Core Wounds

John Truby’s helpful and practical guide to storytelling, The Anatomy Of Story, says that every protagonist should have a core wound. A core wound is different from the hero’s tragic flaw. Here is how I see it:

A hero’s tragic flaw is the wellspring of all the conflicts and challenges the hero will face.

The core wound is the reason those conflicts are challenging to that hero.

For example, in the last book I read, The Simple Art of Flying by my writer-buddy Cory Leonardo, the hero is Alastair, a parrot. Alastair’s central flaw is his callousness. He is viciously overprotective of his sister and loves no one else; all the other characters, no matter how caring and kind, are obstacles for Alastair’s twisted birdbrain vision of love for his sister. Alastair’s path in the book (and two other protagonists’!) is to learn how to accept gracious love, no matter how tough life may be.

Everything I’ve just described makes for a great read. One question remains – why is Alastair callous? Cory attacks this right away – it’s the first chapter of her book. When Alastair was born, he listened to his sister’s birth – and another sibling’s death. Only two of the three parrots lived.

Heavy stuff! That core wound hangs over the story and informs Alastair’s callous worldview and decisions. That death is the source of Alastair’s hard heart.

Core wounds are tricky. Done well, they provide justification for perhaps all of the central action in a story. Done poorly, they feel tacked on and cheap. Plus, there are all sorts of fun ways to execute them. Think of Citizen Kane – a story that operates entirely around identifying the protagonist’s core wound.

I’ve been puttering for around six hours on a single paragraph in the second draft of The Holy Shuriken. When I wrote the first draft, the paragraph was a weird, vague passage with a flashback. This week I realized it was a glimmer of my protagonist’s core wound. So I’ve been digging that paragraph for gold, seeing how deep it goes. I’m not satisfied yet, but I will be.