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Writing Excuses

Writing Excuses 8.11: Abnormal Psychology

Writing Excuses

Mary Robinette Kowal, DongWon Song, Erin Roberts, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler

Business, Careers, Fiction

4.61.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2013

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Robison Wells joins us again, this time to help us with a discussion of writing characters with abnormal psychology. What are our resources for describing these characters in compelling, believable ways? What are the tricks, the pitfalls, and the landmines.

Brandon frames the discussion with some terms from his abnormal psych class, but let's lay down a caveat right now: none of us are experts in abnormal psych. We have done lots of research in lots of different fields, we all love learning things, but we're not doctors.

And that's where you need to start -- love learning, and research this heavily. This is an exercise in "writing the other." Dr. Laura Skellchock helps us with this research by describing what's going on with his panic disorder, giving us helpful insight into the sorts of details we'll need to make any mentally ill character believable. Our Sponsors: * Check out HomeServe and use my code homeserve.com/excuses for a great deal: https://www.homeserve.com * Check out Talkiatry and use my code Talkiatry.com/WX for a great deal: https://www.talkiatry.com Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/writing-excuses2130/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This year my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner.

0:04.8

It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me.

0:08.8

The entire family shows up.

0:11.8

I'm talking fourth cousins once removed and this is not an

0:15.1

exaggeration which means that during the lead up I don't have time to menu plan or

0:20.0

cook anything else. That's when I turn to prepared meals like Factor, America's

0:26.0

number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Factor can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietition approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door.

0:37.0

It allows me to save time and not eat garbage while tackling all my holiday to-do's.

0:42.0

So if you want to cross meal prepping... while tackling all my holiday to-do's.

0:42.6

So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list

0:45.8

this holiday season, consider factor.

0:48.4

You can skip the meal planning, grocery shopping,

0:50.9

shopping, shopping, prepping, and cleaning up, and get factors fresh never frozen meals delivered

0:55.8

to your door.

0:56.8

They're ready in just two minutes, which my dad says is the appropriate amount of time to cook

1:01.4

a meal.

1:02.4

He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy.

1:07.0

And if you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor isn't just for dinner.

1:15.1

Count on extra convenience any time of the day with an assortment of 55-plus add-ons to suit various

1:20.8

preferences and tastes.

1:22.8

So you can carve out some writing time in the morning by choosing quick breakfast items,

1:27.2

lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat cold-pressed juices, shakes, and smoothies.

...

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