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.
BEING FIRED OR LAID OFF
Examples:
- Being fired for poor performance
- Being laid off because one’s department has downsized or one’s position has been outsourced
- An infraction being used as the excuse for a firing when one’s employers have…
Basic Needs Often Compromised By This Wound: physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, esteem and recognition, self-actualization
False Beliefs That May Be Embraced As a Result of This Wound:
- I have to always work harder than everyone else if I want to stay employed
- I have to prove I am a team player even if I don’t agree with the company is doing or I’ll lose everything
- I was a fool to try and have a career in this area; I’m not good enough…
Positive Attributes That May Result: cooperative, courteous, efficient, empathetic, focused, honorable, industrious, loyal, mature, merciful, obedient, organized, perceptive…
Negative Traits That May Result: addictive, childish, confrontational, controlling, defensive, fanatical, hostile, humorless, insecure, know-it-all, nervous, obsessive… workaholic, worrywart
Resulting Fears:
- Fear of taking risks (especially financial)
- Fear of saying or doing the wrong thing at work
- Fear of under performing or disappointing one’s employers…
Possible Habits That May Emerge:
- Lying to family when asked about work when things aren’t going well
- Hiding difficulties from employers (an illness, struggling with the workload, etc.)
- Watching one’s finances carefully and being uncomfortable with big expenses
- Tying one’s level of job security & employer satisfaction to self worth
- Working late and going the extra mile to look good…
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.
Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.