

Mental disorders are interesting things to bring up, but I think they need to be done with some level of subtlety. They need to take a back-seat to the characters themselves. The disorder should be a part of them, not their defining feature. A character that is crazy because they're crazy is pretty one dimensional, really.

Finally, I think one needs to know the character in terms of how they will think about their disorder or problem. It's kinda like the difference between OCD and OCPD. In the former, the sufferer can be fully aware that their compulsions are abnormal and they have a problem; in the latter the sufferer will usually think that their behavior is not only normal, but perfectly desirable as well.

In the end, I think that the characters are what sells "insanity". A character needs to be defined not by their sanity but by their overall character. If you have the protagonist as being "an insane pony named John" then it's going to come off forced or shallow. Instead it should be "John, a pony who happens to also be insane".

A clearly defined character with a mental or personality disorder can be a great protagonist, but it has to be handled with care. One thing I am always worried about with my story is presenting a caricature of a being suffering mental illnesses. I don't want to be disrespectful; I want to try and give a sense of realism, which means I try to focus on the more subtle signs of mental illness. Things like unstable emotions and disorganized thoughts make the protagonist seem off without having you hold the reader's nose to the text and go "look, see? This character is crazy!"

Be subtle, be respectful, and do a little research. Those are my three tips for writing a realistic depiction of mental or social disorders.

Well, like everybody else said: Third person is limited. If you write an insane character, it would be nice to know what is going on in their thoughts instead of watching them commit scandalous and lurid acts. It will also tells us what coaxed them to act like that

730576
What? Who's Dinky?

731960 Dinky is the fourth most adorable thing in existence, and the second most adorable thing in Equestria. She is also popularly considered to have some relationship to Derpy Hooves, although she has been shown with Written Script and Carrot Top at times.

I'll reiterate what I think is the key good advice in this thread, first.

Do your research.
Don't overplay your hand.

Now then...

If you're going to write about a character going mad, your first thing to do is figure out HOW they are losing their minds. Once you have that, be subtle, and be mysterious. The very best fics of that type are the ones that have you guessing. Are they really going insane? Is it something else? Possession? Coincidence? Conspiracy? Changelings? Shamelessly throw doubt into the mix by handfuls. Add bits of dialogue, sounds, or happenings that SEEM like they might be ominous, but could very well be slips of the tongue, or misinterpretations. Whatever works with the kind of insanity you're going for.

The second your character starts vomiting up strings of gibberish, frothing at the mouth, seeing grotesque monsters that clearly aren't there, or speaking to voices in their head, most of the fun is over, and the yawns begin.

Also, avoid the cliches, pleasepleaseprettyplease. If you have the urge to make them have a conversation with their inner voice in a serious, non-ironic, non-snarky manner, stop yourself. It's not the symptom of any insanity. It's just a huge, absurd cliche. Especially where Twilight is concerned. People who hear voices, even if it's only because their inner monologue is being misidentified, always identify it as some outside agent, to my knowledge.

731979
And Dinky is related to Derpy how? I'm confused...

I personally love insane characters, if their done right. The best ones, in my opinion, are the ones where it's a slow descent into madness. From something like stealing candy bars at the store as a filly to slowly becoming a hoarder and then eventually into a stalker... that sort of thing. If the character starts out as insane, you don't necessarily have to explain how they got that way, but you better write out the way they twitch and move and mumble to themselves. And if you do, you make them mumble something about their past, completely out of context and in an insane rant, and let the reader decipher what the heck they're talking about. Makes it interesting and adds a bit of fear and suspense into the mix. Just my opinion.

Hmm...
I'm currently writing a story that involves one of the antagonists to be insane but it's sort of random and will happen in violent outbursts, much like Vaas from Far Cry 3, but on the other hand his mind was messed with in another story that focused around him. He won't show up until later in the story but you will get to see how a year in isolation with an altered psychological profile does effect him once he makes his appearance.

It all depends how you're approaching the character and story.

If you're showing a main character GOING insane, you want the narrator to ride on their shoulder and read their thoughts. The character might notice things are wrong on their own, but usually not worry unless its thrown in their face by someone else–or maybe they won't worry.
A moderately decent example would be Celestia in "Heavenly Turmoil."

If the main character is ALREADY insane, the others have it right about first person POV where everything is normal to them.

But if you want your insane character to not be the main character... Don't try to overdo it. Don't go making another Joker or Carnage or Kefka or whoever your favorite looney is. Big and flamboyant crazy is overdone and often comes off as forced to the point that it jars the reader from the story. Dark and murderous is also similarly unbelievable and unbelievably lame.
Make them seem almost normal for the most part, but their occasional thoughts and actions should make it clear they're mentally deviant.

For the My Little DCU, I have to write for several characters who could be considered 'insane'.

There's Swift Sword/Sift Sward, who is slowly succumbing to magic-induced brain damage, and yet he thinks the world is perfectly fine, and it has always been as he sees it. This is part of the natural progression that leads to him becoming General Zod.

Then, there's the case of Lack Luster, who, like her human counterpart, is a sociopath. However, while she has thoughts of breaking ponies mentally, financially, or even physically, she still thinks this is just the natural way things are.
This gives her a duality with Oleander. Both have ambitions and would reach their goals, but Lack Luster is just a bit off. Because she sees violent and abusive acts as normal, and embraces disproportionate retribution, she is 'insane' as it were. But because I paint her doing those things as completely normal, the reactions of other ponies makes you think otherwise.
In one scene, she's smiling, which caused several of her workers to recoil, because while she's happy thinking 'normal' thoughts, her employees, know all too well that when she's happy, other ponies suffer.

Next, there's a character in an upcoming third-person story. I can't go into much, but I can talk about the type of insanity they suffer from.
The story starts off normally. The narration is nice, elegant and coherent. But after a turning point, it becomes simplified and it carries a tone of instinctual fear with it. As the story progresses and the character picks up the pieces of their life, the narration becomes elegant once again, albeit less happy and more serious.

Not sure if that'd be insanity so much as it would be shellshock. But eh, you know.

I don't think that insanity has to be scary.

Barking Mad/Screw Loose is definitely insane, but she doesn't default to scary. I have read one story about her that makes her scary, and one that doesn't.

Then there is Life is a Lemon. Or the mother of Diamond Tiara in the POV Series... who doesn't show up until a later "season", but I don't feel like digging through dozens of chapters to find her first appearance, and besides that story deserves to be read from the beginning.

For more mild examples, consider Fluttershy's many phobias, and there is a story about Twilight discovering that Rarity has clinical, but mild OCD (or Obsessive Compulsive PERSONALITY Disorder which is slightly different, and actually closer to what most people think OCD is IIRC). A mixed example, maybe mild OCD/OCPD, jusxiposed with "Discord Minus the Malevolence" levels of randomness can be found in The Turning of the Screwball.

730500

I hate to play my own Flugel horn here, but the character I write primarily for the fanfiction my friend and I co-write is insane, although his is more focused on the sadness of it rather than the horror. I write all his parts in 1st person, something like this.

If a normal pony would say," The moonlight seems too bright tonight, almost as if Luna herself is angered." then my character Seething Mass would say it like this," Moon too anger....Luna angered, bright angered too....." Seething Mass stopped to catch his breath. "The moonlight is, bright, too bright tonight...almost as if Luna herself is furious, angered."

Seething Mass has a sort of disconnect, he forms these sentences in his mind (which frequently wanders and is plagued by flashbacks) but when he tries to say them out loud he tends to fail and needs to start again, almost like a stutter. He also randomly shouts references to things about the ponies he's talking to that he shouldn't know, which has an in-story justification.

As for what kind of insanity I find interesting, I naturally am a fan of the innocent crazy, like Seething Mass, who doesn't have much of a dangerous aspect but is a little off anyways. My favorites have got to be the quiet ones, the guys that sit in a corner and don't react to anything until they reach out of the shadows and rip your loved one's face off with a toenail clipper. Those one's are nice.

The Hannibal Lecters of the literary world are really cool to read as well, the crazy who lives in his own little world but somehow manages to make everyone else march to the beat of his mad piping flutes. Creepy as heck!

Signed,
Ann lies