There’s this really great book for writers by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi called The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. It came out way back in 2017.
As they write in their prologue,
“Life is painful, and not all the lessons we learn are positive ones. As with you and me, the characters in our stories have suffered emotional trauma that cannot easily be dispelled or forgotten. We call this type of trauma an emotional wound: a negative experience (or set of experiences) that causes pain on a deep psychological level. It is a lasting hurt that often involves someone close: A family member, loved one (etc.)… or results from a physical limitation, condition, or challenge.”
So, the key here is to not just write a quick character study and be like, “My character Hammy the Hamster has resentment because his dad never thought he did a good enough job as exemplified by when he came in second place for the Hammy Olympic Wheel Roll.”
The key is to make sure that this emotional wound impacts:
- The lie that festers inside of there (this is a false logic. Hammy believes he will never be good enough);
- The fear that gets bigger and bigger and bigger as time goes on, the fear that’s because of this wound;
- Their view of themself (Hammy thinks he’s a loser);
- How their personality shifts when things happen because of the wound or the lie.
And there’s even a website, that we’ve linked in the podcast notes where you can look up emotional wounds. That’s called onestopforwriters. You have to pay to access the full features of that website.
But it writes, pretty simply, “Emotional wounds from the past have the power to greatly impact our characters’ personalities and choices in the future. Get to know your characters intimately by choosing the right emotional wound; understanding its effects will enable you to write realistic, fully-formed characters that resonate with readers and make sense for your story.”
Angela and Becca even have a ton of resources (they call it the motherlode) here. And one of those things is a pdf for a backstory wound profile. It’s all pretty amazing, honestly.
DOG TIP FOR LIFE
Pogie has a lot of emotional wounds and she says, “Don’t let your wounds rule you; don’t be afraid of them. You’ve got this.”
WRITING EXERCISE
When was a time your character actually felt at peace? Describe it. Do they want to get back there again?
Does your character do anything for self-care? What is it? Why or why don’t they do it?
How would your character be different if those traumatic events of their childhood never happened?
PLACE TO SUBMIT
Deadline: March 1, 2024
Superpresent is seeking submissions on the theme Survival. We are looking for all forms of poetry, writing, video, and visual arts. Please look at our website for details of the call and to get a feel for our magazine. superpresent.org
RANDOM LINK WE MENTION ABOUT KING CAKES
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.
WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
