: Re: Should we add a character in a story for realistic effect? In my novel, the protagonist is divorced and moves from London to another city in Britain. The setting is 2013. The protagonist

@Holmes449

I think in real life the vast majority of people that are depressed, or even suicidal, will not go to a doctor at all.

I don't know what the situation in Britain may be, but here in the USA that would be expensive, time consuming, and it carries a stigma in both employment and society to have been treated for a "mental illness", even depression. The vast majority of people will self-medicate with drugs (legal or not).

If you are intending to sell to American readers, they will not wonder why your character did not visit a psychiatrist; those are for people with money and time that don't have to worry about their jobs.

Even if psychiatry is free in Britain, I'd expect very few depressed people would take advantage of it. Because depression doesn't make one hopeful about being cured from depression, and most depressed people are not even sure their depression IS depression, or if it can be cured or addressed.

In general, forgetting this particular topic, YES, if anything is realistic enough that many readers would wonder why it isn't mentioned, then you need to address that concern. But as Galastel notes; that can be sentence or two of "tell, don't show" off-screen, to save pages and not interrupt your story line. (One of the few instances in which telling is superior to showing).

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