The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma

by Becca Puglisi

  The Big Reveal is effective because it makes the wounding event very obvious. Readers see immediately that the violent loss of Harry’s parents is going to cause issues he’ll have to address in order to become whole. What we don’t know is what those issues will be. The lie, the flaws that develop, the unmet need Harry will be driven to regain—all these are doled out in bits and pieces throughout the course of his story. While readers already know what the wounding incident is, it’s through this careful showing of what happens afterward that they’ll understand how it has changed him and why he must face it.

  Normally this type of reveal comes later in the story as a final puzzle piece for readers. If it occurs at the very start and there’s a jump in time before the next scene (as in the Harry Potter example), you likely are dealing with a prologue. Prologues are notoriously tricky because they’re often not necessary; many times, the information can be conveyed much more effectively by sharing it later, once readers have fallen in love with the character and have been prepped with hints and clues about this important backstory moment. Prologues can also be problematic when they’re written poorly—with a big info dump or large passages of telling that slow the pace and keep readers at a distance. For these reasons, starting your story in this way is often discouraged. So if you’ve decided that you absolutely must reveal the wounding event with a prologue, plan it carefully. Familiarize yourself with what methods work and which ones don’t. Tips on how to write both prologues and flashbacks can be found in the Problems to Avoid section.

  THE BIG TEASE

  With this method, the audience is kept in the dark about precisely what happened to the character. Through dropped hints and teasing tidbits, readers see glimpses of the past but don’t fully identify the wounding incident until they’ve collected and put together all the pieces; they may come to the conclusion on their own or the dropped hints may be capped off with a final reveal by the author. That aha! moment can happen at any point in the story but typically is saved until well into the second half.

  In the movie The Cutting Edge, the audience sees a lot of clues as to what makes Kate tick, but the wounding event from her past is never overtly stated. It’s hinted at mostly through her personality and actions: she’s perfectionistic, extremely competitive, and impossible to get along with. These clues, combined with a meaningful scene with her father toward the story’s end, give us a clear picture of her wound: growing up with a parent whose conditional love was based on her ability to perform. This structure keeps readers guessing about the wounding event, but its aftereffects and how it is hindering the character are obvious from the start.

  THE BREADCRUMB TRAIL: LEADING READERS TO THE WOUNDING EVENT

  Regardless of whether the wound is overtly shown or merely hinted at, it will always be necessary to reference the event in smaller ways throughout the story because it’s a piece of the character’s past that holds vital significance. Someone who’s endured the loss of a loved one, physical torture, or a messy divorce can’t simply forget it—especially if it hasn’t been dealt with. It will haunt her, and others will see its effects. So you’ll still need to master the art of obliquely referencing what has happened in a way that reads naturally. Mixing and matching the following by-products and vehicles is a great way to feed information about this event to readers without using info dumps or giving the whole thing away.

  Fear

  As we know, wounding events beget fear as the character seeks to avoid a repeat of what she’s suffered through. Building scenarios into your story that showcase her avoidance will provide clues as to what might have befallen her in the past.

  For instance, let’s say your character experienced a failure, one that resulted in major fallout for a lot of people. As a result, this character —we’ll call her Jess—may avoid being in charge because she doesn’t want to risk repeating that experience. You can hint at this by creating situations that show her shunning responsibility. At work, she might be offered a chance to lead an all-star team in a bid to bag a wealthy client. To the reader, the decision seems like a no-brainer. But Jess cites lame reasons and declines, or she accepts, then fabricates an excuse to back out. This avoidance raises questions. Why would she pass up such an amazing opportunity? What is she afraid of? And why has she chosen a career that affords opportunities like these if she’s going to sidestep them when they come along?

  Avoidance is great for referencing, in a roundabout way, a character’s fear; when this by-product is combined with other clues, readers can figure out what’s haunting her. It’s also good for the character arc. In the case of our irresponsible lead, she is allowing her fear to keep her from true happiness, and she won’t be whole until she faces and overcomes it.

  In a well-structured story, this won’t happen immediately. She’ll need many chances to triumph (and fail) before she realizes that her fear is holding her back. Building these scenarios into the plotline will provide the chances she needs to move along that character arc toward eventual success.

  Self-Doubt

  Characters, like real people, are complex. No matter how popular, attractive, or accomplished they are, they will still experience self-doubt and uncertainty. And these areas of insecurity often relate back to the wounding event.

  Look at Jess. She might be confident and self-assured most of the time but feels insecure in certain situations: when she has to lead, when people are depending on her, or when an important decision needs to be made. Her self-doubt may also be tied to specific circumstances surrounding her past failure. For instance, if she goofed up in a TV interview, she may become a nervous wreck in a public forum or anytime she has to go on the record.

  Once you’ve decided on your character’s wounding incident, ask yourself some questions to better understand her insecurities relating to it. When does she doubt herself? In what scenario does she not trust her intuition? When does a simple decision paralyze or turn her into a second-guessing mess? The answers to these questions will let you know where her uncertainties lie; you can then show the contrast between her normal self and the circumstances where her personality changes. Done consistently, this can shine a spotlight on your character’s doubts, hinting at her wounding event and showing how it’s impacting her even now.

  Overreactions and Underreactions

  When you know your character well, you’re able to write her consistently. Readers get to know her and what to expect from her in the various situations that arise. If she reacts in a way that’s either understated or overly dramatic, it’s like a red flag for readers, telling them that something isn’t quite right.

  Let’s imagine that Jess is typically an outgoing, bigger-than-life kind of girl. She’s always up for a party, so when her company throws a celebratory bash, she’s there in all her extroverted glory—until she’s asked to field questions from the local news crew. We’d expect a person like Jess to respond with exuberance at the chance to ham it up for the cameras. Instead, the animation leaves her face. Her body goes still, and the pitch of her voice drops. With a stricken smile, she declines, suggests someone else as a replacement, and excuses herself.

  This response is way too subdued for the Jess we’ve come to know. It’s a sign that something about this interview scenario is freaking her out. We’d be similarly alerted in a situation in which a run-of-the-mill response was expected but she went ballistic.

  If you’ve laid the foundation for your character’s personality and have remained true to her emotional range throughout the story, contrary reactions will warn readers that something is wrong while allowing you to hint at trouble from the past.

  Triggers

  A trigger is something that reminds your character so strongly of the wounding event that it brings on the emotions, fears, and negative responses related to it. A trigger can be something sensory, such as a smell, color, taste, or sound. It might be a person, object, situation, or setting that reminds her of what happened. It could even be a strong emotion she was prone t
o feeling during that time. When the character encounters one of these things, it brings her back to that hurtful moment, feeling the same negative emotions and fight-or-flight responses she’s been trying to forget about all these years.

  Imagine Emily, who was a victim of human trafficking as a teen and was forced to work as a prostitute by her captors. As an adult, she is free, and for the most part her life is normal. But periodically she’ll encounter something that awakens those negative associations. Cheap motel rooms, the jingle of change in a trouser pocket, the taste of orange soda, or a certain kind of cologne might send her into panic mode. Her body tenses, and breaths rasp in and out of her throat. Her initial impulse is to run, and she must focus all her energy on quelling the terror and convincing herself that the danger isn’t real, that she’s safe.

  This is an extreme response to a mundane thing like the scent of cologne. Readers may not know about Emily’s wounding event, but when they see her repeatedly responding in such a way to the same trigger, they’ll know it’s associated with something personally awful. And when they eventually learn what the trauma is, everything will fall into place.

  Denied Emotions

  You may have a character who is quite comfortable with her feelings—except for the one that reminds her of how she felt when that horrible thing happened to her. In Emily’s case, shame is the touchstone emotion of her wounding event. Though she was forced into the situation and wasn’t in any way to blame, the choices she had to make to survive were appalling, and shame was her constant companion.

  As an adult, the likelihood of this exact trauma recurring is virtually nil, but whenever she feels—or is made to feel—shame, it takes her back to that horrible time. It’s as if she never left, as if she’s stuck in her memories and will never be free of them. So she adopts new habits that will excise that emotion from her life. She holds herself to the highest moral standard, following a series of rules that, when adhered to, keep her free from any remorse. Or she may do the opposite—throwing morality to the wind so every decision she makes will be a shame-free one.

  Emotional health involves being able to experience and exhibit all our emotions in a natural manner. Avoidance and denial of our emotions is a sign of trouble. When you can show your character consistently sidestepping certain feelings, it will hint at past pain. This is one of the more subtle by-products you can use to indicate the type of wound your character has, but when enough clues are dropped, it all will make sense to readers.

  Obsessions

  On the flip side of denial, there’s obsession. When someone has suffered trauma, while they naturally avoid certain things, they also become hyperaware of others. In Emily’s case, after years of being mistreated, she has become infatuated with personal safety. Her apartment has an expensive alarm system, and she sleeps in a locked bedroom with the dog for company. Whether she goes to the gym for a self-defense class or out to dinner with friends, her purse holds a concealed carry permit and a handgun. And wherever she is, she’s noting the exits and analyzing the people around her to determine their threat level.

  What a character is obsessed with can be telling in regard to past traumas. Readers may not be able to identify the exact wounding experience from such overcompensations, but they’ll recognize that these sensitivities are related to it.

  Dialogue and Other Characters

  Characters are hopelessly clueless as to the impact of their own wounding events; as such, they’re not the best or most reliable sources. Other characters, though—particularly those closest to the victim—are often aware of what has happened and how it has changed this person. Even when they’re walking on eggshells, the supporting cast can be a great source of information, and what they know can easily be imparted to readers through dialogue.

  In The Patriot, Benjamin Martin is haunted by something from his past that he refuses to discuss. But because so many other people bring it up, its significance is clear. His son asks him what happened at Fort Wilderness, and Benjamin turns away. An opponent mentions Benjamin’s fury during the Wilderness campaign, causing him to clam up. A fellow soldier references what Benjamin did to the French at Fort Wilderness, and he underreacts and just goes on giving orders.

  Dialogue—even when it’s one-sided—is a natural way to hint at a wound, so maximize this vehicle for sharing bits and pieces of that important event when it makes sense to do so.

  Setting Interactions

  The setting may not seem like an obvious vehicle for revealing information about a wounding experience, but it actually works well. This event is part of who the character is; try as he might to distance himself from it, he’s never completely successful. There will often be people or objects in the current setting—or the setting itself—that remind him of what happened.

  Returning to The Patriot, Benjamin Martin has a hatchet that he keeps in a trunk. The mere sight of it brings anguish to his face, and he clearly wants nothing to do with it. We get a bigger glimpse into why this is when he’s forced to use it to keep one of his sons from being killed. He’s skilled in its use and becomes a different person when he’s wielding it: violent, vengeful, monstrous.

  This one prop is a huge clue to his wounding event. Combined with the references to Fort Wilderness and the knowledge that he was once a soldier, the hatchet allows readers to put together a framework of what is haunting Benjamin Martin.

  Think about your own character’s wounding incident. What items might have played a part in it or simply been present at the time? Which people or kinds of people could remind your character of what happened? What symbols, locations, weather phenomena, or seasons would naturally tie into it? Include these elements in the setting, and your character’s response to them will give readers another missing piece to the puzzle.

  Defense Mechanisms

  Defense mechanisms are a powerful form of emotional shielding that help protect the character from painful wounds. In the real world, when we see signs of a possible recurrence of a traumatic event or the negative emotions related to it, these mechanisms kick into gear to protect us. They may not be good for us or our characters, but because they’re subconscious, we aren’t usually aware of them. If even a hurtful defense mechanism is pointed out to the protagonist, she’ll cling to it because she believes it’s shielding her from harm.

  When readers see the character repeatedly employing one of these shielding techniques, they’ll recognize when she’s being triggered and that the circumstance could point to a painful occurrence. The following is a list of common defense mechanisms and how you can add them to your character’s behavior profile.

  Denial occurs when the character refuses to believe or admit that the wounding event happened. It may begin with a verbal denial, but when pressure is increased, she’ll become more agitated. Depending on her personality, her behavior may progress to aggression or violence in an effort to stop the offending person from pursuing the frightening topic. Denial can be shown through the character’s response when the topic is brought up, as she either disengages and flees from the conversation or becomes confrontational in a short period of time.

  Rationalization happens when the character tries to convince herself and others that what happened wasn’t so bad. An incest victim might claim that she and the offender had a special bond no one would understand. The victim may also rationalize the behavior of the perpetrator. This can happen when someone abused by her boyfriend makes excuses for him: He’s only like this when he drinks, or I should’ve called to tell him I’d be late.

  A benefit of this mechanism is that it makes the wounding incident obvious. Then, when the character begins to try to normalize it, readers will see her unhealthy response and recognize that it’s altering her psyche in an alarming way.

  Acting Out is often written off as undesirable attention-seeking behavior, but it’s really an extreme way of expressing desires or releasing emotions the person is incapable of communicating in a healthy manner. Children are described as acti
ng out when they become angry and throw a temper tantrum because they simply don’t know how to convey what they’re feeling.

  As it relates to a wounding event, you can show this mechanism by putting the character into a situation in which a certain response is expected, then have her react in an overblown or unexpected way. For instance, a woman in a relationship with a controlling partner may desperately desire control herself but doesn’t feel comfortable asking for it. So when she’s feeling particularly oppressed, she steals things—things she doesn’t even need but is compelled to take. Other examples of acting-out behaviors in this context include self-harming, violence against others, bullying, fits of rage, irresponsibility (not showing up to work, deliberately not finishing a school project, etc.), substance and food abuse, and sexual promiscuity.

  Showing your character acting in these uncharacteristic ways can reveal the depth to which the trauma has affected her; if the behavior continues, readers may even begin to see the wound changing her before their very eyes.

  Regression is a common coping mechanism that involves someone reverting to a previous level of development during times of stress. This can occur specifically when something reminds the character of past trauma, such as a grown man losing control of his bladder when a trigger appears. Showing this change and always associating it with the same trigger can start the gears turning for readers, who will want to know what frightening event is causing this response.