Writing Trauma In Fiction: Anniversaries

July 27, 2021 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 Comment

The anniversary of a past trauma can be a fantastic opportunity for authors to crank up the tension and internal conflict for characters, but it’s important to get it right! There is nothing more annoying than watching or reading a story where past trauma is handled flippantly, or with trite platitudes, with consequences that stray into the annoying rather than devastating realm.

Trauma is anything that overwhelms your ability to cope, give context to, or understand. For the vast majority of people, we have no context for rape. We have nothing from our past that tells us how to respond or explain or cope with what happened. I recently saw a statistic that 49% of women who survive rape develop PTSD — rape is so overwhelming in almost half of those it happens to that trauma literally re-wires the brain.

You can point to terrorist attacks, war/combat, natural disasters — and yes, all those events can and do cause trauma. However, let’s not overlook the more common events that can cause trauma: divorce, sudden illness/medical procedures, death/loss of a loved one, forced relocation, abandonment — the list goes on.

I’ve written about how to capture a trauma background in fiction briefly here, but have you given thought to the anniversary of the trauma and how you could use that in your fiction? Anniversaries can hit you unexpectedly — something you didn’t expect to affect you does. Anniversaries can force you to relive the trauma in ways that make it nearly as bad as the initial trauma itself. Not everyone struggles with anniversaries, and some trauma (particularly events that happened repeatedly like abuse) may not have any particular anniversary, but have you thought about how a trauma anniversary could ratchet up the tension and create compelling internal conflict for your character?

Emotional Reactions To Anniversaries

Trauma anniversaries can cause an array of reactions and take some time to research that. Doing that research here is really beyond the scope of what I blog about, but emotions like anger, guilt, shame, avoidance, isolation, fear, anxiety, grief, sadness would all be within the normal or expected range.

Rather, what I’m more interested in is how to go deeper with it. Yes, we can list off those emotions, but how do you SHOW them? How do you add emotional complexity? How do you dig deeper into those reactions so they’re compelling and grip readers by the throat? That’s what this blog is all about.

Get Curious About How The Character Reflects On The Trauma

When your character looks back on that trauma event, how do they reflect on it? Do they know exactly what they wish they or others had done instead? Can they imagine how things might have worked out differently? Have they let those imagined scenarios play out in their minds? This rumination, reflection, and analysis requires one to sit with their thoughts and feelings, and instead of exiling the uncomfortable emotions instead they listen to the concerns brought up. The trauma may still cause them significant internal conflict, but this ability to reflect, imagine, and sit with emotions shows significant healing.

However, the character who avoids thinking about the trauma at all, or can’t imagine it turning out any other way — who continues to feel helpless and vulnerable when thinking about it, is someone who hasn’t done a lot of healing or reflection most likely. They might feel “stuck” and so their reaction to the trauma anniversary will look quite a lot different than the person who’s done some processing and healing.

What Does A Processed, Partially Healed Reaction Look Like?

Someone who’s taken the time to process what happened between the original trauma and the anniversary (and it might not be the first anniversary) can look back at all that’s happened and reflect on it. They can appreciate how far they’ve come, even if they’re not fully healed yet. They can appreciate the courage, stamina, determination, hard work it took to get where they are. This doesn’t mean they won’t still struggle with the guilt or shame or depression or anxiety or any of the rest of it, but they see how these emotions have a purpose. (We know that emotions typically serve three different functions: to bring our attention to a concern, to protect us, to inform us of something) The character will have a perspective now they didn’t have before. There’s hope now. There’s resiliency. They have compassion and are kind to themselves, but that doesn’t mean an anniversay won’t cause significant internal conflict. Rather, how the character FEELS about that internal conflict will look much different than the character trying to fight the memories, squash or ignore the hard emotions, etc.

Unprocessed, Still Raw, Trauma Anniversary Reactions

Those who have not been able to heal or process what happened (and again, this could be the first anniversary or the twenty-first), may relive the trauma in many ways. This could be in the form of flashbacks for those struggling with PTSD — and they may struggle with those flashbacks all the time but it’s more intense during the anniversary. For others, the memories may simply become super fresh and raw again. Nightmares will likely be common — either replaying what happened or deal with themes from the trauma (feelings of helplessness, vulnerability, not having a voice, etc)

We react to trauma in a variety of different ways, but generally those reactions aim to protect us, keep us safe, and make sure that whatever happened, doesn’t happen again. Different people have learned different strategies. Some will avoid or deny what happened. Some will sink into depression or anxiety, struggling with this sense of helplessness and unable to picture a different outcome than more of the same. Some will numb the emotions through substances, work, shame-shifting, exercise, etc. I wrote more about coping mechanisms here.

If the character decides to put their energy into denying, ignoring, or numbing the trauma memories instead of trying to process and heal from it, remember that this will be exhausting. And at some point those coping mechanisms will either stop working, require more and more effort for them to work, or they escalate into something destructive. For instance, working long hours to avoid being alone seems innocuous — it’s just for a short time, but workaholism comes with sometimes significant consequences (speaking of health, emotions, and relationships) and is unsustainable long term.

How would they justify their actions? For those who are acting out of character to avoid the anniversary, how would they explain to friends what happened? How would they calm the cognitive dissonance their actions create? The normally chaste and shy girl can’t handle the reminders of the looming anniversary, so she gets drunk and wakes up the next morning in bed with a stranger. Get curious about what she had to justify to herself to allow this to happen — either she had to silence the cautioning voices in her head to get blackout drunk, or she rationalized what she was doing along the way.

Some trauma survivors prefer to continue life as though nothing happened. There are a few possible coping mechanisms involved here, but take a moment to get curious about WHY they need to live as though it never happened? What would happen if they spent some time and sat with that hurt person/kid and listened to their concerns? What if they acknowledged the raging emotions and got curious about what those emotions are trying to warn or protect against?

Add Emotional Complexity

Trauma is filled with conflicting and irrational emotions. I like to picture a table full of children — the character at various ages in the past. Each child with a seat at the table had to deal with something really difficult and they had a set of emotions that kept them safe (or gave the illusion of safety) and a set of behaviours they used to survive. Each child/teen/adult at the table will be screaming that THEIR solution is the only one that will work. A five year old’s solution to overwhelming emotions will look different (hopefully) than a twenty-five year old’s solution. But, these kids at the table will have conflicting viewpoints, conflicting concerns — and your character has to either listen to them all, acknowledge the concerns, and then choose a new path (a healthy and balanced approach) or one of the kids at the table will hijack the situation.

What happens when the terrified five year old decides what to do about a situation? Or the overwhelmed fifteen year old who mistakes attention for love? Anniversaries can be so difficult that a character could act in a way that contradicts their everyday life, or they could continue on with life as normal but the internal conflict can become very intense.

Showing Emotional Complexity

What other emotions are at play in a scene? I try to brainstorm five emotions in high-tension scenes and pick at least three to be prominent. What conflicting thoughts would those emotions generate? Try jotting those down — if your character is feeling this way, what thoughts would that emotion trigger? How would that emotion feel physically? How would conflicting emotions intensify those physical sensations or colour their thoughts?

When a child misbehaves and puts themselves in danger, the parent may have conflicting thoughts/ feelings about how to react. They may want to forget it happened because they hate conflict. They may want to punish too severely because the child’s actions scared them half to death. They may want to hug the child because they’re safe again. Which emotion will the parent listen to? Which emotion’s solutions will rule the day? What would a stronger person do? What would a better parent do? Why don’t they do that? What won’t they let themselves do – why? Just get really curious about all the other things going on.

Be particular and specific with what other emotions are at play, the solutions they offer, and the WHY behind those emotions. This is how to surprise readers and keep them reading.

Some Going Deeper Questions

What irrational belief does your character hang on to? Do they acknowledge this belief is irrational, but continue to be ruled by it? Why?

What would happen if they faced the trauma memories/feelings? What are they afraid will happen? WHY? (the why is SO IMPORTANT).

What would happen if their preferred coping mechanism was taken from them? What would they do next? WHY?

What would a stronger person have done in that trauma situation (according to your character)? Why didn’t they do that? (see if #1 is appropriate for your character)

Ignored emotions demand attention! In what ways do the squashed emotions from the trauma leak out and cause problems for your character? Why must those emotions stay squashed?

Anniversaries can often de-rail progress in many aspects of life. How does this anniversary make life more difficult for your character? Why?

What is holding your character back from imagining a different-from-now future? What are they afraid might happen? Why would that be so awful they’d do anything to avoid it? What does that tell you about your character — what emotions are really driving their thinking and choices?

Have you used a trauma anniversary in your story? How does it affect your character?

Writing Complex Emotions In Deep POV: Shame

July 9, 2021 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 1 Comment

Deep POV is a fiction writing style that aims to remove the narrative or psychic distance between the reader and the point of view character — think first person shooter style. The goal is to completely immerse the reader in the character’s emotional experience, in a way that feels immediate. When done well, deep pov will grab your reader by the throat and not let go. But, deep pov leaves no place for weak writing, poor plotting, or under-developed characters to hide. Deep POV is the black-belt of fiction writing!

For the summer, I’m working on a series of posts that will look at different emotions. Emotions are really the heart of deep POV. Let’s take a quick minute to look at the role of emotions in deep POV and why it’s worth a whole summer of posts.

Omniscient POV

If you think of works written in omniscient pov, the narrator/writer voice tells the reader a story about one or a group of characters and shares everything the characters think and feel. Nothing comes to the reader directly from the character apart from spoken dialogue. An example would be Lord of the Rings.

Objective Third Person

This is still the writer/narrator telling the reader a story about one or more characters, but usually this style leaves out the emotions. It’s objective. You’ll get the character’s thoughts and actions filtered and interpreted through the narrator, but not very often will the narrator voice delve into how the character feels.

Limited or Close Third Person

This is the writer/narrator telling the story about ONE character at a time. That’s the big difference. There’s typically only one to three point of view characters, and you only get one pov at a time. The character’s thoughts and actions and emotions are filtered and summarized through the narrator, however — limited third person makes room for direct thoughts. Many like to italicize the thoughts of the characters to differentiate them from the narrator/writer voice. There are many newer writers who believe they’re writing in limited third person and they’re actually writing in objective third. Ask yourself what place emotions have in the storytelling?

Deep POV

Deep POV shifts everything, that’s why it can be so hard to learn. Every word on the page (every action, thought, feeling, bit of backstory, element of setting, every description — all of it) comes to the reader directly from the character. There is no author/narrator/writer voice to filter, describe, summarize or explain what’s going on. Hear me when I say this: N O N E. And the thread that makes deep POV really explode off the page, are the character’s emotions.

SHAME VS GUILT

If you google this, psychology sites are going to inundate you with a flood of conflicting answers. In fiction, there are primary and secondary emotions. Primary emotions are the gut reaction, without-thinking, knee-jerk responses to events, conflict, people, etc. Secondary emotions are the reactions to the primary emotions. Depending on the character and the situation, many emotions can be either primary or secondary (for the purposes of fiction), but some are almost ALWAYS secondary emotions. And shame is one of those (anger is another). Shame is almost always a reaction to another emotion.

Guilt and Shame are emotional cousins but there are distinctions — and the labels might not be particularly helpful for your writing but understanding the differences can be. Guilt can be good for us when it pushes us to change (our thinking or behaviour). Guilt can lead to regret, can lead to righteous anger, etc. Guilt says “I did a bad thing.” When I threw a ball in the living room and broke Mom’s favourite antique cup and she cried — I felt guilty. I won’t ever throw a ball in the house again.

False guilt is when we have negative feelings (real or perceived) about our own thoughts or actions, but you really had no control over those events or actions. I was texting in the backseat when the car hit a patch of black ice and we hit a tree. If I wasn’t texting in the backseat, Dad wouldn’t have had that accident.

Shame is not about something we did, it’s about who we are. Guilt says I did a bad thing. Shame says I’m a bad person. Shame can be placed on us by others and we can place it on ourselves through real or imagined perceptions of how others see us. Shame can arise from a loss of status or identity. You can’t just change your behaviour to get out from under shame like you can guilt. With shame, who you are is the problem. I am overweight, so that means I’m ugly, unlovable, and lazy. Or I was molested so I’m dirty and broken and unlovable.

Do you see the difference? Shame is debilitating.

Shame seems to be one of those really universal emotions that I don’t see writers delving into too much in fiction — which is a “shame” (hahaha – see what I did there) because it’s such a powerful, compelling, and rich-with-complexity emotion. This can (and in many cases should) be part of what drives characters to their absolute lowest moments.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Compass-of-shame-avoidant-behaviours-and-masking-emotions-Webb-2010-developed-from_fig1_282152685?fbclid=IwAR2N0tRbq6iF38wEpWFL7WtEvYXXNc-BellFV-gS7sBiVGAFkgIdJoATvt4

This is a really awesome graphic that shows the many ways we try to shake off shame. Shame is one of those emotions that we carry around, it sits like a rock on our chests, and we can’t get out from under it by avoiding it, or being logical, or ignoring it. The only way out from under shame is to acknowledge its concerns, and answer those concerns. Those who struggle with perfectionism are more prone to shame. Those who care (too much) about what other people think of them, are more prone to shame. Shame is the shadow that relentlessly haunts trauma victims and whispers — it was all your fault — you’re a failure — there’s no hope.

Writing Shame In Deep POV

Because there’s no author/narrator voice to summarize, explain, or narrate what’s going on inside your character, you must capture the emotions with enough realism and immediacy that the reader can understand not only how your character feels but why those emotions are driving their thoughts and behaviours.

The unique blend of primary emotions that fuels the shame will be unique to your character. That unique blend will carry with it different triggers, different coping mechanisms, etc. You can learn more about primary and secondary emotions here and more about coping mechanisms here.

Someone who feels shame about being overweight and unable to lose the weight, will have different triggers and sensitivities than someone who feels shame because they were abused – for instance. The actual emotion will feel the same, but the primary emotions behind it may be different. The intensity may be different. The reactions to the shame will be different. The way it causes disfunction or change will be different.

The key to deep POV is specificity and particularity. Put the reader in the scene with the character, in their shoes, inside their head — keep no secrets. Then the WHY behind the character’s thoughts and actions becomes clear without you needing the writer/narrator voice to TELL the reader what’s going on.

Don’t Be Afraid Of Complexity

So many times, I’ve encouraged students to delve deeper into the emotions in a scene. What ELSE is going on here? They create these dynamic, powerful, tension-filled events, and the character is simply afraid, or simply frustrated or simply angry. NO! Life is never that simple, is it? We have emotions that conflict, that amplify, that contradict one another. Emotions can be fleeting or last a lifetime. Get curious about that.
Ask not only what ELSE is the character feeling, but explore what a better person would do in this situation? Why can’t they be that person? What would a stronger person do ? What keeps them from doing that? Ask them what they think they SHOULD do in this situation? Why aren’t they doing that — OR — why isn’t that enough?

Shame is one of those emotions that should add this sort of complexity for readers.

Are you using shame in your writing? Do you find it easy or difficult to write shame really well?

What Is Your Character’s Emotional Kryptonite?

February 17, 2021 by Lisa Hall-Wilson 5 Comments

Emotions are complex, nuanced, and rarely linear. Most of us have a specific, painful, crunchy, emotion we’ll do almost anything to avoid — even if the avoidance is harmful or at the least not helpful. Psychology calls this “emotional avoidance.” When capturing your character(s) emotions, particularly when writing in deep POV, you must be willing to dive into that character’s lived experience in order to offer surprise and authenticity for readers with a visceral impact that creates emotional connections.

What Emotion Does Your Character HATE To Feel?

This may be linked to the story problem/stakes you’ve created, or it may be an identity issue that adds obstacles to resolving the character’s story problem. But this emotion must be specific and sometimes with a specific trigger.

And to the character, this specific emotion is intolerable. They will do anything to avoid feeling this way. One example that comes to mind are super heroes who forsake a romantic relationship because they’re afraid the “bad guys” would use their loved ones as leverage to hurt them.

They are partly concerned that others would be put in harms’ way simply for their association with them, but for a character who is otherwise mostly invincible — the fragility of the love from an ordinary person (one who might grow sick, or ill, or come to harm) is a vulnerability. They don’t understand or even WANT to understand vulnerability. They will live a solitary, lonely, existence to avoid this vulnerability.

woman in a thinking pose with the text: What is emotional context?

The Avoidance Of This Emotion Becomes Their Kryptonite

Whatever emotion the character will avoid at all costs, the avoidance of that can cause harm. The specifics of this will vary. For those characters who have a trauma background, they may be able to survive only because they’ve voted specific emotions off the island – so to speak. I’m not allowed to be angry. But their inability to access or use those emotions eventually causes harm, right. In the case of anger, there are physiological changes that take place when we become angry — there’s an adrenaline rush, faster heart rate, shorter breathing, etc. That doesn’t go away, they need to do something with those feelings.

Like anything else, anger serves a purpose. By refusing to become angry, your character will internalize that and turn it inward. Because anger is about regaining control often, avoiding this emotion may look like an eating disorder, self-harming, addiction or substance abuse, excessive exercise, or stringent self-denial (I can’t go out with friends, I don’t deserve to/haven’t earned that). These behaviours are, at their core, about regaining or maintaining a sense of control.

Additionally, anger can be a survival or safety warning. Anger leads to change, to standing up for yourself, to ending abuse, ending injustice. Anger can be a very positive emotion.

Make sure whatever is used to avoid the emotion makes sense to the character. If they fear a lack of control, they may seek out ways to feel like they’re always in control. If they fear feeling taken advantage of, they may take responsibility for everything, even things that could never be controlled. The character whose kryptonite is failure may become a workaholic, may avoid any activities where they’re not assured they’ll succeed, cheat/lie/steal in order to appear successful, or avoid the feeling through substance abuse.

Tangible Consequences For Emotional Avoidance

It’s not possible to avoid specific emotions for an entire lifetime and not pay a price for that in some tangible way. Suppressing emotions can lead to all kinds of physical ailments and problems due to anxiety and elevated stress levels such as ulcers, heart/chest pain, chronic aches or pains without a physical cause, and certain psychosomatic disorders like psoriasis, eczema, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc.

I read one story where a woman complained that she hated going to family gatherings. Therapist asked why? Well, everyone’s judging me, she says. The therapist explored that a bit – well, she was sure that her family knew she drank too much and were judging her. The family had never said anything to her about the drinking.

The therapist continued to explore this. She admitted that she drank too much because she didn’t want feel the loss/sadness of a recent breakup. In her opinion, the consequences of drinking too much was acceptable to avoid these emotions.

How To Destroy The Kryptonite

Superman has it easy, he simply has to put some space between him and the rock. In real life, what needs to happen is an integration of those emotions that have been voted off the island. You have to sit with them, acknowledge their concerns, and find a way to live with them without having them take over the train and cause a wreck down the tracks.

What would that integration look like for your character? Most times, these are problems you have to think your way out of. Do they have a good friend they can unload on? Do they have someone who will hold them accountable for their avoidance behaviours? Do the consequences of their avoidance behaviours force them to seek change? And maybe they don’t. Some people, like in the story above, would rather live with the consequences than deal with the hard crunchy emotions that hurt.

If you’re looking for more ideas on how to destroy the emotional kryptonite, try this post where I got the inspiration for this one from.

What is YOUR character’s emotional kryptonite?

Been told you should learn Deep Point Of View? Had an editor or critique partner tell you to “go deeper” with the emotions in your fiction? Looking for a community of writers seeking to create emotional connections with readers? Join the Going Deeper With Emotions In Fiction Facebook group.