The Wounds We Write: How Characters Reveal Our Deepest Scars

I knew going into writing Solbound that I was setting myself up for a hefty dose of hand-crafted, personalized therapy—but I only knew this because of what other writers had told me to expect. When I actually began writing, I began to discover things that I never knew about myself, and re-discovered wounds that went far deeper than I realized.

I never heard exactly how those old wounds would crack open. I figured it was because of the stress of writing, or the sheer time commitment that needs to be developed. But no, it wasn’t because of the stress. It was because of my character’s stress.

Their stress was my stress. Their trauma, my trauma. Their laughter, my laughter. And their love… that was where the pain seeped in; where my characters dug into my bones and found exactly where I could be bruised.

In Solbound, my main character loves his friends, almost to a fault. His jealousy defines him for so much of the novel that I began to wonder why this plot was one that had been such a staple for me. I could place the over-dependence in my character, but not in myself. It wasn’t until I looked at my other characters that things began to make sense. They had patience, respect, and love for my broken main character. They chose to see through his jealousy and trust issues and saw a broken kid who just needed some friends.

Yeah, that one hurt. Definitely a bit of a stab in the back.

It was also through my characters that I was able to see how I could heal that scar. No matter how hard we may try as writers, we’ll always stick a bit of our personality into each and every one of our characters.

Think about some of your favorite books and the characters in them. I can quickly turn to T.J. Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea to experience this. When I was younger, I could relate to the strange children who just simply couldn’t fit in but try to anyway. Nowadays, I relate to Linus and his desperate need for adventure—something he needed so badly that he forgot what adventure was. Think about an example for yourself. Why did you relate so much to the characters in your favorite books? What might that say about yourself?

On the novel-writing side of things, it’s truly a cleansing experience. See, these wounds your characters go through may feel so real to readers, but to you, they are real. When they overcome those obstacles, you’re doing the same. If your characters feel like they’ve fallen flat or empty, it may be because they haven’t overcome those obstacles; likewise, it may mean that you need to overcome those obstacles to find out how they may do the same. It’s a simple relationship—you help them, and that may inevitably help you.

The Writing Exercise

Here’s a simple writing exercise: take a moment from your day or your week that you found particularly stressful, and craft together a couple different characters: one that represents you; and one that represents the aggressor. Next, craft a simple but wildly different setting. Maybe you’re at a zoo, or maybe you’re trapped in a freezing van in Antarctica. Finally, craft up a new ending—one that you would’ve preferred (and ideally, one where all parties are at least content). If, when you finish your writing, you feel even more frustrated with the situation, you may need to find a different ending. Keep tweaking it until you find what it is that really led to this stressful situation. When you hit that point, your characters may look and feel entirely unrecognizable, but remember that that still is you—and it’s that version of you that walks away feeling stronger and better.

Your characters are you. Let them take the future bullets. One day, their pain will seem completely unrecognizable—just like yours will.