How to Craft a Compelling Character Arc: From Wounded to Warrior

Learning how to craft a compelling character arc is the thing to take your stories from readable to unputdownable.

It’s not going to be your prose. It won’t be your setting or your worldbuilding. Not even your plot. All those things matter, of course, but without characters we care about—ones that honestly struggle, are relatable, or we know have the capacity for change—why would we follow them for so many pages?

Would you follow a stranger around all day? Not without good reason, right?

That’s what a compelling character arc is: a damn good reason for your reader to care about your protagonist (or antagonist, or sidekick who gets the spotlight in the sequel).

In this three-part series, I’ll explore Wounds, Wrong Ideas, and Right Ideas—the core building blocks of a character arc. First up: Wounds.

What Is a Character Wound?

“Wound” is a weird word for it—half clinical, half armchair psychological—and the real meaning of it might feel fuzzy around the edges. It’s also probably not helping that I’m capitalizing it.

Basically, the Wound is something that happened in your character’s past that fundamentally changed their worldview for the worse. When the readers meet your character for the first time, the Wound isn’t fresh, but it definitely hasn’t healed. Throughout dynamic, positive change arcs—the most popular in Western literature, particularly genre fiction—your character works through that Wound and comes out the other side of your story if not completely healed, then on the way there. Circumstances will force their brain to rewire, or else.

Why Wounds are Essential to Crafting a Compelling Character Arc

Simply put, Wounds beget empathy. Even if you can’t claim to possess a truly tragic backstory—I certainly can’t—you can absolutely think of a time when you were treated unfairly, or when life dealt you a terrible hand. You remember, and you can connect with others who have been through such pain.

When you read “tragic backstory,” you think of Celie from The Color Purple, Heathcliff from Wurthering Heights, Hazel Grace Lancaster from The Fault in Our Stars, or one of a million other characters who went through hell off-page. And when you think of their backstories—specifically their Wounds—you recall how those pasts shaped them into the characters we meet in the first chapter. For example, sixteen-year-old Hazel’s Wound, a terminal cancer diagnosis, gives her the Wrong Idea that she should lock herself away to prevent others from getting hurt when she inevitably dies young.

“I’m like. Like. I’m like a grenade, Mom. I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?”

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

That’s heartbreaking. It makes you want to crawl into that book and give her a hug.

That’s the power of a Wound. Without it—if Hazel’s insisting she’s a grenade, but there’s no pulled pin that the reader’s ever told about—then it becomes difficult for readers to understand that character’s state of mind. There’s nothing to make readers go, “Oh, wow, no wonder! I hope things get better for you, and I’m going to read more to see if they do.”

But it’s important to note that not every Wound needs to be world-endingly, soul-crushingly tragic—it just needs to hurt. To contrast Hazel, let’s invent a character named Sage. Sage was repeatedly branded as “weird” while growing up. So-called friends excluded her from gatherings all the time, which she’d guessed was happening, but her own thirteenth birthday party opened her eyes to how unpopular she really was. Not one person in her grade came. She learns from that experience to invent a new persona for herself, one that’s guaranteed to help her fit in. Years later, she’ll say…

“Yeah, well, I buried the Sage you knew in eighth grade. And let’s be honest: if there’d been a funeral, you wouldn’t have come to that, either.”

Excerpt from a Story That Doesn’t Exist by Megan Fuentes

Sage’s Wound sounds so superficial compared to what Hazel’s been through, but remember: Hazel and Sage are from different stories, divorced from the other’s context. When written well, both Wounds can induce tears in the reader, and both character transformations can be cause for celebration.

Common Mistakes Writers Make with Character Wounds

Mistake #1: They zero in on the wrong event.

My favorite questions to ask during story coaching sessions start with why. When writers I work with do have an idea of what their protagonist’s Wound is, I ask, “Why was [Wound] the worst thing that ever happened to them?”

More than a few of them have replied, “Well, it’s actually not.”

That’s not necessarily a storytelling red flag, but it does make me eager to ask a few follow-up questions. In peeling back the layers, I often hear that the cited Wound hurts so badly because when the character was even younger, something happened to them that was so traumatic, anything that reminds them of that dark moment becomes triggering.

Well, hang on a sec. The cited Wound was probably an aggravator, not the Wound itself! While aggravators are great and can even make for good misdirections, diving deeper into the actual Wound is how we can really tug at the reader’s heartstrings.

Mistake #2: The Wound is not in alignment with the story the writer wants to tell.

Let’s say you believe that life is for adventures, and that’s what you want your book to say to readers. You probably don’t want to give your protagonist a nomadic childhood as their Wound. All they’d know is moving around and “adventuring.” It’s up to you and your imagination why a nomadic childhood impacted them negatively. But because they’ve never stayed put, “learning” that life is for adventures won’t lead to growth. “Life is for adventures” is probably the excuse they’ve told their cousin when they asks why your character is moving for the fourth time that year (the real answer: to avoid getting attached). And that wise cousin would reply, “But there’s also no place like home. You’re not giving yourself the chance to have a real home.”

Lest you think I’m just a grouchy homebody, let’s think of things from the opposite perspective. Let’s say your character’s overprotective parents never allowed them to leave the house. As a result, they believe their safety is paramount, and they don’t go outside if they can help it. Learning “there’s no place like home” would be redundant for them. They already know that! That’s what they say when they turn down the opportunity to join their wealthy best friend on their birthday cruise. What your agoraphobic character needs to learn is something that breaks their brains when they first hear it—like that life is for adventures.

Now, you may believe there’s no place like home and a life well-lived involves leaving our comfort zones. But if you want to write a story that resonates, then like all things in the narrative, the Wound has to reinforce the story you want to tell.

Mistake #3: The story focuses only on external goals, not internal character growth.

This was my big mistake as a new writer. I loved thinking about plot—all the stuff the characters get to do—and I did not much care why they’d do it. As a result:

• I lost interest in stories so quickly because I had no reason to care about the characters achieving their goals.
• Everything I wrote felt hollow to read, like they were missing the heart. (They were.)
• People who read the initial few paragraphs of whatever I was working on never mentioned the story again because—although the prose was good for a kid and those people loved me and wanted me to succeed—the stories just weren’t memorable.

It was only after I stopped neglecting crafting character arcs that I was able to write and complete meaningful stories. And now I help others do the same!

Each of these Wounds would color your story in a different way. One of the ideas you write down while brainstorming will probably feel like a natural choice—go with that. If there is no natural choice, try to unpack why unlearning that lesson feels so essential. The right thing to do will probably appear with enough reflection.

Tip #2: Show the Wound’s impact, don’t just tell.

If a Wound isn’t impactful, it’s not a Wound—it’s just a bad day in a character’s life. That Wound of theirs needs to be on display more than once in a story. I’m not talking about the character bringing up that they were parentified to every stranger on the street; I’m talking about the way they take on extra work at their job, are always anticipating what everyone else needs, that they have more in common with people older than them than their peers, and so on.

In real life, our pasts inform our actions and our thinking patterns. The same should hold true for our characters.

Tip #3: Agitate the Wound when it’s least convenient for your character.

If you want to craft a compelling character arc that shows earned growth, be generous with the growing pains! This could look like the object of their unrequited love rolling back into town just as they’ve opened themselves up to falling for the love interest, or it could look like stumbling upon another layer to the family’s secret when it looked like everything had been resolved. That’s how you create not just a plot twist, but a knife twist.

Bonus Tip: Regularly refer back to the Wound.

The process of writing a story is long, and often longer than even experienced authors think it’s going to be. Trust me when I say that if you’re not reminding yourself of your characters’ arcs, you’re going to get off-message. Jot down your character’s Wound, Wrong Idea, and Right Idea and keep those notes somewhere close!

Now it’s Your Turn to Craft a Compelling Character Arc

If you’re ready to craft a compelling character arc that leaves your readers emotionally satisfied all on your own, go ahead and download my free Character Arc Sparker Worksheet. It’s the same one I use to guide writers through building powerful, transformative arcs during my story coaching sessions.

But if you’re feeling stuck, second-guessing every choice, or just plain exhausted from going in circles…

Let’s talk it out.

Whether you need a full story restructuring or just want a human sounding board who actually cares, I offer two ways to help you move forward: