When you’re writing a character, it’s important to know why she is the way she is. Knowing her backstory is important to achieving this end, and one of the most impactful pieces of a character’s backstory is her emotional wound. This negative experience from the past is so intense that a character will go to great lengths to avoid experiencing that kind of pain and negative emotion again. As a result, certain behaviors, beliefs, and character traits will emerge.
Characters, like real people, are unique, and will respond to wounding events differently. The vast array of possible emotional wounds combined with each character’s personality gives you many options in terms of how your character will turn out. With the right amount of exploration, you should be able to come up with a character whose past appropriately affects her present, resulting in a realistic character that will ring true with readers. Understanding what wounds a protagonist bears will also help you plot out her arc, creating a compelling journey of change that will satisfy readers.
NOTE: We realize that sometimes a wound we profile may have personal meaning, stirring up the past for some of our readers. It is not our intent to create emotional turmoil. Please know that we research each wounding topic carefully to treat it with the utmost respect.
We hope the sample list of ideas below will help you see how emotional trauma will influence your character’s behavior and mindset. For the full entry of this and over 100 other emotional wounds, check into our bestselling resource, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression.
Examples: Being undesirably and relentlessly pursued by someone. Stalkers are typically obsessed with their subjects, either out of a romantic interest or from the perception that the subjects have rejected or slighted them in some way:
- a fan whose mail was unanswered
- an ex
- a student whose scholarship application was denied…
Basic Needs Often Compromised By This Wound: physiological needs, safety and security, long and belonging, self-actualization
False Beliefs That May Be Embraced As a Result of This Wound:
- I have encouraged this person in some way.
- If I hadn’t done X, then this wouldn’t be happening to me.
- I’m a target—someone others identify as weak…
Positive Attributes That May Result: alert, appreciative, cautious, disciplined, discreet, empathetic, focused, independent, nurturing, observant, private, proactive…
Negative Traits That May Result: addictive, confrontational, controlling, defensive, hostile, humorless, impatient, indecisive, inflexible, inhibited, insecure, irrational, needy…
Resulting Fears:
- Fear for one’s life
- Fear that the stalker will hurt one’s loved ones
- Fear that one’s judgment/intuition can’t be trusted
- Fear of new people…
Possible Habits That May Emerge:
- Insomnia and fatigue
- Loss of appetite
- Weight gain from eating to comfort oneself
- Isolating oneself; avoiding unnecessary social interactions
- Avoiding social media…
TIP: If you need help understanding the impact of these factors, please read our introductory post on the Emotional Wound Thesaurus. For our current list of Emotional Wound Entries, go here. And for a boatload of practical information on how to incorporate wounds into your story, see our collection of posts on this topic.
For other Descriptive Thesaurus Collections, go here.
Which emotional wounds are haunting your characters?
Emotional wounds are incredibly formative, changing how a character views the world, causing trust issues, damaging their self-worth, dictating how they will interact with other people, and making it harder for them to achieve their goals. As such, understanding your character’s wound is vitally important to your overall story.
To learn more, we recommend The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. This writing guide explores emotional trauma and what it will look like for your character and their journey in the story. It highlights 120+ possible wounding events and helps you brainstorm how each might play out in your story so you can write your character’s behaviors, attitudes, fears, and insecurities with authenticity.
Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.
Very informative and very helpfull Thank you