Post by justsarah on Nov 19, 2011 22:37:54 GMT -5
This is one of my spur of the moment tutorials again, it helps me so I figure it might help. First though, I would recommend picking out and reading some other tutorials on giving character personality disorders. Alright now.
First I shall make a list of the different kinds of phobias:
1. Natural Phobia - This is where all we know is a person has an extreme irrational fear of something, whatever it is you decide. Often times this is enough if your character developed in many other kinds of ways.
2. Conditioned Phobia - This is where the character is not born with this extreme fear, but is brought about by certain outside variables. A child may not fear height, but they may as an adult.
3. Complex Phobia - This is where although the fear may have already been present to begin with, it was exacerbated by the fact that they had another incident that made it worse.
4. Multiple Natural Phobias - A person has multiple irrational fears they are born with. Such as fearing snakes, and also fearing dogs.
5. Multiple Conditioned Phobias - This is where it gets a little harder, at least for me. Essentially the person is born a perfectly normal child, but whether its a government job, a car accident, or whatever happened caused them to fear snakes, fear dogs, and fear whatever else. In extreme case, the person may not be able to go outside as a conditional response to these events.
6. Multiple Complex Phobias - Ok almost done promise. These are people where subtle indicators may suggest they already feared dogs, snakes, and others in a combination. But certain additional events may have exacerbated it.
A woman fears that she might be poisoned by eating a certain food.
A woman fears eating a certain food, because we find out n earlier years she may have gotten food poisoning from it.
A woman fears eating a certain food, because she thinks she might get food poisoning from it, perhaps because she has an allergic reaction to it.
A lot of times, whether a phobia comes off as flat is whether the audience or reader has complete information.
Sometimes there are really tricky character where they may have multiple phobias of things, but one phobia they may be born and the other not. A person may naturally fear heights, but they may have developed another phobia like fearing dogs.
In the second part, I will now go into some example personality disorders you could use to add to an existing phobia the characters has:
Two Dimensional Personality Disorder (Not to be confused with being an undeveloped character, sometimes these people are some of the most developed characters.
Hippo-critical Personality Disorder - There are two types: 1. A person who thinks its ok for him to do something, but not another person simply because of how they were raised in their environment. 2. People who we have very little information about, but seem to come off as hippo-critical. This can make it seem like they are hippo-critical simply because its an option.
And then Multiple personality disorder.
As an example case, you might have a character that initially doesn't believe in cruelty to animals. However with the right set of variables, they may or may not develop into someone who fears snakes. Because they fear snakes if they do, they may still think its wrong for another character to hurt a puppy, but gosh darn it don't try to stop him from hurting that snake. its somehow ok to them, because they fear snakes.
I hope this helps.^_- If there are any questions, please ask. Some of my spur of the moment ideas may leave some holes to fill.
In conclusion, some good steps to follow are:
1. What is their phobia.
2. Are they born with it, or was it an artificial construction.
3. Is it made worse or created by certain personality disorders.
4. Do they have more then one phobia.
First I shall make a list of the different kinds of phobias:
1. Natural Phobia - This is where all we know is a person has an extreme irrational fear of something, whatever it is you decide. Often times this is enough if your character developed in many other kinds of ways.
2. Conditioned Phobia - This is where the character is not born with this extreme fear, but is brought about by certain outside variables. A child may not fear height, but they may as an adult.
3. Complex Phobia - This is where although the fear may have already been present to begin with, it was exacerbated by the fact that they had another incident that made it worse.
4. Multiple Natural Phobias - A person has multiple irrational fears they are born with. Such as fearing snakes, and also fearing dogs.
5. Multiple Conditioned Phobias - This is where it gets a little harder, at least for me. Essentially the person is born a perfectly normal child, but whether its a government job, a car accident, or whatever happened caused them to fear snakes, fear dogs, and fear whatever else. In extreme case, the person may not be able to go outside as a conditional response to these events.
6. Multiple Complex Phobias - Ok almost done promise. These are people where subtle indicators may suggest they already feared dogs, snakes, and others in a combination. But certain additional events may have exacerbated it.
Single Phobia
A woman fears that she might be poisoned by eating a certain food.
A woman fears eating a certain food, because we find out n earlier years she may have gotten food poisoning from it.
A woman fears eating a certain food, because she thinks she might get food poisoning from it, perhaps because she has an allergic reaction to it.
A lot of times, whether a phobia comes off as flat is whether the audience or reader has complete information.
Multiple Phobia
Sometimes there are really tricky character where they may have multiple phobias of things, but one phobia they may be born and the other not. A person may naturally fear heights, but they may have developed another phobia like fearing dogs.
Combining Phobias
With Other Personality disorders
With Other Personality disorders
In the second part, I will now go into some example personality disorders you could use to add to an existing phobia the characters has:
Two Dimensional Personality Disorder (Not to be confused with being an undeveloped character, sometimes these people are some of the most developed characters.
Hippo-critical Personality Disorder - There are two types: 1. A person who thinks its ok for him to do something, but not another person simply because of how they were raised in their environment. 2. People who we have very little information about, but seem to come off as hippo-critical. This can make it seem like they are hippo-critical simply because its an option.
And then Multiple personality disorder.
As an example case, you might have a character that initially doesn't believe in cruelty to animals. However with the right set of variables, they may or may not develop into someone who fears snakes. Because they fear snakes if they do, they may still think its wrong for another character to hurt a puppy, but gosh darn it don't try to stop him from hurting that snake. its somehow ok to them, because they fear snakes.
I hope this helps.^_- If there are any questions, please ask. Some of my spur of the moment ideas may leave some holes to fill.
In conclusion, some good steps to follow are:
1. What is their phobia.
2. Are they born with it, or was it an artificial construction.
3. Is it made worse or created by certain personality disorders.
4. Do they have more then one phobia.
