So one of my betas said in her report that my FL needs more fleshed out development and one part she mentioned needs more was the background information that FL's parents were drug users and neglectful so she estranged herself when she was fifteen. So they said to use that more in her development. What ways can I add it into her characterization? Maybe a scene where she sees a happy couple with their child and she wishes she had that growing up?
more so, how that life has impacted her as an adult. Her parents were addicts... how does this form her view of drugs? Maybe she gets hurt or sick but refuses painkillers because her parents were addicts (or the ML is injured or in pain and she regrets not having painkillers on hand). Maybe she sees an inattentive parent (a minor situation like, the parent talks to another parent while their kid eats sand or something), and she is triggered emotionally by this. how were her parents neglectful? did they starve her (she would have a complex about food). Did they ignore her (she could have attachment issues). Did they use drugs in front of her (she could have feelings of anxiety). I just finished reading a memoir about this guy whos parents were crack addicts. His mother was a functioning crack addict... so no one outside of their household knew that she was a user. she was always at PTA conferences and helped him with his homework... but she would also use and it scared him when she used. She and his father would have shouting matches and the dad would chase her around with a knife because "the voices told him to" or the mom would start crying in the other room. his mom also stole from his best friend's mom to buy drugs when he was in elementary school and got caught. he was so embarrassed by it. his best friend didn't want to be friends with him, he was ostracized, etc. They went through periods of homelessness because his parents smoked away the rent money, or they'd break their promises ("I promise to get clean" "I promise I'm not using" I promise I wont screw up this time"). so through the book, you find that he develops trust issues (when people say they are going to do something, he doubts they really will.... or when they do something unexpected, he feels betrayed). he develops an aversion to abandonment (when his favorite teacher quits, he feels abandoned and starts acting out). He latches on to people he feels can protect him and doesn't want to go home (he starts hanging with a kid who is in a gang because he is street-smart and knows how to protect himself... and even know he never joins the gang himself, he takes comfort in having that kid around because he knows that kid has his back).
Ah this is helpful. For her I do have that they were abusive in front of her, mainly her father going after her mother. And the one incident that traumatized her is when she broke her leg and was in the hospital, her parents never came to get her right away as they were chasing a high. So she was all alone as a little girl in the hospital for hours on end, and when she encounters an injury as an adult, the ML tries to help her with her bandage and she won't let him touch her. I do like the inattentive parent part, and the one about not wanting to go home. I think I can incorporate those into my book. Thank you!
You might consider how trauma affects some people. Sometimes, they learn not to expect anything good for themselves. They don't feel they are worthy. Some may even blame themselves.
A trauma is more than one bad event that causes one poor reaction in somebody's life. If it's really trauma, it would more likely stem from behavior that was continuous and pervasive, not a single event. At least for the kind of trauma you're suggesting. A single event can cause trauma, but that would be something more devastating like being involved in war or a terrible accident or something equivalent. For a parent's behavior to cause trauma it generally requires that behavior to be persistent and repetitive. And the way it affects the character's life would be wholistic—not just that it makes her feel bad one time in her life. It causes a complex of problems that persist throughout her life.
Piggybacking off of Xoic. For instance, I have two characters who went through the same thing together. You see, their family is ultra close, so close that the grandparents are essentially an extra set of parents and the cousins are basically siblings. We learn pretty early on that one of the grandparents left in the middle of the night when the characters were very young, about five. Even though they still had their remaining grandparent and their own parents, at that age and with their relationship, it was still as though a parent had abandoned them. This causes the three characters to approach life in different ways. One had experienced severe separation anxiety, she gets angry when her parents work all the time and miss her events, she feels like she has to be constantly aware of all things in her life, sometimes causing her to overthink certain things and to not let things go if she feels like a secret is being kept from her and she's very worried about disappointing people. She's also very attached to her friends and is initially scared of taking a certain opportunity because they became her safe space during that time and she doesn't want to lose her friends or said safe space, (dunno if it makes sense). The second character is a bit more simple, his only friend stopped being his friend at the same time that this grandparent left, and with the other kids either picking on him or avoiding him like the plague, this causes him to not want to form any other connections with people outside of the family. He also tends to assume the worst in people, assuming that they're either making fun of him or will stop being his friend first chance they get. He's very attached to his family, he's especially protective of his cousin, but he's also quick to blame himself when things go wrong. I'm no psychologist but your character, while they would have an aversion to the hospital, wouldn't be opposed to having bandages placed on her. She might have an aversion to yelling or violence, sending her into fight or flight mode. She might be super closed off towards people or maybe she's very clingy towards people. tldr: don't be discouraged. Dig a little deeper, think about how characters in other stories react to similar events to the ones your character faces. The stories you've watched, played through, and read are your guide, all will be well if you follow it.
Ohhh I see! I don't know why I didn't think of that. Yes, she did grow up with her parents seeing the abuse for years on end at her mother, and her father would scream at her. The only kindness she really received was when her grandmother was able to take care of her at times. So, maybe the way to go is to have her still have some trauma from that as an adult.
Oh, this is helpful. I'm not discouraged, I'm more kicking myself that I didn't think deep enough. I can see her definitely having trouble to yelling, and activating her flight mode. Since she's already closed off to people after moving away, I can emphasize more of that too. Thank you for the help!
