Will schizophrenia give my character more depth?
What in Sam Hill are you talking about?
This question is probably based on the idea that characters need to be deep in order to be real and enjoyable. Let's go to the example board to see what I mean. Which character sounds more interesting to you?
- Jane, a 30-year-old living in New York City who works in sales.
- Sara, a single 26-year-old living in a cheap apartment in Brooklyn who works in church supply sales and barely makes a living.
No offense, Jane, but you're kind of boring. Millions of people live in NYC, so why should I care? And she works in sales? What kind of sales? With that sentence, Jane could work on either Wall Street or a street corner. Sara, on the other hand, is more interesting. Church supply sales? That's unusual. And I could see how that wouldn't rake in the money, forcing her to live in a cheap apartment in a poorer part of New York City.
The deep end of the pool is great; the Marianas Trench is just scary
From the above, Sara has more depth. She's deeper than Jane. There's more substance to Sara and she seems more real and interesting, which makes any story with Sara in it more real and interesting. That's what depth is all about. A deep character is one with substance and detail that comes across as real and interesting to the reader.
But it's not as simple as adding some weird details. How realistic is the following character?
- Melissa, a single 34-year-old albino African Pigmy living in the sewers below Central Park who works part-time as a supermodel for Jiffy Lube and eats nothing but bean sprouts and diet Dr. Pepper.
Melissa is too weird to be believable. Readers will either laugh or just throw the book away if they start reading a story with her in it. Like so many things in life, a character's depth has to be balanced. Unusual is great. Weird has it's place, but sparingly.
Which is a nice segue into schizophrenia. Yes, mental disabilities do give a character more depth. A character with bi-polar disorder is more interesting than one with no problems. Normal equals boring in literature. But remember there should be some balance. Too weird is as bad as boring.
A method to the madness
I think schizophrenia is a little harsh, but it could be done if the story requires it. Why give this character a mental disability? If it's important to the story somehow, then do it. If it's because you can't think of other ways to make a character realistic and interesting, then don't. Remember the writer's mantra: only put in what's important to the story.
If the character has schizophrenia, the reader will assume there's an important reason. If they finish the story and schizophrenia is never used in the plot, the reader will get annoyed. It's so weird that the reader will expect something to happen. And few things are more annoying to a reader than being disappointed.
Again, use it only if it's important to the plot somehow. Otherwise, find less severe character traits to add some depth. Flesh out your character some more. What's their age, sexual orientation, or favorite food? Are they afraid of heights, and why? Do they collect Negro League baseball cards or Early American period milk cans?
You don't need to disble a character to make them interesting (although I'd personally like to see more disabled characters).
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