Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35911608-20180823132725/@comment-35911608-20180823192427

RedNovaTyrant wrote: DrBobSmith wrote: It almost works, in a delusions of self reference kind of way.

Flu epidemics happen. Some guy cutting class doesn't cause one, except in his mind. If he is crazy, Mom would probably hint of it somehow and he would feel it too. The girl taken to the clinic had already been sick for a week. The protagonist wasn't the first to get ill.

Or is the illness a literary metaphor? Laziness? Drug abuse? It's a story of mass hysteria. The disease doesn't actually exist. It's a placebo effect taken to the extreme. Gonna quote myself cuz I should a little more specific. This is a nocebo effect taken to the extreme. While placebo effects generally benefit a patient who believes they are being treated, nocebo effects are generally an increase in negative effects from the patient's belief that the treatment has some bad side effects.