* WARNING * Mature themes within -- Rainbow stickers and lightsabers, Challange issued!

I have had problems myself with addiction to alcohol and painkillers, and I think the subject can be a powerful one to be explored in writing if done correctly--not only that, it is a story that needs telling, so that people who have never experienced it for themselves will understand.

One thing I didn't like about the Meg Ryan movie "When A Man Loves a Woman" is that they focused entirely too much on Andy Garcia's long-suffering husband character. The writer of the script didn't seem to take into account that Meg's character was in horrible pain as well--they only focused on making her the villian and him the Gary Stu.

I don't like stories that treat the issues this way--as black-and-white, when they aren't--and I don't like stories in which addiction is treated as a joke, a weakness, a sin, a lack of willpower. It isn't any of the above. Different people have different reasons for starting to use their drug of choice (in the case of pills--how many are going to argue against someone taking a pill that the doctor prescribed? This is one of the toughest areas here), but everyone eventually ends up in the same place--wanting the pain to stop, not being able to live with the drug of choice but not being able to live without it either.

 

freak-pudding, I feel the exact same way. I've only been a lurker on this thread.

I missed the topic of Suicide, but I just had something I wanted to put in. In most of the fics I've seen it used in, the authors have done a great job of explaining how the character feels. A few years ago I myself was diagnosed with depression and even came very close to "the point of no return" one time. It's really horrible because you question the quality of everything you do. I'm currently writing a fic, but haven't posted it yet because I keep making changes, thinking that nobody will like it. Though I can't remember all of them, I have to applaud the authors who were able to convincingly convey those feelings.

On the subject of drug abuse, I have to point out a very talented author with the sn Cascadia. Her story Trembling in the Balance is about Obi-Wan as a Padawan, having to deal with an addiction he developed to a drug while trying to hide the problem from his Master. I think the part that is most realistic is the feeling that the drug has complete control over him. Addiction can be a nasty thing, and it can drive people to do things that they would never normally do.

With that said, back to the shadows I go.

 

Thanks, you guys.


Anyhow, I was rereading my post from last night and I feel I must make a correction. Often times, I write as though others can see into my mind. I've realized that they, sadly, cannot read my thoughts.

So, I need to rephrase that last paragraph. I meant to say that I do believe that some addictions rise out of the need to rebel, but most of the time there is an underlying psychological problem. In the case of your friend, Kit', she wasn't just rebelling against "society" as a whole. She was rebelling against one person: her mother. I think its obvious that she's had relationship problems with her mother in the past. To me, that's more than just rebelling for the sake of rebelling. It's spite. That's a motive. That's a reason.

I hope I at least got enough of my actual point across to make sense to you. It's 4:30 in the afternoon and Puddin's brain is mush from school.

 

Up.

 

Where I work, I deal with Madness alot... (shut up you in the peanut gallery, you're not half as clever as you think you are.)

I have a client who's dillusions, if written down cohesivley, could put Stephen King out of buisness. Sunday night, she was discribing to me in loving detail about how one of my co-workers was haing by a nail, dead, outside on the balcony. To her it was compleatly and utterly real and she was SOOOO convinced... well you get the idea... So.. on ward with todays topic at Hand...

Madness, insanity, and fan fiction...

 

I think this, like any other serious topic, is done well when the writer knows something about it and isn't making fun of it.

An example: Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. It's a chilling horror story, into the mind of madness--chilling because you can feel, deep in the core of your being, just how the narrator feels--even if the rational part of you knows that the narrator is completely insane.

I think the best Palpatine stories are written showing the Emperor's inner madness--and the reader, upon finishing the story, sees exactly how the Palpy was able to convince himself that he was right, although the reader knows more than ever just how insane Palpatine is. The developing of an understanding of Palpatine, or any other mad character, is frightening--because if we understand madness, what is to keep us from going mad ourselves? Yet a well-written story about insanity does exactly that--gives the reader an understanding of the insane character.

 

First time here, but I think that I can share something on this. (Ok, no 'mad lawyer' jokes please)

I once had the pleasure of meeting with a potential client(note:she never was a client so no privelege broken) about a harassment/defamation claim she wished to make. She was a mousey looking, small woman in her late 40s. She was also paranoid and delusional. Her claim was that groups of people had been engaged in a conspiracy to harass/defame her by calling her a whore and a slut. She told an internally consistent tale of groups of people in the street, in shopping malls, at odd locations about the state of Connecticut, and in the apartment underneath hers chanting this at all hours of the day and night. She had called the police often enough that they threatened to charge her with making a false report. The most chilling things about it were that:

1)she appeared totally lucid;

2)she firmly believed that this was happening;

3)every gentle question that I asked, which would have logically poked holes in her story, was given a coherent and consistent, if not believable response; and

4)she noted several times exactly how "crazy" this all sounded.


This chilling sense of looking into another world is something that I think authors should strive for...To sound my own horn, in "To Absent Friends" I have made it clear that at least one character sees the transformation of Anakin into Vader as a grief driven mental break and descent into madness, rather than a moral choice. As I have not gotten into too much detail, I don't think that I have acheived the above, but I may yet try.

Oh, I second one of my collegues thoughts on Palpatine stories.

 

1)she appeared totally lucid;

2)she firmly believed that this was happening;

3)every gentle question that I asked, which would have logically poked holes in her story, was given a coherent and consistent, if not believable response; and

4)she noted several times exactly how "crazy" this all sounded.

Yes, this was EXACTLY what I went through Sunday night... It was frightening because she was UTTERLY EMPHATIC that this was happening...

I wonder, can a Jedi be driven mad?

 

What exactly are the rules in the Fan fic forums pertaining to homosexuals.
Characters can`t have homosexual relationships or they just can't be homosexual?

 

This isn't really the place for this...and is rather off-topic.

Homosexual relationships are not allowed to be portrayed in fanfic, same goes for homosexual characters.

Kithera

 

Well, honestly, this isn't the place for that particular discussion as it has been hashed and rehashed again.... At this time, homosexuality in any form is not allowed in fan fiction here at TF.N. It's not my call, or Kit or Ams (fan fiction mods) but a decision of the site owners.

Angel of Sith is a strong proponant of such fan fiction, and can be contacted via PM by clicking on the link. He is one who might know of the effrots to change the policy but it's out of place here.

I hope you'll stick around for discussion on other matters though!

 

I realize it was off topic but I figured sence it isn`t a well liked theme this would be the place to ask.

Oh and I`ll stick around for disscussion now that I have found this thread.

 

Breezy: I'd bet a Jedi could be driven mad, particularly if it were a bad time for the Republic when a lot of battle was happening (Hmmm...the Clone Wars?) and maybe the person had a difficult time with the training in emotional control that the Jedi are given--not as difficult a time as Anakin necessarily, but difficult enough due to a fragile personality or an underlying mental illness anyway. Mental illness, like other illnesses such as diabetes or high blood pressure, can be triggered at certain ages by incidents or crises.

 

I've never really tried to deal with this in writing, but whenever I think about madness in connection with writing, I always end up thinking of the scenario wherein only the mad are sane. Like the Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

 

Madness and hallucination is really scary. Look at Jacen Solo in Traitor. He goes completely suicidal and insane at one point, especially during the conversations wth 'Anakin'. And Tahiri in Force Heretic is scary as well: she's got external skitzophrenia that completely screws her brain around. And Joruus C'boath. that clone-madness is really scary. C'boath is a megolamaniac with paranoia and enogh power to control the entire crew of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

I tried to write madness into my dark-Corran fic during the re-write and it didn't work. It just came out a bit twisted. If you want some really good scary madness, read Dan Abnett's Necropolis. Both Salvadore Sondar and Commisar Pius Kowle are mad, both in different ways, Sondar driven mad by incessant chattering inside his head and Kowle mad in a subtler way. Senator Pwoe shows power-crazy madness in a comic way, and Senator Adith (in RS) shows it in a way that makes you laugh a lot less.

 

I've often thought of Anakin as verging on insanity shortly after becoming Vader.

-Tim

 

I agree, Tim, or maybe it's insanity that causes him to become Vader.

Either way, it would be interesting to explore Anakin's mindset just before becoming Vader or just after.

 

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' is a great example, Fate. Shows the varying degrees of madness and mental illnesses, while reminding the audience that they remain human beings who live and breathe.

The slaughter of the Jedi after Palpatine gains control would probably trigger insanity in some who manage to survive it, after witnessing the horrors unfold around them, not to mention the destruction of the institution that has been the rigid constant of their life.

Writing someone who has been affected mentally to such a severe degree is very difficult, I'd think. There are many opportunities to over-do it. I agree that people who have lost their sanity might not be totally unaware that they sound/act 'crazy', but are still convinced they are not really crazy. It's a truly awful thing and must be approached delicately in order for it to be believable.

This is a great thread, Breezy. Good job.

 

A few years ago my dad developed Dementia and slowly descended through various stages of paranoia, and I can remember being astounded at the way he could rationalise totally illogical claims. In his case it was something to do with the mind trying to make logical connections out of unrelated events, and coming with the most outrageous stories as a result. I realised then that maybe this was how a lot of people with various forms of mental illness must see the world - as a sort of confusing series of events that they somehow have to make sense of.

One of my kids is autistic - and so I know in her case she does find a lot of what goes on around her quite confusing, and I often have to admire her efforts to make sense of it. I sometimes prefer her version to mind actually. It certainly gives me an insight into another way of seeing.

I can imagine a Jedi developing mental illnesses, as really they are no different to physical diseases. Many of them result from chemical imbalances or injuries. Jedi are not immune to those. I've found Tahiri's story in the FH series particularly interesting, as it parallels to some extent schizophrenia at the same time as showing how the shaping has affected her psyche.

This is an interesting thread and I'm glad to have found it. I'm sure a lot of us write a lot of our own problems and frustrations out in our stories - it is after all quite cathartic at times - so it's only reasonable that we often address darker themes.

Another of my children has had a major struggle with depression, exacerbated by a traumatic rape. Not the sort of thing you want your teenagers to have to deal with, but unfortunately life ain't very nice at times. She writes, too - not SW stuff - and that really helps her. I find, too, that putting an event into a story, as long as it suits the plot, is a really helpful way of putting things at a distance and dealing with them dispassionately. I'm sure most other writers do the same. That's probably why we're compelled to write.

 

up

 

Emperors' Bones - I've done gone and killed the thread

 

I am open to new suggestions for topics.... Anyone?

 

Um...

Incest
Pedophilia
Torture
Unrequited Love (nice emotional angst)


Kithera

 

Thank you Kitt!

As I think it is Torture to watch the age number roll up and over in my profile (and only yesterday it said 36!! ) I think that one will work!

 

Does that means it's your birthday, DarthBreezy? Happy birthday, then! (You know, you could always change your birth year in your profile ... come to think of it, I don't know why I haven't seen more people listed as the 'eternal age' of 29! )