Expert: Cathy Clamp - 2/21/2011

Question
Dear Expert:

I am currently writing Mini-Bios for the primary characters for a three volume novel. To help with the development of each character's personality, I use the Enneagram, Zodiac, and Psychology as tools.

Though the majority of primary characters use Psychological "illnesses" as a personality trait reference; i.e. a character has gender identity issues. From the outset, I have known I wanted one person to have serious mental health issues that are not readily obvious. As an example, this character suffers from heterophobia but it can be displayed as extreme shyness or discomfort around the opposite sex.

How should I go about creating this character's bio so that the illness is obvious and not a reference point?

Answer
Hi, Charles!

I guess I'm a little confused about what you consider a "character bio." Typically, a character bio contains information about the physical attributes, the history, background and personality traits. So, saying that the character has heterophobia would normally be sufficient for the purpose of a bio. They're customarily only one single spaced page each. But it seems you put more into the bio than that.

Ultimately, it all comes down to how you portray the psychology on the page. "Shyness" can be shown on the page both by the internal narrative and physiology of the character as well as external observation from other characters. And it also depends on whether the character is okay with his trait or "trying to get over it." It would be awkward in social settings, for example, and could be portrayed something like this:

[internal narrative, set apart in italics] Oh, dear lord. Bob's here and he just touched that girl at the bar. Touched her! Is he bi- or something? Maybe I can sneak out before he sees me. [end italic] Sam looked out through the sea of people in the bar, trying to find the exit. He pulled his arm back sharply as a scantily clad woman and her . . . date came within inches of touching him. He shuddered involuntarily and nearly dove for the safety of the table with three men casualty holding hands. They looked at him oddly and that was hard because it wasn't his fault the straights kept coming to his home, his haven. He felt a touch on his shoulder. Turning his head made him nearly scream. Bob had touched him. And he was smiling. Sam felt his stomach lurch. His hand raised quickly to his mouth and he scrambled toward the bathroom before he ruined his expensive shoes with stomach acid.

To an outsider looking in, like from Bob's POV, Sam doesn't look well. He must have seen him raise his hand at the bar and yet bolted the other way. He's in a hurry and when Bob finally caught up, Sam looked ready to throw up.  That wouldn't give away Sam's condition. It would just look to Bob and the three men at the table like he had food poisoning. Without the internal dialogue and deep POV into Sam, the reader would struggle to understand what he was going through. That's tough to put into a bio and have it make sense to anyone else.

Does that make sense?

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Cathy