Learn how to write depressed, grieving, shy, and aimless characters who stay active and engaging. Master the crucial difference between realistic inactivity and compelling fiction.
The Reader’s Breaking Point
Page 75:
The protagonist is depressed. They lie in bed. They stare at the ceiling. They don’t answer calls. They order takeout. They watch TV numbly. They think about how empty life feels.
Page 100:
Still in bed. Still staring. Still not answering calls. More thoughts about emptiness.
Page 125:
Reader’s internal monologue: “I GET IT. They’re depressed. But this is excruciating to read. When are they going to DO something?”
Page 150:
[Book abandoned. Reader seeks literally any other activity, including organizing their sock drawer.]
What happened?
The writer confused realistic with compelling.
Yes, real depression often looks like extended inactivity. No, that doesn’t make for good fiction.
This is one of the hardest challenges in fiction writing:
How do you capture genuinely difficult emotional states—depression, grief, shyness, aimlessness, cowardice—without boring readers to tears?
The answer: Even characters in the darkest, most paralyzed states must remain internally active in ways that create narrative momentum.
This guide reveals the crucial distinction between realism and believability, why even immobile characters must try, and exactly how to write depression, grief, shyness, and aimlessness that grips readers instead of repelling them.
Understanding the Problem: Why Realistic Can Be Boring
The Fiction Paradox
Fiction is not real life.
We accept:
- Dragons that rap
- Magical schools for wizards
- Time travel paradoxes
- Faster-than-light travel
We reject:
- Slightly clunky dialogue
- Characters who act “unrealistically” (even if real people do exactly that)
- Scenes that drag despite being accurate to real experience
Why?
Fiction must be believable, not realistic.
Believable = Feels true to emotional experience Realistic = Accurately depicts actual events/behavior
These are not the same.
The Alchemy of Fiction
As Anne R. Allen points out:
“Believable fiction often feels MORE realistic than a verbatim transcript of real life.”
Example:
Real conversation (realistic): “Um, so, like, yeah, I was, uh, thinking about, you know, the thing we, um, talked about and, like…” [Continues for 5 minutes with filler words, tangents, interruptions]
Fiction conversation (believable): “I’ve been thinking about what you said. You’re right.”
The second feels MORE real because it captures the essence without the tedium.
Same principle applies to difficult emotional states.
What Readers Actually Need
When character is depressed/grieving/shy/aimless, readers need:
NOT:
- Page after page of accurate inactivity
- Extended passive suffering
- Realistic paralysis
BUT:
- Character actively engaging with their state
- Internal or external trying
- Movement (even if slow) toward something
- Obstacles that explain why trying is hard
The key: Show the struggle, not just the state.
The Common Arc That Fails
The Pattern Writers Attempt
Act 1: Character is shy/timid/depressed/aimless Act 2: Character remains shy/timid/depressed/aimless for 200 pages Act 3: Crisis forces character to act, they suddenly find courage/purpose/strength
Why readers abandon this:
200 pages of passivity = torture.
Readers think: “If they don’t care enough to try until page 250, why should I care on page 75?”
The Frustration Cycle
Reader on page 50: “Okay, character is struggling. I understand.” Reader on page 100: “They’re still just… struggling. No attempts to change.” Reader on page 150: “For the love of all that’s holy, TRY SOMETHING.” Reader on page 200: [Closes book, never finishes]
The problem:
Waiting until crisis to show character trying makes the first 200 pages feel pointless. Readers need to see effort throughout, even if that effort fails.
Contemporary Examples: Activity in Difficulty
Depression Done Right: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
Eleanor’s state:
- Deeply depressed
- Isolated
- Traumatized
- Struggling with basic life skills
How Honeyman keeps her active:
NOT: Eleanor lies in bed for chapters, passively depressed
BUT: Eleanor actively engages with her dysfunction:
- Pursues (misguided) crush on musician (active goal)
- Helps rescue Sammy (takes initiative)
- Navigates social situations badly but tries
- Makes terrible decisions but they’re DECISIONS
- Eventually pursues therapy (active choice)
Key: Even her dysfunction is active. She’s not just depressed and passive—she’s depressed and making terrible choices while trying to function.
Result: Compelling despite difficulty because Eleanor never stops trying.
Grief Done Right: The Midnight Library
Nora’s state:
- Suicidal depression
- Overwhelming grief and regret
- Sees no point in living
How Haig keeps her active:
NOT: Nora contemplates death passively for 300 pages
BUT:
- Makes active choice about suicide (attempting, not just considering)
- Actively explores alternate lives (agency in metaphysical space)
- Engages with each reality (trying different versions)
- Makes choices about which life to pursue
- Actively decides to return to her life
Key: Even in her lowest moment, Nora is making choices and actively engaging with her existential crisis.
Shyness Done Right: The Hating Game
Lucy’s situation:
- Anxious in professional settings
- Intimidated by Joshua
- Socially awkward at times
How Thorne keeps her active:
NOT: Lucy timidly accepts everything, never speaks up
BUT:
- Actively competes with Joshua (despite anxiety)
- Makes bold moves (even when terrified)
- Pursues what she wants professionally
- Takes risks in relationship despite fear
- Internal narrative shows her TRYING to be brave
Key: We see the internal struggle AND the external attempts, even when she fails.
Aimlessness Done Right: Severance by Ling Ma
Candace’s state:
- Adrift in capitalism
- Zombie apocalypse mirrors spiritual emptiness
- Lacks clear purpose
How Ma keeps her active:
NOT: Candace wanders aimlessly without direction or goals
BUT:
- Makes survival decisions (active engagement with apocalypse)
- Reflects actively on meaning of work and life
- Maintains routines (choosing structure)
- Navigates group dynamics (social choices)
- Searches for meaning while acknowledging meaninglessness
Key: The aimlessness is philosophical position, not narrative paralysis. Character still acts.
Complete Immobility Done Right: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Toru’s situation:
- Sits at bottom of well for dozens of pages
- Literally immobile
- Wife missing, life falling apart
How Murakami keeps it riveting:
Internal activity:
- Actively searches memories for answers
- Engages with surreal experiences
- Processes his reality
- Seeks understanding of wife’s disappearance
- His immobility is PURPOSEFUL (not passive surrender)
Key: Physical immobility with mental/spiritual activity. He’s down there TO discover something.
The Solution: Show Trying (And Failing)
The Core Principle
Characters must try, even if they fail.
This means:
For shy character:
- NOT: Never speaks up, accepts everything
- BUT: Tries to speak, voice fails, words won’t come, gets ignored, tries again, fails again
For depressed character:
- NOT: Stays in bed for weeks
- BUT: Forces self out of bed (small victory), tries to shower (exhausting), attempts to go outside (panic attack), retreats (failure), tries again tomorrow
For grieving character:
- NOT: Shuts down completely for months
- BUT: Tries to function, breaks down, tries again, small moments of distraction fail, attempts normalcy collapse, keeps attempting
For aimless character:
- NOT: Wanders without purpose or goals
- BUT: Tries different things seeking purpose, pursues goals (even bad ones), experiments with identity, fails at multiple approaches
The pattern: TRY → FAIL → TRY AGAIN → SMALL WIN → SETBACK → TRY DIFFERENT APPROACH
Why Failure Is Essential
Showing failure serves multiple purposes:
1. Establishes stakes If character tries and fails, we understand the obstacle is real.
2. Creates investment We’ve seen them put skin in the game, so we care about eventual success.
3. Makes success earned Transformation feels believable because we saw the struggle.
4. Maintains narrative momentum Attempts create events, even failed attempts.
5. Reveals character How they fail and respond shows who they are.
Practical Techniques for Active Difficulty
Technique 1: The Incremental Attempt Strategy
Structure difficult character development as series of small tries:
Depression example:
Chapter 5: Character forces self out of bed (tiny victory) Chapter 10: Attempts to go to work (makes it to car, panic attack, retreats) Chapter 15: Makes it to work, barely functions, counts as success Chapter 20: Work all day but can’t interact with people Chapter 25: Small social interaction achieved Climax: Major functioning, still depressed but managing
Each chapter shows ATTEMPT, even if success is minimal.
Technique 2: The Internal Activity Framework
When character can’t be externally active, make them internally active:
Internal activities that create narrative momentum:
Active remembering: Searching memory for answers (not just passive flashback) Active deciding: Weighing options, making choices (even if choice is “stay in bed today”) Active observing: Noticing details with purpose, seeking understanding Active processing: Working through emotions/trauma (not just experiencing them) Active questioning: Interrogating their reality, beliefs, situation
Example:
Passive (boring): She lay in bed, depressed. She thought about her ex. She felt sad.
Active (compelling): She lay in bed, forcing herself to analyze exactly when she’d lost him. Not the breakup—the moment before that when she’d felt him slip away. She rewound their last good conversation, searching for the precise second everything changed. If she could identify it, maybe she could understand why.
The searching creates activity even in immobility.
Technique 3: The Vivid Harebrained Goal Method
Give aimless characters specific (even ridiculous) goals they pursue:
Example from The O.C.:
Seth wants to sail to Tahiti with his crush (who doesn’t know he exists) in his tiny sailboat. Completely unrealistic. Perfectly captures adolescent yearning.
Why it works:
- Specific goal (not vague “find purpose”)
- Active pursuit (building relationship with Summer, planning trip)
- Obstacles (she doesn’t like him, boat is inadequate, plan is insane)
- Vivid (we can picture it clearly)
Application:
Instead of: Character drifts aimlessly seeking meaning Try: Character decides to become professional chess player (never played before), or write novel in 30 days (never written), or win back ex through elaborate scheme
Bad goals pursued actively > No goals
Technique 4: The Forced Engagement Strategy
When character wants to shut down, circumstances force engagement:
Depression example:
Character wants to stay in bed, but:
- Bills must be paid
- Job calls repeatedly
- Friend shows up uninvited
- Crisis occurs requiring response
- Pet needs care
Character engages reluctantly but actively.
Grief example:
Character wants to isolate, but:
- Funeral arrangements required
- Children need care
- Life admin won’t wait
- Someone else needs them
Forced activity reveals character’s state while maintaining momentum.
Technique 5: The Micro-Win Progression
Break character development into tiny, visible victories:
Shy character speaking up:
Micro-win 1: Opens mouth to speak, no words come out (tried!) Micro-win 2: Says one word, gets ignored (tried harder!) Micro-win 3: Completes sentence, message unclear (progress!) Micro-win 4: States opinion, gets shot down (courage shown!) Micro-win 5: States opinion, holds ground when challenged (growth!)
Each is small enough to be believable given their state, but shows effort.
The “Show Them Trying” Checklist
For Every Difficult Scene
When writing character in difficult state, ensure:
- [ ] Character wants something (even if small: “want to get out of bed”)
- [ ] Character attempts to get it (even if attempt is tiny)
- [ ] We see the effort (internal or external)
- [ ] We see what makes it difficult (obstacle)
- [ ] Attempt has result (success, failure, partial)
- [ ] Result affects next scene
If you can’t check all boxes, scene is too passive.
Red Flags for Passive Difficulty
Warning signs your depressed/shy/grieving character is too inactive:
- [ ] Multiple scenes of character just lying/sitting/existing
- [ ] No goals, not even small ones
- [ ] No attempts to change anything
- [ ] No choices being made
- [ ] No movement toward anything
- [ ] Character accepts everything without trying
- [ ] Extended internal monologue without action/decision
- [ ] Scenes could be summarized: “Character was sad”
Three or more red flags = passivity problem.
The Activity Translation Guide
Translate passive states into active behaviors:
Passive depression: She was depressed. She stayed in bed. Days passed.
Active depression: She negotiated with herself: get up, shower, face the world. She lost. Again. But tomorrow she’d try earlier, before the weight of the day made it impossible.
Passive grief: He grieved his father for months, unable to function.
Active grief: He tried his father’s routines—morning coffee on the porch, evening news—searching for connection. Nothing worked. The routines were empty without him. But he kept trying different memories, different rituals, desperate to feel close to him again.
Passive shyness: She was too shy to speak in meetings. This happened repeatedly.
Active shyness: She rehearsed her point before each meeting. When her moment came, her throat closed. Next meeting, she wrote it down. Still couldn’t share it. The meeting after, she forced out three words before anxiety swallowed the rest.
Notice the difference: Attempts visible, struggle clear, character engaged.
Advanced Techniques: Aimlessness with Purpose
The Searching Structure
Frame aimlessness as active searching:
Instead of: “Character wanders without purpose” Frame as: “Character desperately seeks purpose, tries multiple approaches”
This creates:
- Clear throughline (the search)
- Active choices (what to try next)
- Obstacles (each attempt fails)
- Development (learning from failures)
Example arc:
Try 1: Character thinks purpose is in relationship → pursues it → fails Try 2: Thinks purpose is in career → works obsessively → empty Try 3: Thinks purpose is in creativity → creates but feels hollow Try 4: Realizes purpose was internal all along
Active searching for purpose ≠ aimless wandering
The Cycle-Through Strategy
For adolescent confusion/aimlessness:
Show character cycling through vivid hopes and dreams, working hard for each (even if misguided):
Week 1: Decides to become rock star, practices obsessively Week 3: Realizes has no musical talent, pivots to filmmaking Week 5: Makes terrible short film, pivots to writing Week 7: Starts novel, realizes it’s hard, pivots to…
The cycling itself shows:
- Active pursuit of identity
- Engagement with possibilities
- Learning process
- Eventually: pattern recognition leading to growth
Better than: “Character didn’t know what they wanted so they did nothing for three months”
The Meaning-in-Mundane Technique
Find purpose in ordinary activities:
Not: “Depressed character does dishes mindlessly”
But: “Character uses dish-washing rhythm to process grief—each plate a memory, each rinse a small release. It’s the only time crying feels manageable.”
Activities gain meaning through character’s engagement with them.
Genre-Specific Applications
Literary Fiction
Challenge: Often features internal struggle, subtle development
Strategy:
- Make internal activity visible through thought
- Small external actions reflect internal state
- Character actively processes, decides, understands
- Philosophical aimlessness is still active questioning
Example: Normal People Connell and Marianne’s passivity would doom lesser books, but Rooney shows their active internal struggles with expression, identity, desire.
Contemporary/Women’s Fiction
Challenge: Character development central, often involves difficult states
Strategy:
- Show incremental attempts throughout
- Friend/family interactions force engagement
- Small daily victories and setbacks
- Character chooses to work on self
Example: Eleanor Oliphant Depression and isolation could be passive, but Eleanor actively (if badly) tries to function.
Young Adult
Challenge: Adolescent aimlessness, identity confusion
Strategy:
- Vivid (even unrealistic) goals character pursues
- Rapid cycling through interests/identities
- Peer pressure forces choices
- High school structure provides forced engagement
Example: The Perks of Being a Wallflower Charlie is shy and struggling, but actively writing letters, engaging with friends, trying to understand his trauma.
Romance
Challenge: Character growth through relationship, often starting from wounded place
Strategy:
- Pursuit of love interest creates activity
- Past wounds emerge through relationship choices
- Character actively (if fearfully) tries intimacy
- Each relationship scene is choice point
Example: The Hating Game Lucy’s anxiety could paralyze, but she actively competes, flirts, pursues despite fear.
Your Difficult Character Audit
Character State Assessment
For each depressed/shy/grieving/aimless character:
What they’re experiencing:
- [ ] Depression
- [ ] Grief
- [ ] Shyness/social anxiety
- [ ] Aimlessness/lack of purpose
- [ ] Cowardice/paralysis
- [ ] Other: ___________
How they’re currently portrayed:
- [ ] Extended scenes of inactivity
- [ ] Passive acceptance of state
- [ ] No attempts to change/cope
- [ ] Just existing in difficulty
- [ ] Waiting for external fix
If you checked 3+, character is too passive.
The Activation Plan
For each passive portrayal:
1. Identify micro-goals: What small things could character want in each scene?
2. Show attempts: How can character try (even if failing) to get those things?
3. Reveal obstacles: What makes trying difficult for this specific character?
4. Track progression: How do attempts change across the novel?
5. Ensure internal activity: When external activity impossible, what internal engagement occurs?
Frequently Asked Questions
Isn’t extended depression/grief realistic?
Yes, but realism ≠ compelling fiction. Show the struggle, not just the state. Character can be deeply depressed while still making tiny attempts to function or cope.
What if the point is character’s passivity?
Even “learning to be active” arcs require attempts throughout. Show failed attempts early, growing attempts middle, successful attempts climax. Don’t wait until crisis to show trying.
How do I show someone completely broken?
Broken people still make micro-choices: get up or don’t, answer phone or don’t, eat or don’t. Show those tiny decision points. Internal activity counts.
Does this apply to literary fiction?
Yes. Literary fiction can have subtle external activity but needs robust internal activity—active processing, deciding, understanding, questioning.
What about experimental fiction?
Some experimental fiction deliberately challenges these conventions. But if you’re not intentionally subverting narrative norms, follow them.
Your Action Plan
This week:
- Identify any depressed/shy/grieving/aimless characters
- Find three scenes where they’re passive
- Add one attempt (even failed) to each scene
This month:
- Map character’s micro-attempts across novel
- Ensure attempts visible every 2-3 scenes
- Show progression: early attempts vs. late attempts
- Add internal activity to externally passive scenes
This revision:
- Mark every scene: character trying (T) or just existing (E)
- Reframe E scenes to include attempts
- Make obstacles to trying visible
- Ensure gradual development through repeated trying
Conclusion: The Illusion of Aimlessness
The harsh truth:
Actual aimlessness = boring Fictional aimlessness = active searching for purpose
Actual depression = extended inactivity Fictional depression = struggling to try, trying and failing, tiny victories
Actual grief = often paralysis Fictional grief = attempting to function despite overwhelming pain
Actual shyness = not speaking Fictional shyness = desperately wanting to speak, trying and failing, words stuck
The key distinction:
Fiction doesn’t show states—it shows active engagement with states.
Your character can be:
- Depressed (but trying to function)
- Grieving (but attempting to cope)
- Shy (but forcing words out)
- Aimless (but searching for purpose)
- Broken (but making micro-choices)
They just can’t be passive.
Because readers open novels to see characters actively moving through the world—even when that movement is painful, tiny, failing, or internal.
Show the trying. Show the failing. Show the trying again.
That’s the difference between realistic paralysis that makes readers close books and believable struggle that makes readers unable to put them down.
