The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Psychological Trauma (Writers Helping Writers Series)

This team of authors keep knocking it out of the park. This book just adds to an amazing series of resources for writers, which dive into aspects of world building and character creation. In this book, the authors break down how various traumatic events can affect the development of personalities. The authors admit that they’re not trained psychologists, but the depth and breadth of their research definitely shows. What comes out as a result of that research is one of the best resource books in this ‘thesaurus’ series. I’ve made a point of picking up every book in this series because they have proved invaluable to me as a writer. While the books aren’t comprehensive (and they make no claims to be), they do provide more than enough samples, ideas, and concepts to trigger the creative process.

Excellent resources!! Extensive research and great writing makes a very interesting support for characters of all types.

Because the fiction I write is based on my own past and overcoming emotional wounds, the discovery of The Emotional Wound Thesaurus was all the more important for me to learn to develop unique and layered female protagonists. Even though the conflict and themes of my current and future novels will somewhat reflect my own experiences, I also desire to write for and create relatable characters for women of all backgrounds. I've heard the notion that parts of who we are as people are reflected in the characters we write. Often, our first novel represents ourselves in part or in whole more than any other. I see it as a form of therapy as we work out our own personalities and struggles in the safe space of a fictional world. However, eventually, I'd like to write characters that are not like me at all! Perhaps an alter ego, or a story inspired by something I see on the news or hear about from friends. For my current fiction project, I’m writing from the POV of three sisters. Here are five ways I see The Emotional Wound Thesaurus can help writers create characters of depth – even when those characters are different from themselves or anyone else they know. 1. Forward and Intro Sections. Whether you think you know your characters or not, read the first 40 pages of this book! If you're not sure about your character's wounds yet, skim the table of contents and choose a few that seem to fit with your story concept. But then, go back and read the beginning chapters which offer exceptional insights on Self-Care for Writers (especially important if you'll be exploring wounds that are close to your own personal experiences), The Mirror of Fiction: a Reflection of Life and Our Deeper Selves, What is an Emotional Wound?, Character Arc: an Internal Shift to Embrace Change, and more. Even though I'd already used the online database of wounds to develop my characters, I still had several breakthroughs and "ah-ha" moments in understanding my fictional sisters and how to convey the various parts of their journey in my story. 2. Consider the PRIMARY Emotional Wound and choose two additional wounds. You may--as I did and especially if you're basing your main character after a part of your own life--begin to see overlapping characteristics related to multiple wounds. This will help you to discover the dominating negative and positive traits, triggers, fears and responses for your character. In turn, you'll be able to highlight these for fiction and the purpose of your story without overwhelming your reader with too many issues for your character to tackle. However, this process will help in knowing your character on a deeper level that should help in developing scenes, writing dialogue, or even choosing hobbies, family status, or a career path. 3. Multiple POVs. This is the first time I've attempted writing a novel with the point of view of three distinct women. Having access to The Emotional Wound Thesaurus has been a vital part in giving each woman a unique back story, personality, and voice despite the fact that they are sisters. 4. Add Your Own Elements. I'm certain this resource isn't intended to be an end-all-be-all, but more of a spring-board of potential. Though there are realistic and unrealistic manners in which someone will respond to an emotional wound, there are ways to modify these responses depending on your character. For example, say a character is still in the process of overcoming the wound of "Becoming a Caregiver at an Early Age". As a result, she's avoided becoming a parent herself. Instead, she has a dog to fulfill her need of caring for another being, but also sees it as "safer" than becoming a mom and she can practice being "overprotective" without rejection or push back. I came up with this detail on my own as it seemed to fit her personality. 5. Emotional Wounds are Directly Related to Positive and Negative Traits. Even if you don't analyze your characters or dive as deeply into their wounds as I have for mine, you'll find this resource helpful in creating rounded characters. This goes for your protagonist, supporting characters, and even the villain. On the most basic level, choose a wound and a few associated negative and positive traits and you've got yourself a unique character attempting to overcome the past while battling a conflict in the present.

Dear son, I was fishing around Amazon for something to read, and because I've read several books on writing, it suggested "The Emotional Wound Thesaurus." I've only recently studied anything about character arc, and how the protagonist must change over the course of the novel. I discovered that to create a compelling story, the main character must have some kind emotional wound they keep hidden, and that the story is a series of conflicts/obstacles that help him deal with that wound a little at a time and become a better person by the end. So, I grabbed the sample copy of Emotional Wound Thesaurus to check it out. It was eye-popping revealing. I saw myself in what they were describing. Believe me, I have a carefully curated inventory of wounds that I can retrieve at light speed. What I didn't realize is how these wounds manifest themselves in compensating behaviors, some good, some bad, some really bad. It's as if they read my life's wound inventory list, then said, "and this is what you did as a result, isn't it?" It was frigging uncanny. This book is trying to get authors to create more compelling, relatable, likeable characters through their quirky/mysterious behaviors, and eventually to grapple with the wound that drives their every action and strongest desires. Not only did it open my eyes to my own motivations and behaviors, but made me realize how everyone, everyone, everyone suffers the same kind of wound/reactive behaviors that guide their life's actions and choices. Many times I feel like the thousands of people I have met are cardboard cut-outs. They walk into my perception, say and do such and such, and I am left with a general impression. They're nice, obnoxious, a jerk, charming, what have you. After this life epiphany, I see other people as characteristics shaped by complicated positive and negative influences that make them behave the way they do. Even the unbelievably nice people are possibly significantly shaped by substantial wounds and the persona is a façade to mask they pain they feel deep down. And, really, this is the point the book is trying to get across. If you want interesting, compelling, or "three-dimensional" characters, rather than pop-in-and-out of your perception "two-dimensional card-board cutout" characters, imbue them with wounds that drive their personalities. Read this book! You don't have to buy it, even. At the very least, download the free sample. Your eyes will be opened and you will likely buy it because it's so good. I wish I had read something like this much earlier in life, like age 16. I always want to pass along golden nuggets that might help you succeed in life. Consider this nugget passed. Your fellow life-traveler, Daddio

This is a really useful tool and it is compiled in a useful way. Each emotional wound has two pages dedicated to it. Really useful things like triggers, physical ways that one suffering from this wound might act out, etc. I love it. I haven't come across any that I felt weren't sufficient by themselves. But if there were one that you wanted more information about, enough is given to be a great lead-in to additional research. And yes, I'm on my way to owning the whole set and hope they come out with more.

I really enjoy and value this writing resource series, and I was particularly excited to get my hands on this volume. It has an excellent assortment of information and is a great resource, however, I felt the listings to be geared more towards certain genres rather than running a broader spectrum. By this, I mean that as a fantasy author, a genre where unspeakable tragedies often take place, there wasn’t much offered to pull from. Not even for a super specific sense, but when I think of the psychology of fantasy characters, I didn’t find much to pull from. I could say the same for science fiction, horror, etc.. This book is more tailored for general fiction, mostly contemporary though there is some to be pulled for other categories. If you want general info, this volume is great. If you’re looking for something with heavier trauma’s this might fall a little flat.

This is a great tool for character sketches. Characters need their flaws and emotional wounds are one way to build them in. While it would be wonderful that folks didn’t have emotional wounds, we (and our characters) do have them. The authors are clear that this book may affect some readers. They’ve included a section on self-care for writers. They include information how to use the book as well. The emotional wounds presented are grouped into similar wounds. For example, Failures ad Mistakes includes Accidentally killing someone, cracking under pressure, declaring bankruptcy, and more. There are several buckets wounds are grouped into. Each emotional wound has two pages in the book. Each includes: Examples of this wound Basic needs often compromised by this wound False beliefs that could be embraced The character may fear… Possible responses and results Personality traits that may form Triggers that might aggravate this wound Opportunities to face or overcome this wound Very handy tool for building characters. Emotional wounds are unfortunately part of our lives as humans. This guide can help a writer build richer characters. It can be a useful tool.

Well, our characters, the best ones, have deep emotional wounds that drive their behavior. Those wounds drive their psychological responses to everything they encounter. As good authors we need to understand those wounds and how they manifest in our characters daily lives. The Emotional Wound Thesaurus provides a great starting point for me to begin to understand my character, in both the development and the writing phase. Each possible wound is broken down, first into how it might have happened. The example entry is accidentally killing someone. There are many ways this event might have happened listed, or you might have your own. That is followed by the characters basic needs that have been compromised by the event, false beliefs and fears that might result from it, and possible responses they might have. The thesaurus goes on to suggest personality traits that might form as a result of the tragic event, triggers that might aggravate it and ways your character might overcome it.How can you live without that? I can't. I use the other thesaurus's daily when I'm writing, or developing characters and I'm excited to add this one to my reference shelf.