Rich Mine of Support for Emotional Scars

Exploit these tools to deeply grasp the repercussions of your character's psychological scar and the way it will be woven into their storyline development.

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2025 September 1 . 3:44 PM

2 min read

A Trove of Solutions for Emotional Trauma

Rich Mine of Support for Emotional Scars

In the realm of writing, emotional wounds play a pivotal role in shaping characters that resonate with readers. These deep-seated psychological traumas, often stemming from past experiences, significantly impact a character's behaviour, beliefs, and relationships.

Angela Ackerman, a writing coach, international speaker, and founder of One Stop For Writers, has created a valuable resource to help writers delve deeper into their characters' psychological traumas - the "Emotional Wound Thesaurus". This tool can assist writers in creating more complex and believable characters by providing a deeper understanding of their emotional wounds.

The "Emotional Wound Thesaurus" offers a wide range of emotional wounds for writers to choose from, including non-traditional ones like being mugged, infertility, and being held captive. Each entry provides insights into how a character might be affected by a specific emotional wound.

To identify and show an emotional wound in a character, writers can focus on understanding the core wound, expressing its behavioural effects, and revealing it through inner conflict and actions. For instance, a character's past pain can determine their character flaws. Using dysfunctional behaviour, wound categories, and pointed questions can help reveal a character's emotional wound. Personalizing a character's emotional wound can make them more relatable and engaging.

Common themes for emotional wounds include abandonment, betrayal, and loss. The connection between wounds and basic human needs is significant in character development. For example, a character's emotional wound might stem from a deep-seated fear of rejection, which could be rooted in past experiences of abandonment.

Healing an emotional wound in a character's arc is a gradual process of self-awareness, acceptance, and change. Writers can illustrate this transformation by showing the character taking ownership of their pain, envisioning a healthier self or reality, and facing their truth honestly. This process often leads to the character responding more appropriately to current events and forming healthier relationships.

The book titled "The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma" offers additional resources, such as the Character Arc Progression Tool and the Backstory Wound Profile, to help writers create characters that are more relatable and engaging by providing them with emotional wounds that resonate with readers.

Overcoming an emotional wound is crucial for a character's arc development. By using the "Emotional Wound Thesaurus", writers can create characters that are more complex, believable, and engaging, ultimately enhancing their stories.