On Writing

On Writing- Old Wounds and Your Characters’ Decision Making

Photo by Taisiia Stupak on Unsplash

When writing a character, it’s the wounds that guide their decision making. Unless something divine intervenes, when the character is left to make their own decisions, that decision must be made with their old wounds in mind. Whether it makes them use courage and face something head on, or if it makes them a coward (in the most honest term) and avoid any confrontation. Or maybe it just makes them take a second longer to make an unbiased decision. Anyway, the past must be taken into account with decision making. It tells the reader if the character is learning, if the character is ending up to be quite the bore which hopefully places the spotlight on other more interesting characters, or more excitedly is it pushing the character in a negative way causing negative reactions or villainous behavior. dum dum dummmm….

In life, we’ve got to understand our wounds like our character’s wounds. We will make decisions based on our past traumas. It’s up for us to decide if we will allow those wounds to make us stronger or turn us into our own villains. Or if our avoidance behavior is going to remove us from our own story.

Don’t remove yourself from your own story. We need you in all your glory to show up.

View at Medium.com