But, all and all, I thank you for this great article of honesty and truth. This article was needed at this time!

Sincerely, Nancy

I have a printed copy of the backstory reversal tool and that is what made me come back to ask more questions. But given this new info, Youve govern me more to think about.

Well, there’s always a possibility that you’re over-thinking things, but I couldn’t say if you’re doing that in this instance or not ;). Sometimes we do over-think things and make them more complicated than they need to be. On the other hand, sibling dynamics are complex, and it’s good to understand what’s happening between your sisters. Unfortunately, only you can know the depth of all that. The only other advice I know to offer you is to ask if you’ve tried the Reverse Backstory Tool for your main character. This is a meaty little flowchart that, once filled in, provides you with the important pieces of your character’s backstory. Filling it in may simplify things and help clarify her for you. Best of luck!

Unfortunately, it’s human nature to compare ourselves to others. This is almost never a good or productive idea, since we’re always going to see people who are better than us at whatever it is that we value. It helps me to focus on the things that I enjoy, not just the things I’m good at. Yes, we all want to be good at things, and it’s definitely good for our self-esteem to excel in certain areas. But as I said, there will always be someone who’s better. On the other hand, when it comes to the things that we enjoy, it doesn’t matter most of the time how good we are at them. We like them because they bring us happiness or peace or satisfaction. So try to focus on those things, too. 🙂

Happy to hear it, Pat!

Is it possible to have them both experiencing the same emotional wound?

Absolutely! They each could be suffering from the same hurtful event (or series of events), though they might view the event differently and have completely different responses to it. This happens all the time in real life; two people survive a horrible experience but vastly different traits, habits, and values emerge as a result. This is because they’re different people prior to the wounding event, so they’re going to respond to it in their own unique ways.

However, this leaves a big loophole in her backstory because the most of the possible causes don’t quite fit (from the positive and negative trait thesauruses).

It sounds to me like you’ve figured most of this out, and the cause for her actions is the only missing piece. But remember that the ideas shared in The Negative and Positive Trait Thesaurus books aren’t cumulative; they contain a lot of ideas but not every possibility. At their most productive, the books are meant to be a springboard for the author’s imagination, so you can come up with new and specific ideas that work best for your individual story and characters. So if it makes sense that your heroine is the way she is in large part because she was overly sheltered and catered to, then that could easily be an important factor in forming who she becomes.

I’m not the one who asked that question, but I learned a lot from your answer. Thank you, Becca. This is like a mini-class in characterization.

Great feedback, and I really get the part about there being probably no difference between the reality of my sibling’s abilities and my perception of it. Comparing my abilities to his and feeling thwarted by self-criticism goes back as far as I can remember. My best approach at this point would to discover how to make this become an asset for me, instead of a lifelong handicap. Thanks again.

The struggle is definitely real. I’m no psychiatrist, but with this one, I think that people might even struggle with this when the sibling is only perceived to be hugely successful. We don’t often view the people closest to us accurately, and many of us magnify the strengths or weaknesses of our peers. Even if we only think that a sibling is awesomely great and better at things than we are, we probably still would suffer from some of the same outcomes.