Bipolar disorder is characterized by drastic changes in mood and energy. These intense emotional states are called “mood episodes” and there are three types of mood episodes that plague this disorder: Mania episodes, Hypomania episodes, and depressive episodes.
Persistent depressive disorder is a type of depression characterized by a persistent depressive mood for an extended period of time. It usually lasts 2 years or more and although the symptoms are considered to be less severe than that of Major depressive disorder, it is still a debilitating disorder that can affect one’s everyday life.
Major depressive disorder is a type of depression characterized by intense feelings of sadness, a loss of pleasure, and an overall feeling of hopelessness. Someone who suffers from this disorder will typically go through multiple “episodes” of major depression.
Having a mental illness affects your everyday life in many ways. There is so much that comes into writing characters with a mental disorder such as depression and it can be an intimidating task. However, writing these complex characters with relatable struggles can also be incredibly satisfying.
A tragic villain is a character that commits objectively evil acts but still causes your readers to experience pathos, which is defined as a feeling of deep sadness and pity for the character.
Attachment styles are defined as the behaviors and patterns one displays in relationships. Different types of attachment styles will create different types of character relationships. When writing your characters and developing the dynamic within their relationships, you can use Psychology’s attachment style theory to inspire you.
Anxiety is a common disorder that many people suffer from on a daily basis. Writing characters with anxiety can be a great way to add diversity to your cast of characters but also a way to make your characters more relatable and feel more reel to your audience.
The art of writing different personality types is one that every writer should strive to master. Writing extroverted characters, as well as introverted ones, can be a great way of making sure your set of characters is diverse and appealing.
Characters with ambivert personality traits are comfortable and enjoy social settings, but they equally enjoy alone time. So, whilst an introverted character may spend 70% of their time alone and 30% with other people, an ambivert character will spend 50% of their time with people and the other 50% alone.
There is indeed more than one way to be an introvert, hence more than one way to write introverted characters. The typical understanding of what introversion is can be very limiting and does not effectively include the many different meanings of the concept of introversion.