Non-consumers read some of the hundreds of true-life stories bipolars have written, and they're still prejudiced. They read essays they have written about what BD feels like inside, and they're still prejudiced. I think these approaches don't work mostly because reading them is just that -- work. So I developed the concepts of Fiction in the Raw and Psych-Inspirational Fiction. These are stories like the ones you see on TV. You get lost in them and somehow become the story's main character. You care about the main character and can't stop reading until s/he makes it through the crisis s/he's faced with. Then the story ends and, suddenly, you realize that you cared about a consumer and whether or not that consumer solved his or her problem. I think that these types of fiction are the only effective ways to stop the prejudice.

Here's how you write Fiction in the Raw:

1. Base the story on your actual experiences. If you are a mental-health consumer, you have probably had an interesting, if not hair-raising, life full of events worth writing about. But we don't publish stories that merely chronicle consumers' lives. Write about just one event in your life (or two closely related events) and fictionalize them: add a little here, change a little there, and just generally add drama and excitement to the facts you started with -- while remaining truthful about how the events actually made you feel.

If you are not a consumer, your story should show your honest feelings about consumers and consumer issues without showing prejudice against consumers.

That's a difficult line to toe; make it easier by stating just the facts. Rather than, "My bipolar wife is a big pain. She keeps losing things and then making me look for them," write, "'Now where in the world did I put those car keys?' my wife said, scrutinizing the room. I quickly hid behind my newspaper."

If you tell us exactly what was said and done, you will not be completely safe from being accused of prejudice, but you will be closer to safety.

2. Write a great first sentence. Rather than, "When I was eighteen, I dropped out of school and started doing drugs," try something like, "When I was eighteen, I decided to see just how much trouble I could get into and still get away with it." Most readers will instantly want to know what happens next, what kind of trouble you got into. Try to make your first sentence so tantalizing that no one who reads it can resist reading on.

3. Jump right into the story in the first paragraph, then backtrack. In the next few paragraphs, give the readers all the necessary background information. It's great to write, "For four years Uncle Tony grieved. . . Then Grandma said, 'It's time for you to stop grieving now.'" But, before you write the above:

a. introduce the family, as in, "My extended family -- grandmother, father Michael, father's brother Antonio, his brother's wife, and Antonio’s three children -- flew to the U.S. together many years ago, were processed at Ellis Island, and became loyal citizens." If your readers have a chance to get to know your characters first, they will care more about what happens to them later.

b. and insert the background information early, as in, "When I was eighteen, Uncle Tony's wife died of cancer. He grieved all the harder for having fought so bitterly with his spouse for the last fifteen years. I cannot forget how, at the wake, my uncle sat alone in a corner, pushing away even his dear mama."

Now do you have a better understanding of why Grandma told Uncle Tony to stop grieving?

4. Keep the story moving. Except when you are writing the background information at the beginning of the story, try not to tell the reader about things. (This is called "exposition".) Rather, just tell what happened and what people said. Action is fun; exposition is dull.

The best way to make a story interesting is to put a helluva good person into a helluva scary mess. Start the story with a horrific problem or a nasty conflict between two people, then solve the problem or conflict in some reasonably unexpected way.

5. Include your own feelings — all of them. Base at least one character in the story, preferably the hero or narrator, on yourself. Let your readers know every last emotion this character feels, that is, how you would or did feel in that situation. But here's the catch: don't use "feeling" words like "angry" or "happy". Instead, tell us what the character says, does, or looks like. E.g., say, "John's ears turned bright red," to tell us that John was embarrassed. Let the readers draw their own conclusions about the characters' feelings.

If some of your feelings or actions in the situation you are describing are/were less than honorable, you may not want to tell the world about them. Rather than making the story a dishonest one, write the story as if it were about someone else.

6. Make the ending either:

a. evoke powerful emotions, or

b. solve the problem posed by the story, answer a question, vindicate the hero(es), or otherwise satisfy the reader. While it's OK to have a sad ending, sad endings have to be very deep and philosophical. Anyway, most readers prefer happy endings.

7. Now you have written your story, but you still have quite a bit of work to do. Reread it, put it down, and do something with your hands, take a walk, or whatever, while you let your mind wander around your story. Make sure you do this while you still feel the emotions that writing the story evoked. Think about the theme, the story's underlying issues. Then go back and add these to the story.

Perhaps you have written a story about a terrible mess you got yourself into when you were younger. That's good, but what's the theme? The theme can be what you learned from this crisis about yourself or the nature of humanity, the guilt you felt about what you did and how you got over (or, if you want to be really philosophical, didn't get over) the guilt, how you met your future spouse as a result of the crisis, how the professionals who were supposed to be helping you actually treated you (and the apparent reasons why), or any of a number of other possibilities. The deeper your thinking goes, the more it will get the readers thinking. And the more intricate your theme becomes, the more beautiful your story will become.

Honesty is crucial here. If, at the end of your story, you slap down some pat lesson that you really didn't learn or don't take seriously, you will turn the readers off.

8. KISS: We at the Any Dream Will Do Review go by the "Keep It Simple, Stupid" rule. We are not motivated by literary awards (or, at least, awards are not our primary motivation!); we just want to give people stories that are fun to read and that help them understand us consumers better. Our definition of a good writer is not someone who uses long sentences, big words, and explicit sex scenes to try to impress people. Don't use a big word unless it significantly simplifies the sentence overall.

A good writer tells about lives, loves, and crises simply, honestly, realistically, and in the form of interesting stories that raise important questions in the readers' minds. If you can meet that challenge, you are already a very good writer; don't bother trying to get fancy.

9. Proofread your story. Not even the greatest writer in the world can write a good story on the first try. Check your spelling, grammar, word usage, and punctuation, of course. But also be willing to switch words, sentences, and events around, cut out redundant words and phrases, add clarifications, and so on, as necessary. If you fall in love with your first draft and can't stand to revise it, you will never become a good writer. Please, do your own proofreading.

If you want to write Fiction in the Raw for the Any Dream Will Do Review, write in order to give, not to get. Forget fame and riches and just try to let people know what you have seen, done, and been through, so that non-consumers will see consumers as loving, caring human beings.