
Learn to write authentic, emotionally resonant trauma backstories that deepen your characters without resorting to clichés, info dumps, or flashbacks.
Good fiction isn’t borne out in the comfortable and easy living we might dream about, but in the tension and conflict between characters and/or their own desires. The power of deep POV is inviting the reader into the character’s lived experience of that internal and external conflict, and explore the emotional toll they overcome, grow through, or push through.
5 Truths About A Traumatic Past Writers Need To Remember
Trauma Requires Writing Secondary Emotions
Traumatic events, current or historical, are the equivalent of an emotional tsunami. Primary emotions are the raw, knee-jerk emotional reactions to stimuli we all experience and are the most common emotions given to characters. Some primary emotions that could be triggered by trauma would be: fear, frustration, guilt, self-doubt, hopelessness, loss (physical or psychological), powerlessness, loathing, denial, sad, etc.
When someone is hit by a tidal wave of primary emotions like that, secondary emotions are triggered. Secondary emotions are our thinking reactions to primary emotions. Some of the secondary emotions that could be triggered because of trauma might be: anger, shame, anxiety, bitterness, resentment, numbness, rage, and grief.
Writers need to dive deep into these secondary emotions and layer the primary emotions so the reader can experience the loss, anxiety and trauma with your character. Writers Helping Writers has a great entry on overcoming abuse here that walks through trauma and character motivation.
Historical Trauma Needs Authenticity In the Present
For someone who’s experienced past trauma, (emotional, physical, sexual, verbal) each time the anxiety is triggered doesn’t mean that the actual events are recalled with any amount of detail. For someone with PTSD, the body reacts to the past trauma as though it’s happening all over again but they might not necessarily actively recall the event.
Physiological symptoms are one way to signal to a reader that the character (or at least their body) is reliving a traumatic event even if they won’t think about it. A woman who was abused as a child will not want to relive the abuse in her mind every time a man larger than her walks into a room.
What she won’t be able to control are the anxiety symptoms such as her heart rate, she might begin to sweat or blush for what feels like no reason. She may maneuver herself to make sure she can make a quick exit if needed or insist on sitting at the end of the row or table.
With backstory, you want to answer one question and leave the reader with two more. Ready to go even deeper with backstory in deep POV – check out this post in the deep POV mastery series.

Past Trauma Has Four Main Lasting Reactions: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Or Fawn
Most people have heard of the fight or flight survival instinct – you either try to get away or escape somehow, or you come out fighting. Sometimes fighting looks like getting angry (at themselves or others) – it’s just not flying fists.
Freeze looks more like learned compliance, going numb, denial, fatigue, or even dissociation. If we can’t get away or fight our way out, our brain has this incredible ability to escape within itself. Fawn is like the possum playing dead. Sometimes this is done consciously, complying but looking for an escape or sometimes it’s unconscious. They take a beating knowing the abuser will pass out and they can be safe or flee.
Read more about Fight, Flight or Freeze and how they overlap here.
Emotional Triggers Caused By Past Trauma Have A Desire At Their Foundation
When anxiety is triggered, an immediate flood of primary emotions and secondary emotions come to the front almost instantly. That’s why much of the time, we aren’t aware of the primary emotions causing the secondary emotion. It’s your job to capture this shift so the reader can lean in and figure out what’s going on.
Emotional triggers can be incredibly powerful for readers because it’s generated within the character, it’s a look at their inner sanctum. These are where the festering wounds that just won’t heal live. I call this process emotional context – read more about that here.
There’s a lot of room in these situations for character arc. Let these characters learn as they go through the story. If they begin the story having already overcome the trauma, make sure there’s real justification for giving them the trauma to begin with.
Causes of Historical Trauma
The thing about PTSD and anxiety is that the effects and consequences are very individual. It can be a result of feeling powerless (having no voice or ability to flee/escape), and hopelessness at being unable to change the situation or outcome. Two people can experience the exact same trauma and one person can walk away with PTSD and the other not, they both might, neither of them could have PTSD. They could both have PTSD to differing degrees or have different triggers.
Read more about healing from emotional and psychological trauma here.
As a writer, you don’t need your character to experience some kind of catastrophic attack (rape, kidnapping, torture) to experience anxiety. Being locked in a pitch-black room as a child just once can cause lifelong anxiety. The degree to which the adult allows this anxiety to define them, or shape their thinking (often trauma leads to shame), the more the consequences will become evident in day to day life.
Remember that whatever sort of trauma is given to a character, to layer the emotions the event caused. Make sure to realistically portray how the character thinks or remembers the traumatic event. However, don’t be afraid to make that character uncomfortable, to throw them head first into whatever their worst fear is and let them become stronger because of it. Those are the characters readers cheer for!
What kind of historic trauma have you given your characters?
Oh, wow. I’m saving this!
In my current WIP, many of the characters have suffered some kind of trauma or another, and in a few cases I haven’t quite portrayed it evenly or convincingly. This guide will be very useful during my rewrite. 🙂
Glad you found it helpful!
Thanks so much Lisa. I am soaking this up.
So glad you found this post helpful!
Bookmarked this for future reference!
I wrote trauma in a thesis and it was said it was a diatribe. Many people who havenot experienced the extremities of trauma donot want to know about hell suffered (and survived, even where there is no resolution) unless it happens to them. This attitude, which reflects the selfish soul, reinforces trauma suffering. It also reveals the absence of regard for others.
Love your ability to write succinctly and explain Deep Point of View (as well as everything else) in a language that everyone can understand. Thank you.
I’m not interested in writing brutality and other trauma-inducing scenes with enough realism for readers to suffer emotionally through vicarious trauma. Fiction is meant to entertain before teach. However, I think the emotional journal characters experience is worth exploring because everyone has hurts and memories and broken boundaries to overcome. To cheat readers of that journey is a disservice.
IMHO
Thanks for reading.
Nice tips, Thanks for sharing, appreciate your efforts
Great read. Thanks for all the work you put in!
Hi! I was wondering how to write a character talking about their trauma. Currently in a WIP, my character is having a breakdown in front of their best friend after years of bottling his abandonment trauma up. Basically, his mother died and his father abandoned him after the fact. Not entirely sure how to go about it, especially since he’s such a reserved character by nature. Any tips would help!
Google disclosing trauma. Read Reddit threads.
How would a character tell someone about her past? I’d like her to really open up, but I don’t know how to make that happen.
It would have to be someone they were very sure they could trust, and even the smallest hint that they’re not believed will make them clam up. Any hint of being brushed off or of someone getting upset with them, they’ll clam up. Some people never talk about their past, some people struggle with choosing the right people – they disclose too much detail or to the wrong people. I would do some research on disclosure and see if that sparks some creativity.
Thanks for sharing.
I’m writing a WIP right now and one of my characters have to deal with trauma. I want them to tell someone about it but I don’t know how to write that without making it seem like an info dump. I also want to make the situation realistic. Do you have any advice for that?
Thank you, I am happy to have read this.
Jennifer
Thanks for the excellent pointers for developing a meaningful backstory.
You mention that the backstory should answer one question for the reader and leave them with two more. Presumably the answered question is “what is the cause of the character’s emotional wound?” I didn’t catch an explanation for the two unanswered questions. That sounds intriguing. Can you elaborate?
Best Regards,
Bud
Thanks for the question! I answered it in this guest-post here on Writers In The Storm. Hope it’s helpful. https://writersinthestormblog.com/2024/08/4-tips-to-master-backstory-in-deep-point-of-view/