how to write traumatized characters— the revamp
i know i know… you’ve seen this a million times. but i personally haven’t a version along the lines of this, and in my (very very humble and not aggressive) opinion, that other post did not mention a key point in trauma, especially when approaching traumatic characters in literature.
so here goes.
the only rule for writing trauma:
no one goes through the exact same trauma quite the same way.
i know, this should be obvious to everyone. but still:
not everyone has no idea what their trauma is.
not everyone hasn’t recovered from trauma.
not everyone feels the same towards it.
that’s because we’re all different.
i notice that in media most of the time there’s a very… one track (?) version of traumatized characters portrayed. and i’m not going to sit here and say no one goes through trauma that way— they do— but it also sends out a wrong message that either you respond to your trauma that way or you simply don’t have it.
take me for example (hello :)!). i, like many, have gone through a lot. i can sit here and say for the most part what i’ve been through— however no, i’m not recovered. i’m honestly quite embarrassed of it. i don’t think about it constantly but when i do i quite simply try distance myself from it mentally because that’s easier. i don’t have any stress relievers (especially not physically) because most of the time i try to avoid thinking about it (unless that counts as a stress reliever? i think of it more as a coping mechanism).
sometimes i feel one very specific way about it, but other times, i’m like well… that happened.
and that is okay!!!!!!!
the level of a characters reaction to traumatic events does not dictate the level of trauma the event was in itself. yes, with the more severe the trauma, generally the reaction may be more severe…. but that is not always the case.
and to be honest, there is no one way to write a traumatized character. the best way to do so is to research (sites like reddit, where actual, real traumatized people can tell you about it) or learn from yourself even (i find a lot of my characters have trauma responses like me… coincidence….?).
so here are some quick tips:
when writing, (hear me out) let yourself focus more on subtle telling than shallow showing. don’t show me visually that a character is anxious because they bite their nails, tell me the how they falter in their step when they see someone who looks like someone they remember.
subsequently: try not to make it obvious tells when you’re showing. a character biting their nails and looking side to side when someone mentions a triggering subject is as good as telling us exactly what’s going on
focus on internal more than external. go deep into your characters inner fears and beliefs— don’t tell me why they have those beliefs, show me small previews of the things they dislike and how certain things may trigger a memory
a character may not speak happily about it, but that doesn’t mean they won’t speak about it at all (this also doesn’t mean that them speaking about it is like free therapy— talking about it doesn’t make it better a lot of the time)
also: the character may not show signs of it, but that doesn’t mean the character doesn’t know what their trauma is/dont know that they have trauma at all
it’s okay to write characters who have recovered from trauma, in fact i’d say it’s just as important as writing characters who have not
treat trauma like the subject it is. just because you’re not constantly having a character think about it doesn’t mean it’s any less serious. don’t make a joke of it please (i know in this day and age it’s satirized (which honestly makes me sad) but it is not funny, not pleasant, and not something to be jested about. it’s also not cool and doesn’t make anyone ‘cool’) research where you need to. don’t hand out trauma to characters like free coupons/just because you can— it comes off disingenuous and really demeaning
this really all boils down to making characters where even if they are foil characters (God bless i don’t know what to call them in regular non-script formatted writing) you know that the author (you in this case) has spent a lot of time crafting them. of course there’s limited ‘screen time’ for side characters but please still spend time fleshing all your characters out even if by the end we don’t know exactly what their trauma is :) happy writing.
