Many stories that feature a character with a physical or mental health challenge are about that challenge. It plays a pivotal role, coming up often, and growth and failure opportunities often revolve around it. But, sometimes, the condition is simply an aspect of your character—NOT what your book’s about. Without a deft hand, the condition can take over and hijack the story you want to tell, taking it somewhere else. So let’s talk about writing a character in this type of story and how to put the right emphasis on their health challenge.
Don’t Build It into Their Core Identity
Let’s say your protagonist is living with depression. But she’s also a teacher who has three dogs. She’s kindhearted and generous and impulsive and hot-tempered. She likes reality TV and collects cookie recipes…
A character is never just their diagnosis. They have goals, fears, strengths, flaws, quirks, and messy relationships. The health condition is part of who they are, but it shouldn’t define them. So when you’re building your character, go deep into figuring out the important elements of characterization, and keep the rest (including their condition) in proper perspective.
Don’t Let It Impact the Plot
A serious or ongoing health condition may affect the character in many ways. But those impacts shouldn’t determine the course of the story. If the story isn’t about that condition, reference it in passing, like you would any other aspect of the character’s personality or history. Don’t give it undue weight.
Show the Character Successfully Managing It
If readers see early on that the character is dealing well with their condition, they’ll understand that it’s not the main area of struggle, and they’ll know that the story is about something else. Show this through the character’s reliance on healthy coping mechanisms and self-care. Make them an expert in their health challenge instead of a victim of it. Maybe they lead a support group or volunteer with people struggling with the condition—people who aren’t as far down the track as the character is. This is a great way to show that this diagnosis is part of the character’s life, but it isn’t going to be the central conflict.
Find Other Sources of Conflict
When you need to add stress, conflict, or tension, don’t fall back on their condition. There are so many other conflict scenarios to choose from—relationship problems, power struggles, physical threats, failures, mistakes, moral dilemmas, ticking clocks…the friction options you could inflict on your character are almost limitless. We wrote two books on the subject, so they’re a good place to start when you’re looking for ideas. Focus on conflicts that go beyond the character’s condition, and the story won’t become about that one thing.
Research Thoroughly
Regardless of how central the health challenge is to your story, go all the way when researching—especially if you’re writing from outside your own experience. Talk to people living with that condition. Educate yourself on misconceptions and harmful stereotypes so you can avoid those. Study characters with health challenges in stories that aren’t about those challenges to see how other authors strike the right balance. Thorough research will help you write your character and their condition respectfully and authentically.
PRO TIP: Our Character Builder at One Stop helps you explore all the aspects of characterization so you can emphasize what’s important and minimize what’s not. Use this resource to prioritize backstory, personality, wounding events, and other pivotal parts of your character that will play a larger part in the story while also making note of other details, like a health challenge.
Summary for Busy Writers: With too much (or the wrong) emphasis, your character’s health condition can take over the story and become the main focus. To avoid this, give it the proper weight in the character building process, show early on that the character is dealing well with the condition, and choose other sources of conflict to drive the story.
