Insanity and craziness are terms we often use to describe our characters. They maybe be wacky, or reckless, or unorthodox in the plans which they execute on the fly. What about actual insanity? How often do we have characters that are so distant from reality that the law would not qualify them as being responsible for their own actions?

Are any of your characters insane? What do you think of the notion?

Some of my characters have been insane temporarily, like an illness. I think this is fairly true to life. What is your definition of insane? Sometimes the law considers that deep depression is enough to render someone irresponsible for their actions.

Ooh. I forgot about illness.

I would define it more seriously. One who is not capable of comprehending their surroundings to the point of being able to be trusted to be responsible. That might mean illnesses, drug addiction, PTSD, or simply a medical condition that makes one hallucinate; though when I say "insane characters" I more so mean something that is a longstanding condition, not a product of drugs, illness, or triggering something. I was thinking of the dynamics of a constantly insane character, but those all qualify as well, to a degree.

It's a hard thing to classify, because the characters in fiction I have seen that are considered insane are not ones I would fit into this category. The A-Team's Murdock may have a mental condition that reduces his inhibitions, but I wouldn't qualify him as being irresponsible of his actions. More reckless in absurd ways, certainly, but ultimately still aware of what he is doing.

Mister Dick from David Copperfield might qualify to a degree. He has some delusions of being royalty, but for the most part he seems more a simpleton than a madman. His mental condition makes him incapable of taking care of himself, but he still seems to be in most of his senses, and capable of following orders and behaving well. I have only seen the miniseries though, so I could be mistaken there.

I remember writing my insane character... that was a fun time. She'd be literally insane, right? Things got complicated in my mind after I actually developed the system she revolves around.

So, the basis for my book is that literally every person on the planet is insane in some form or another. Without trying to overload you, here's a bunch of thoughts on that...

*dies of excitement*

Firstly, you need to think about the degree of insanity here. There's a big difference between stark raving mad and having a mild mental illness. The first is downright disturbing to research, and includes things like attempting to eat your own body parts. The second is much more "fun" to write about, and allows the individual to "continue on" with their lives, to an extent.

Take the titular case in "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat," which is a very interesting read from a doctor who examined many such patients.
http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-H ... 1491514078
This fellow had some problem with the part of his brain that recognizes objects. When asked to describe a flower, he would say that it was a "convoluted red form with a linear green attachment". Yet despite not being able to tell the difference between his foot and his shoe, he was still somehow able to teach music at a local school.

Second, as for responsibility of your own actions...

This is hard to narrow down even with regular mental illnesses, but what about with personality disorders? There is a brilliant two-part episode on the Dick Van Dyke show which stars Dick's brother Jerry playing as Dick's brother who suffers from a sleepwalking & personality disorder. When he's awake, he's reticient, shy, and wears glasses. When he's asleep, he's outgoing, hilarious, and plays the ukulele. It's fictional, but there's a bit of truth to it.
Point is, there are people out there with different "identities" and memories, who may act vengeful one second and churchy the next. Should these people be responsible for their actions?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditi ... y-disorder

In my WIP, I use a lot of different "types" of mental illnesses and neurological disorders. Many are criminally ill, because this is a sort-of penal colony, after all. Others have personality disorders, while still others have various other disorders which I would actually put closer to physical disabilities than anything, combined with all-around general stupidity.

(I probably overused the personality disorders, but you can have SO much fun with it! For example, there's this police sketch artist with dual personalities. He sketches for the police, but they only get half a mug shot because his other personality can't even draw stick figures. )

One other thing I've thought long and hard about (and still haven't resolved) is how to portray these less-than-totally-insane individuals. The last thing I want to do is hurt anyone's feelings who legitimately has these problems and struggles with them every day of their lives. For instance, I plan to mention Synesthesia, which is the confusion of the senses - e.g. you "listen" to the smell of a red rose, or "smell" the blue in the sky. This is funny, but not particularly harmful, and I would hate to make fun of someone with a harmless neurological disorder.
http://www.livescience.com/169-rare-rea ... color.html

Hope this helps! Ask me some more questions please, I am the resident insanity expert.

And... here's a list I had of "Awesomely Weird Mental Disorders", as I called it. I did a lot of research for this. If you find any more, let me know, I'll add it to the list!

Capgras's Syndrome - individual does not recognize faces. Thus believes close acquaintances or family members to be identical imposters.

Cotard's Syndrome - individual believes he or she is dead.

Synesthesia - gets senses mixed up. The color blue tastes like blueberries, the sky sounds like a harp...

Foreign Accent Syndrome- due to a blow to the head, the individual begins speaking in a completely different accent.

Boanthropy - individual believes himself/herself to be a cow.

Alien Hand Syndrome - The individual's hand takes on a mind of its own.

Lima Syndrome - opposite of Stockholm syndrome, where the kidnappers become extremely sympathetic to their hostages.

Reduplicative Paramnesia - individual believes that a place or location (often their own home) has been duplicated or relocated to another location.

Zero Stroke - from Germany after WW2, this is caused by an insane inflation rate causing immense numbers of zeros, and requiring advanced math just to calculate grocery costs. The individual eventually sees zeros all the time, even when sleeping, and will refer to themselves as 40 billion years old, or some such.

Wild Pig Syndrome - individual goes on a shopping or stealing spree for several days, not caring for consequences, and comes back not remembering a thing.

Jumping Frenchmen of Maine - individual will obey any command given in such a way as to startle them. ("Jump out a window!" for instance.)

Environmental Agnosia - is the inability to locate a specific room or building that one is familiar with, as well as the inability to provide directions for how to arrive at a particular location. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosia

Time Agnosia - is the loss of comprehension of the succession and duration of events. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosia

Fregoli Syndrome - individual believes that everyone is the same person.

Mirrored-Self Misidentification - individual does not recognize themselves when they look in a mirror. Or they think it's a doppelganger, long lost twin, etc.

Visual Agnosia - Individual has trouble knowing the difference between objects and people - putting bread in brother's hair cuz they think he's a toaster.

Somatoparaphrenia - doesn't recognize a body part (usually a limb) as their own, think's it's been grafted onto them.

Anosognosia - a paralyzed individual refuses to believe they're paralyzed.

Prosopagnosia - individual doesn't recognize anyone, is convinced that all are total strangers. This is NOT memory loss, simply an inability to match familiar faces with memory of individual.

Historical rulers who were insane:
King George the third - straitjacket
Charles the Sixth - thought he was made of glass and could break.
Justin II of Byzantine heard voices, had organ music played to drown them out.
The Zhengde Emperor of China - played make-believe

The mind is such an interesting thing, isn't it? I've been pondering the idea of writing a character with Alien Hand Syndrome for a while now, but haven't been able to fit it in with any of my projects.

Here's the thing about "insanity" and "insane" characters. Insanity is not an actual clinical diagnosis, by any means. So there always has to be something else going on to justify the claim of being insane, and even then, very, very few actually qualify to be a valid plea.

The most infamous insane character, no doubt, is the Joker, who is not actually insane at all, in any media that I have seen him in. He's always very deliberate, very organized, and very intentional for what he does and he enjoys it. Does that truly make him insane? No, it does not. Even most mental illnesses are not correlated with an increased propensity for criminal or antisocial behavior. What does correlate is narcissism and psychopathy, which are personality traits that can be elevated to disorders.

Even those do not qualify for the insanity plea. They're actually among the most common disorders to be found among inmates, with extremely high prevalence among male offenders.

And then, as for Murdock, I don't think he actually had anything wrong with him mentally. If anything, given the nature of his antics, they were deliberate actions to get him hospitalized. In a way, he's rather similar to the Joker, using bizarre and non-normative behavior to achieve an end goal.

Even most of the reasons you listed in the third post, Rin, are very unlikely to result in criminal behavior. Accidents, perhaps, but not criminal behavior. Hallucinations, which signify the presence of schizophrenia, are typically harmless. Even paranoid delusions, which can often generate hostility, almost never result in criminal behavior. (A side note: to be psychotic is to suffer from psychosis, which is the state of experiencing hallucinations) When individuals do suffer from any of these disorders to be incapable of being responsible for their actions, they're also usually too incapacitated to engage in any activities. This is why hospitalization is sometimes necessary. They can't take care of themselves.

And then, there's also the consequences of using non-violent terms or illnesses as an excuse for violent behavior in characters. It does hurt people who suffer from those same diagnoses by contributing to old stereotypes and ill-informed fears about what they are and what they might do that contributes to the stigma we have in American society concerning mental health.

I would argue the point, but I'd lose. ) I was going to say that this seems pretty insane to me, but I think I'm wrong. "Insane" is defined as:

That's intriguing. I'd love to see some of your work / thoughts on that, if you have any! Would it be a comedy, or more drama-ish?

I think it would have elements of both comedy and drama, depending on whether my Alien Hand afflicted character is the MC or in a supporting role.

My work is often serious, a little dark even, but I like to put in humorous moments to lighten the mood now and then. It would be most interesting to me to see how other characters react to someone with Alien Hand syndrome.

Very few, if any, of the people in the world I write in would have an understanding of what causes Alien Hand syndrome. Most people in my world would assume that this person has been cursed or bewitched in some way. I guess that goes with my style, because I've been writing about a lot of outcasts lately.

@NRuhwald: I'm curious to know why you chose Alien Hand, of all things. I definitely don't know much more about it than what I have in the list above.

@mborn: Alien Hand Syndrome is caused by a breakdown in communication between the two hemispheres of the brain, usually caused by a brain injury. The "alien hand" is still being controlled by the brain, but it is being controlled by a part of the brain the person is no longer conscious of.

I thought Alien Hand would be interesting because it wouldn't incapacitate the character, but would still cause a great deal of personal and social havoc.