Just like you and me, characters in our stories have suffered emotional trauma and pain that cannot easily be dispelled or forgotten. This type of trauma, known as an emotional wound, often damages a character’s self-worth, changes how they view the world, causes trust issues, and dictates how they will interact with other people. As you can imagine, this can make it harder for them to achieve certain goals. So what exactly is an emotional wound?

A wound is a painful past event that is so emotionally scarring it leaves a character feeling highly exposed and vulnerable. This traumatic event might be a single experience (discovering a spouse’s infidelity), a longer-term situation (growing up in poverty and often going hungry), or a series of small cuts that built into a painful life lesson (a parent who withheld affection when one’s performance was less than perfect). Whatever the wound, this negative experience triggers a psychological reaction: the need to protect oneself from further emotional harm. In fact, the very idea that this kind of emotional trauma could happen again creates a deep-seated fear, one the character will do almost anything to avoid.

The hurt caused by a wounding event is a trunk full of scars the character lugs around wherever they go. The certainty that this same painful experience could happen again carries a high cost: the character’s happiness. Fear of what could happen will dictate their choices and actions, causing them to avoid certain people and situations that remind them of this past event. This means that until they learn to let go of the past, some of their deepest needs and desires will never be fully realized.