I have a blind depressed character and I'd like to write a chapter that talks only about his internal conflict, i.e, struggling with his inner self, like going inside his mind, but I find difficulties not knowing on what should I focus and what should I describe exactly, so I can get people empathize with the character.
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1Yeah, that describes a lot of what we struggle with as authors. Make your question a little more specific so we can give an answer. You're looking for advice on writing the inner thoughts of you character while making him sympathetic. That's pretty broad. Is it because you feel his depression makes him less sympathetic? Because his blindness makes him less relatable? Does this answer your question? writing.stackexchange.com/questions/16637/…– DWKrausApr 5, 2021 at 22:29
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What I mean by this question is that after externally showing the symptoms of depression, I'd like to go through his mind and describe the way he's struggling with his inner self, what he is feeling, like fighting against himself(knowing that I'm writing in the first POV, so the character himself will describe what's going on with him)– Nour FourtiApr 5, 2021 at 22:42
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1Thank you. I'm not great with first-person. I find depression is often started by problems, but they get out of control and cycle around and around unproductively. Surprisingly, depressed people are actually more rational (able to make accurate factual assessments) than normal people. You have to be a little self-deceptive to believe everything is going to be all right, but often believing it makes it so. Some research on depression will be a good place to start, if you can get past all the drug ads.– DWKrausApr 6, 2021 at 0:42
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2If you know someone who has been depressed and is willing to talk about it, I would recommend going to them first to hear their experiences with it.– Joe KerrApr 6, 2021 at 13:31
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2 Answers
Apart from the previous answer, you could incorporate the character's thoughts in the way they interact with their world. For example, he might be fumbling with his bedsheets until he feels a fascinating embossed texture on it. He then wonders what that texture might look like, suddenly feeling frustrated that he might never know.
Or he could simply begin giving meaning to every little thing. The way he hears the wind blow through the trees, for example, could seem to him like the scuffling of feet from people rushing to get away from him. From that thought, he could begin contemplating his loneliness.
Key to these sort of character scenes is to make it seem a natural part of him. Depression, of course, is not something you'd wish to be someone's daily reality, but it is the brutal reality of your character. Establish a simple scene of him doing everyday activities and have his reactions to these activities mingle with his own dark thoughts. It gives a sense that this sort of struggle happens to him every day, in every little circumstance, and it's beyond his control.
Convey the gravity sensitively. For readers to empathize, don't go overboard with his misery. Instead, showcase that his heavy feelings can be triggered by small things and still make him completely miserable. Show and don't tell, as always, and know that the most powerful way to connect the readers with your character is for them to see themselves in him in some way. His condition is interfering with his life, not defining it.
All the best!
A good way to talk about something that's going on inside a character's head is through a dream. You could have a dream that shows the character remembering what happened to make them depressed, or a dream explaining something about specifically their depression, etc.
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"what happened to make them depressed" Something got messed up in their brain chemistry, that's what. Apr 9, 2021 at 22:19