Even the Hero Struggles: Portraying Mental Health in Fantasy Novels

By S.G. Blaise

Recently, the discussion of mental health has become a more pertinent topic. New research emerges everyday about mental health issues. May has been declared mental health awareness month. We talk more openly about our experiences and offer a better understanding of what it is to live with mental health issues. Support groups and organizations (let it be online or in-person) offer help to anyone who seeks it. Thanks to these efforts, there has been a palpable shift when it comes to mental health from taboo to destigmatized. 

According to the National Alliance on Mental Health Illness, 20.6% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2019. That’s over 51 million people. One in five people are affected by mental illness each year (“Mental Health by the Numbers.” NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness, www.nami.org/mhstats.). In other words, mental health is part of our identity more often than not.

When readers pick up a book, they hope to find some likeness of themselves or something they can relate to in the characters. This connection can be cathartic and powerful. These characters provide more than just entertainment; they become like friends. Readers can follow the character’s struggle with external and internal obstacles and triumph along with their hero when they overcome these obstacles at the end of the story. The characters of today’s books have to evolve as our lives evolve and include mental health issues as part of the narrative. Yet there is a vacuum of such characters. Especially in fantasy.

Portraying characters who experience mental health issues in fantasy stories and how they deal with them is essential. Not only do these characters represent struggles with mental health issues to those who live with it, but they also offer a better understanding to those who are not directly impacted by it. That’s why it is important we portray these mental health issues with care and balance, reflecting thorough research if not written from personal experience. It is also important how the characters deal with these mental health issues. This cannot be the only central problem, but part of a bigger picture of their experiences and normalized to show that there are ways to deal with them. The more normalized these issues are, the better the reader can see a way of life that can be in balance. This balance creates a sense of belonging and inclusion across society. 

Having complex and diverse characters who struggle with mental health are a window into real life. These characters are vital to represent the entirety of the human experience, furthering the efforts to destigmatize mental health issues, and connect with readers who have been suffering in silence, never feeling included or visible, even in fiction.

Stories in any form, like books, comic books, films or TV shows have been shaping our view of the world and each other and will continue to shape it in the future. It is imperative that the characters in these stories evolve to include all aspects of life, including mental health issues.

S.G. Blaise is the author of The Last Lumenian series. Her latest book, True Teryn (The Last Lumenian Series Book 2), will be released on December 7, 2021.

Introversion is My Superpower

By Olivia Swindler

I have always been quiet. As a kid, my teachers would often warn my parents that I was shy—as if this was an ailment—and suggested that I learn to speak up more in class. I was highly anxious, and the thought of walking to the bathroom alone made my palms sweaty. I was content to spend 90% of the day in my room. Without some coaxing, I don’t think I ever would have left my house.

However, I don’t consider my existence terrible. I think that my demeanor is a superpower.

More times than I care to admit, I realize upon leaving a party that I spoke a total of twenty words. But my lack of vocalization is never because I am bored or uncomfortable. In reality, the less I say, the better time I am having because, in these moments, I get to do one of my favorite things: observe. 

I realized from a young age that people say and do the most exciting things when they are given the space to. As a kid, I remember observing people and writing stories in my head about their life, their habits, how they had ended up wherever I found them. Writing imaginary stories of other people’s lives was how I spent the majority of my childhood.

I moved to France in 2016, wide-eyed and firmly convinced that, after spending more than seven years studying the language, I spoke French. It took less than twenty-four hours with my French host family for that theory to be proven false.

“After two weeks in France, you will be fluent!” people told me before I made my move across the ocean. They were wrong. I did, however, perfect my listening skills.

There are a lot of emotions that come with losing your ability to communicate with the people around you. Some of them are incredibly frustrating. (Once I spent forty minutes explaining to my host family mom that we make cookies with molasses in America and asking where I could buy it, only for her to go to the fridge and triumphantly produce mayonnaise.) For the most part, nevertheless, I have been grateful to hone my skills as an observer of human behavior.

All of those years I had spent quietly enjoying and observing the party prepared me well for my new home. I spent most of my first years in France observing. As a writer, especially, I could not have asked for a better source of inspiration. France is known for its cafe culture. It is not uncommon to spend three hours sitting on the terrace, slowly sipping a cappuccino, watching the world pass you by.

One of the essentials of writing is observing. I want what I write to be believable. I want my characters to be people that you would want, for the most part, to be friends with, and the best way to write a believable story is to observe the world around you. I have had the privilege of traveling to many different countries, but, no matter where in the world life takes me, I have learned the most in the moments when I unplug and allow myself to fully be where I am.

I have also found how important it is to lean into a story and how people find me approachable when I do. I have had the most interesting interactions with people in the airport. Almost every time I travel, someone befriends me. Nine times out of ten, they tell me their story. There is something miraculously beautiful about the people we meet along the way. It is such a gift to be trusted with other people’s stories.

I had a conversation with a mom who was moving to Croatia so that her son with asthma could benefit from better air. I had a comedian tell me about his career in Paris. I met a woman who studied in Hawaii but moved to Bali to finally live with her German boyfriend. Countless conversations with people I will most likely never see again, and all of these people have made their way into my writing, consciously or subconsciously. 

There is power in stopping and observing the world around us. It is an inspiring place, whether we live in France or rural Washington. I am constantly inspired by my life in France because I have created a life that allows space to be inspired. By sitting and listening to those around me, I have thousands of stories turning in my head, waiting to be told.
Stop for a minute today and see the world around you. You might be surprised by the stories that are waiting to be told.

Olivia Swinder is the Communication Coordinator for Young Life in Europe and the author of debut novel, Cynthia Starts a Band (October 2021, Morgan James Fiction). Find more about her and her book here at oliviaswindler.com.

My Wonderful, Interesting, Not So Special Life

by Bo Bonnet, PhD, Author of A Mostly Magnificent Memoir: True Stories Dramatized and Somewhat Fictionalized 

In the 1990's, Jerry Seinfeld had a smash hit TV show about "nothin'." This was the pitch... it was a show about nothing. Actually, the show was about four of the most entertaining characters of all time, navigating their mundane lives in a hilarious way. None of the characters were saving the world. None of them suffered through any horrific life event and came out stronger. None of the characters did anything remarkable. It is not about what they did or did not do, but how they did it. It was this idea that inspired me to write my story. I would write it to be factually accurate, but in a way that made it entertaining to read. In a sense, this is the art of storytelling.

Now that I convinced myself that even the story of a "regular guy" could be told in an interesting and entertaining way, I realized that many of my stories were far from mundane, normal, or about "nothing." It was just a matter of taking a trip down memory lane and jotting down notes on all these stories, then deciding which could be told in a way that would be interesting and entertaining to someone who doesn't know me. I chose the stories, then started writing... and writing... and writing.

Being only 45 years old, my life story is far from complete. I realize this, so I chose to write about the first 25 years of my life only—at least in this book. I think many people might hold off on writing their life story because there is much more to be told. Even if we don't get hit by a bus tomorrow, we never know when the last chapter will be metaphorically written, so it's best to literally write as many chapters as we can now. That's exactly what I did.

Writing Your Story

Your story is worth telling. If you go back through your life, I am sure you can recall many interesting events. Now, share those events in an interesting and entertaining way. The elements of good storytelling are beyond the scope of this post, but there are many online resources that can help you with this. But here are some tips:

• What are the stories you tell to others who seemed to be entertained by them?

• How can you add humor to them?

• How can you add an emotional component?

• How can you add suspense?

• What visual elements can you include?

• How can you end the book so the readers feel a sense of closure?

Thanks to modern publishing, you can always update your book and add chapters on a regular basis. I plan on adding a few chapters every year to mine.

The bottom line is, write your story. Your friends and family want to read it, and if you write well, strangers will want to read it too. No, your life's not over yet, but if everyone waited until they were dead to write their life story, there would be no autobiographies.