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.
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.
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. For this particular wound, there is no doubt that some of you have had personal experience with it, either as someone considering suicide or someone living in the aftermath of a loved one’s suicide. If you are suffering in any way due to a past, planned, or possible suicide, there are people who can help. Just call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) and speak to someone 24 hours a day.
Basic Needs Often Compromised By This Wound: physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, esteem and recognition
False Beliefs That May Be Embraced As a Result of This Wound:
- This is my fault.
- If I had been X (more available, a better daughter/son/spouse, etc.) he/she wouldn’t have done it.
- I should have seen the signs…
Positive Attributes That May Result: affectionate, appreciative, nurturing, observant, pensive, private, proactive, responsible, sentimental, supportive
Negative Traits That May Result: addictive, apathetic, callous, compulsive, confrontational, cynical, fussy, hostile, humorless, inhibited, insecure, irrational, martyr…
Resulting Fears:
- The fear that one will miss the signs and it will happen again
- The fear of never being “good enough” for one’s loved ones
- The fear of never achieving true intimacy with others…
Possible Habits That May Emerge:
- Withdrawing from loved ones
- Maintaining surface relationships as a way of avoiding potential hurt
- Becoming overly needy and clingy with loved ones
- Becoming hyper vigilant with loved ones
- Obsessively watching for signs…
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.
You can also always call 911. Officers have dealt with this exact scenario hundreds of times and can offer local assistance that 800 numbers often can’t.
I couldn’t help but think that if someone who was contemplating suicide read this, they might think twice. But then I also know that when a person gets to that point, it’s often a case of I can’t stand one more second and they can’t think beyond that.
I know that sometimes these are hard for you to write, but I have that situation in my story and this entry gave me some excellent things to think about.
Thanks, as always, for your help.
On a brighter note- congratulations on the Rural Thesaurus being “Best Seller” and # 1 in it’s category on Amazon (with Urban right behind at #2!!)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, JC. These entries are hard to write, but some of them are a little easier because they’re less common or don’t happen quite as often. This one is difficult because without a doubt there are people reading it who are either contemplating suicide, know someone who is, or have been through this horrible situation. And thanks for the kind words about our books. We’re thrilled with how they’re doing so far :).