Fan fiction do's and dont's

Writing about self harm and mental health disorders

Ok so I guess this is gonna be a more heavy… chapter? Instalment? Whatever the fuck theses are. Now there's a lot of stories on here on wattpad and that's obviously gonna lead to some writing trends and habits. In a lot of writing authors will often have their characters cut themselves. Now I'm not stupid. I know it happens in real life. The problem is that a lot of the time It’s done inappropriately. Like the main character will have broken up with their partner (after they were dating for like 2 months), so they lock themselves in the bathroom and pull out razor blades. Then in the aftermath of that said character almost bleeds out and die, only to wake up with gauze on their wrists. Now not only is this of bad taste, its super out of left field. Yes you can surprise your readers, but making your characters cut gashes into their body is not the way to go about it. Also some people aren't mentally suited for that. They could have struggled with that or they're squamish or they have an irrational fear of sharp objects. Now I'm a firm believer that trigger warnings have no place in artistic medium. If you do your job right you'll never need one. And if you need one then you should probably rewrite and revise. Now I've touched a lot on self harm. Teen authors also tend to rely heavily on mental health disorders. Now mental health disorders are definitely a thing. But do they need to be a thing in what your writing? No I’ll give you 2 scenarios of a character. Number 1. We have a situation in which a character is distressed do to irrational thought and ill-health. Number 2. We have a situation in which a character is distressed do to being in a hard situation that is generally upsetting and seems to have no clear and or perfect solution. Now which one compels a greater sense of drama? Relying on your character having a mental health disorder is restrictive. And it's often not needed. Say your writing a story about a girl in a Jewish family camp in WWII. And then you decide fuck it she struggles with insecurities about her weight. The character has more important things to worry about. Now if you want to write about mental health make it realistic. If your character is bipolar, chronic panic attack are more than likely out of character. It would make more sense for her to suffer from chronic mood swings. Now if you write realistically it then the topic can make for a very effective and emotionally compelling read. But at the same time the topic is over saturated. You want your work to stand out. Personally I've seen waaaaay to many stories filled with these same exact character points. It tends to make each story feel like the exact same thing. So yeah. Mental health and self harm in literature is a cruch. You don't need it and I BEG you please at least try to write about drama without them. It will make your writing that much more enjoyable.