For a short story WIP my MC suffers from Schizoid Personality Disorder. It's kind of essential to the plot that she does, without giving anything away here.
One of the main symptoms of SPD is that the sufferer feels very little - and commonly no - emotions. I used to work with someone who suffered from Schizophrenia (though not SPD) and I've read through some case studies and interviews to get the proper feel for the character. SPD sufferers seem to have a very "grey" experience of the world, with no colour, and no emotional deviations at all, no ups, no downs, just a lot of apathy.
So my question as a writer is - and you may have guessed - is the lack of emotion going to be a major hindrance to the reader experience? I'm a thousand or so words in at present, and am working on substituting the emotional experience for intrigue and mystery, which her analytical mind (and, by extension, the reader) is trying to unravel. I'll probably put something up on crits at some point, though not just yet.
By the way, I should probably add that she is not the hackneyed cliche of a "Psycho" killer, violent and unstable etc - she's got a job (cyber engineer) which she's good at, and can function pretty well in society, save for being emotionally 'not there.'
So, does all this add up to an engaging reader experience?
One of the main symptoms of SPD is that the sufferer feels very little - and commonly no - emotions. I used to work with someone who suffered from Schizophrenia (though not SPD) and I've read through some case studies and interviews to get the proper feel for the character. SPD sufferers seem to have a very "grey" experience of the world, with no colour, and no emotional deviations at all, no ups, no downs, just a lot of apathy.
So my question as a writer is - and you may have guessed - is the lack of emotion going to be a major hindrance to the reader experience? I'm a thousand or so words in at present, and am working on substituting the emotional experience for intrigue and mystery, which her analytical mind (and, by extension, the reader) is trying to unravel. I'll probably put something up on crits at some point, though not just yet.
By the way, I should probably add that she is not the hackneyed cliche of a "Psycho" killer, violent and unstable etc - she's got a job (cyber engineer) which she's good at, and can function pretty well in society, save for being emotionally 'not there.'
So, does all this add up to an engaging reader experience?