At The Winged Pen, we’ve written about Angela Ackerman’s and Becca Puglisi’s wonderful writing books before. So we’re super excited to tell you about their newest one:
The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma.
Yay!!!!! *shoots off rockets*
A wound, in the writing world, is the hurt the main character carries around that keeps him or her holding onto a lie.
A few examples of wounds from The Emotional Wound Thesaurus:
- Being Bullied
- A Speech Impediment
- Failing to Do the Right Thing
- Witnessing Violence at a Young Age
A lie can be anything that the character uses to protect that wound from getting bumped again. The same lie keeps the character from moving forward and achieving his or her goal.
Replacing the lie with a healthier truth gives the character partial healing. Transformed, he or she can win the battle or the soulmate, seize the prize, or lead the team to victory.
Where do authors find the lies for their characters to confront? Like all other aspects of story, lies are all around us. Unfortunately, the flaws in our characters (and in our own character) that are perfectly visible to everyone else—friends, enemies, readers—are flickering, distorted images for us. Critique partners, editors, and beta readers can help us bring them into focus.
The title of my work-in-progress, THE WOUNDED BOOK, feels a little ironic to me today, because the long process of working on it has wounded me and healed me by turns. This is the mysterious alchemy of writing: we write what we know and sometimes healing our character’s wounds helps us heal our own.
For example, J.K. Rowling’s dementors in her Harry Potter books are a terrifyingly realistic metaphor for depression. I don’t presume to know what personal connection they may have had for her, but, as a reader, I recognized them immediately. In this video of her visit to the apartment where she first wrote Harry Potter’s story, she talks about how hard writing was.
Her belief in Harry’s story carried her through and presumably changed her life as much as Harry’s story changed millions of readers.
Writing believable characters is challenging, but worthwhile. It’s the inverse of reading a book that tells a truth you always suspected, but could never articulate.
I’m looking forward to “shopping” a little in The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. I may finally diagnose my main character’s wound in a way that transforms her into the person I always meant her to be: a girl who encourages and challenges middle grade readers to become the truest versions of themselves!
Happy Writing!
Bonus: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus promises to be extra useful for creating characters when used with the well-loved Reverse Backstory Tool (from The Negative Trait Thesaurus.) It’s my absolute favorite for building strong characters.
More Bonuses: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus includes the new Backstory Wound Profile and the new Character Arc Progression Tool. You can download them free on Angela and Becca’s Tools for Writers page. There’s also a #writerspersevere giveaway in honor of the new thesaurus!
LAUREL DECHER writes stories about all things Italian, vegetable, or musical. Beloved pets of the past include “Stretchy the Leech” and a guinea pig that unexpectedly produced twins. She’s famous for getting lost, but carries maps because people always ask her for directions. Find her on Twitter or on her blog, This Is An Overseas Post, where she writes about life with her family in Germany. She’s still a Vermonter and an epidemiologist at heart. PSA: Eat more kale!
Laurel, you are terrific! Thank you for this shout out to our newest book. And this “This is the mysterious alchemy of writing: we write what we know and sometimes healing our character’s wounds helps us heal our own.” Oh my gosh, it is so true. We think we are bringing the real world to our fiction by digging deeper into our characters, but this has a rebound effect and causes us to dig deeper into ourselves, too. What beautiful magic that we learn about ourselves as we write, and like the character’s journey of growth, we have one of our own, too.
Angela
Angela,
Thanks so much! I’m honored to see you here. It’s amazing how much it helps clarify my thinking to see a list of traits or emotions or lies or wounds(!). In the intuitive space of the imagination, there are often no words to describe our experience, even to ourselves. Writing is such an adventure! Good to have companions on the journey!
Laurel