When you are creating the characters for your novel, it is vital that you give them some depth and make them as realistic to the reader as possible. If you are going to give them a mental condition, then it is absolutely vital you do your research. If a reader is suffering from the same illness or knows of someone that is, then they will notice any irregularities immediately. Take, for example, schizophrenia. Many writers only create a character with this illness if they are the villain who kills their victims because of voices in their heads telling them to do so. However, the illness of schizophrenia is so much more complex than that. Many schizophrenics are more likely to hurt themselves than others.

Schizophrenia is a difficult subject to include in your novel, but if you can get it right, then you will have created a rich and very complex, memorable character for your reader. This will help dismiss all the preconceived ideas about the illness, and normalise the difficulties faced by a person with mental illness.

The illness can affect not only those who are suffering from it, but also the people close to them, so remember to keep that in mind for the characters who interact with them. The illness can manifest itself in many ways; you could create a schizophrenic character that has an unusual job related to the illness, such as a doctor or working for a charity that helps people with a mental illness. How would they cope with the illness while trying to live a normal life?

Schizophrenia can develop suddenly from the use of recreational drugs or a stressful event in their lives, or gradually over years. The symptoms can be divided into two groups, positive and negative. People suffering from the Positive type of the illness will suffer from hallucinations or voices in their heads, whilst the Negative symptoms will cause the person to withdraw into themselves.

Hallucinations would be a very powerful symptom for your character, as this involves seeing, hearing things, or believing someone is there when they are not. These feelings are very powerful for the person with the illness, and research has shown that the brain really believes the hallucinations are real. The voices can be critical or friendly so your creative options are numerous.

Your character could also suffer with delusions, where they hold strong opinions that something is true, no matter if this thought pattern is strange or totally wrong. You could, for example, have your character believe that another character is giving them subliminal messages, or they could be convinced they are being persecuted by another character.

A person with this illness can also receive messages or hold strong beliefs that they should avoid certain places. This would make the perfect platform to create conflict, if the character is forced to visit that same place.

Other symptoms you could include would be the character avoiding people because they feel persecuted. Their thought patterns will become so disorientated; this will affect their speech and concentration. They will also jump from one topic of conversation to a completely different topic.

I hope I have given you some good material for one of your next characters.