True-to-life characters carry their past with them. Emotional wounds—negative experiences that cause psychological harm—change how they view the world, other people, and themselves.
Part writing guide, part brainstorming tool, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus helps writers understand how painful experiences shape a character’s fears, internal struggles, and behavior in the story.
What This Guide Helps Writers Do:
Create Characters with Emotional Depth and Credibility
Emotional hurt is an unfortunate part of being human, but also creates a realistic, vulnerable layer in characters that readers expect to see. This book helps you find past events that have left a mark on a character, drawing readers into their personal struggles.
Build Meaningful, Internal Character Arcs
Healing is a slow and unsteady process. This book shows how emotional wounds can either limit or motivate a character, providing a foundation for powerful internal arcs as characters confront what’s holding them back and work toward growth.
Show Backstory Through Action, Not Explanation
Learn how to reveal emotional wounds through dialogue, choices, body language, and avoidance—allowing readers to infer the past without heavy exposition or info dumps.
What’s Inside The Emotional Wound Thesaurus?
In addition to guiding writers through the psychological nature of unresolved wounds, each entry looks at a particular trauma event and offers:
- Examples of what forms that trauma might take
- False beliefs that further erode the character’s sense of worth and trust
- Common fears and insecurities that may develop
- Common dysfunctional behaviors, coping mechanisms, and tendencies
- Personality traits likely to form in the aftermath
- Possible triggers that cause feelings of vulnerability and emotional pain
- An idea list of how a character might overcome this wound
With 118 real-world emotional wounds, this thesaurus offers a broad range of possibilities for crafting backstories that meaningfully shape character behavior and the story’s direction.
Format and Availability
The Emotional Wound Thesaurus is available in print, ebook, and PDF, making it a quick reference as you delve deeper into your characters and their arcs.
