Writers: Your Character’s Wound Isn’t the Flaw — The Lie Is

Free Video Tutorial for Screenwriting

In this episode of The Storyteller’s Mission, Zena explores a foundational principle of character development: why a character’s wound isn’t their flaw — the lie they believe is. This episode is especially for writers, storytellers, and worldview-driven creatives working with trauma, redemption, and transformation arcs.

In great storytelling, a character’s problem isn’t just what happened to them. It’s the lie they believe because of it. And that distinction — between wound and lie — often determines whether a story actually moves forward or stays emotionally stuck.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why wounds hurt, but lies imprison
• How false beliefs shape character behavior, identity, and plot
• Why acknowledging trauma is not the same thing as redemption
• What great stories like Good Will Hunting, Frozen, Jane Eyre, and The Lord of the Rings get right about character transformation
• How confronting the lie — not just naming the wound — creates real narrative change

This is essential viewing for:

• Fiction writers
• Screenwriters
• Storytellers
• Faith-adjacent creatives
• Writers working with trauma, flaws, and redemption arcs

If you want to write characters who don’t just suffer — but transform — this episode will help you clarify the difference between what happened and what it meant.

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The Storyteller’s Mission helps writers craft stories grounded in truth, meaning, and moral clarity — stories that shape culture rather than merely reflect it.

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] in great storytelling, your character doesn't just have a wound. They have a belief about that wound that is a lie. And in fact, the entire arc of your story will often depend on this distinction. And if you don't learn to separate those two, you will not just carry pain, you'll carry a false identity, which is far more dangerous because pain can be healed, but [00:00:30] a false identity will quietly ruin your entire life.

Hello, I'm Zena and welcome to the Storyteller's Mission Today I'm going to expand on this idea of separating a wound from a lie, because I think we get this wrong a lot, not only in life, but in story. And if we can't get it right in life, we're not going to get it right in story.

A wound is something that actually happened to you, but a lie is the [00:01:00] meaning you attach to it.

And that's where the danger begins, because wounds hurt us, but lies imprison us. They hold us back. They prevent us from becoming the person that we were designed to become. And I want to free you from the lies that are keeping you imprisoned.

Now, why does this matter in storytelling? We've gotta bring this back to story. it's essential that we conquer this for [00:01:30] our characters because as you'll see, our entire plot will often hinge on this particular issue.

the story doesn't move forward simply because the wound is acknowledged. The story moves forward when the lie is confronted. And when the lie is exchanged for truth, that's why the midpoint matters. That's why the crisis matters. That's why truth revelations matter. That's [00:02:00] why the climax matters, because plot pressure exists to expose the false beliefs.

Let me give you an example of this. In fact, I'm gonna start with a simple, non-traumatic example just to show you how this might work. Let's say I wreck my bike and I break my clavicle. That is a legitimate wound, painful, real, objectively bad, right? 

 But now I attach a meaning [00:02:30] to it. I think well see. I am such a stupid, clumsy person. I have no business being on a bike. Notice what just happened. The wound isn't the thing that destroyed my dignity. It's my interpretation of it that did. I didn't just describe the event.

I made a global statement about my competence, my intelligence, my worth, And once you do that, the injury isn't [00:03:00] limited to your clavicle anymore. It spreads into your self concept, your self understanding, your identity.

So now let me go deeper by bringing in the trauma layer, right? Okay. Let's say a child grows up with verbal abuse, Let's say one of their parents tells them, you're so stupid. 

 that verbal abuse is the wound itself. It's real. It's evil. [00:03:30] It's the thing that caused damage, the lie becomes something like, I really am stupid. I deserved this. I'm fundamentally unlovable. The story that they tell themselves about themselves is the real problem.

Wounds hurt us.but it's the lies that create the patterns, Someone who believes I am fundamentally unlovable will overperform to earn [00:04:00] affection.

Will mistake chaos for chemistry because that's what they believe love is. And that doesn't happen because they're fundamentally broken. It's because they're living from a false premise. I once had a therapist tell me, Xena, we don't have behavior problems.

We have belief problems. We always act in accordance with what we really believe is true.

Now listen to me very [00:04:30] carefully. I'm not saying it's emotionally wrong because it feels true. I'm saying it's narratively wrong. It is fundamentally opposed to reality as God created it. Because the truth is human beings have dignity. Yes, we have depravity, but we also are fearfully and wonderfully made. No human being.

Is reducible to the worst thing that ever happened to [00:05:00] them.

See, you can survive a wound. But you cannot flourish while still believing a lie. That's what keeps characters stuck, and it's what keeps writers stuck too, when we confuse trauma with truth, right?

And we believe that just a character acknowledging their abuse or their trauma wound is. Also the thing that gives them redemption. It isn't. 

 Now, before I give you [00:05:30] some examples from cinema and fiction, I want to talk about briefly what redemption is not I need to be very clear about this. Healing does not mean that we pretend the wound didn't occur or didn't matter.

Redemption is not denial. Truth is not minimization. The goal is not to erase the wound. The goal is to [00:06:00] separate it from identity. Because once the lie loses its authority, the wound no longer gets to define the ending. You will no longer believe that you deserve self-destruction because you will know the truth about yourself. and the truth will have set you free.

Let me give you examples, right? Let's start with Goodwill Hunting. So what is Will's? Wound Will hunting [00:06:30] was abused as a child.

 it's physical, it's repeated, it's real. It is objectively true. The lie, however, that he's adopted from that wound is that he is fundamentally broken. He's disposable. Now notice something important in this story Will doesn't actually talk about his abuse. He lives though from the meaning he assigned to it. That meaning shows up in a number of ways, in his emotional withdrawal the [00:07:00] sabotaging of relationships and he chooses isolation over vulnerability. and here's the key storytelling insight. The story doesn't turn when will acknowledges the abuse.

It turns when the lie is confronted. That famous, beautiful scene. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Ah, that's not therapy jargon. That's narrative precision. [00:07:30] Sean, the therapist isn't minimizing will's wound. He's dismantling the false narrative, the false conclusion that will built his life around because of it.

The catharsis for will comes when he finally separates what happened to him from who he really is. That's when the arc breaks open. That is his climax. Climax, the moment of truth that allows him to move forward and choose [00:08:00] differently, and he ends up going to see about a girl. Let's look at another example from cinema.

Frozen. Now this one surprises people, but it's actually incredibly clean structurally. So what is Elsa's wound? Well, she hurts Anna as a child, and that creates real pain. A real wound. It's a real event. It creates fear, secrecy, and isolation because the [00:08:30] lie that she adopts from it, what she interprets that as is I am dangerous.

If people see who I really am, I'll hurt them. So I have to hide. and now look at how the lie operates. Elsa doesn't think she's evil. She thinks she's unsafe,So she withdraws for the good of others. That's an incredibly common lie, by the way, in real life. And narratively Frozen gets this right.

[00:09:00] The story doesn't resolve when Elsa controls her powers. It resolves when the lie is replaced with truth, love, not fear is the corrective. Again, the wound isn't erased. It's just that the meaning that she attached to it is transformed, and that's why the ending feels earned instead of preachy. 

Notice in both these stories, the wound doesn't magically disappear. What [00:09:30] changes is the authority of the lie, and once that happens, the character is finally free to choose differently. Now let me give you a couple of book examples. The primary one that comes to mind is Jane Eyre. Now this is a masterclass and the difference between a wound and a lie.

What is Jane's wound? Well, She is repeatedly told that she is inferior, that she's unwanted, and that she is morally [00:10:00] suspect. 

The lie Jane could have believed and is repeatedly pressured to believe is that she is lesser, that she must be grateful for scraps of love, that she should accept mistreatment because it's the best she can deserve.

But here's the brilliance of this book, Jane refuses the lie. Even while carrying the wound, she [00:10:30] suffers. She is lonely and she is afraid, but she does not internalize the idea that her value is negotiable. And that's why she is so inspiring to us, and that's why her defining moments aren't about romance.

They're about a moral refusal to capitulate to the lie The wound shaped her,but unlike most of us, it did not define her.

Jane Ark is not [00:11:00] healing trauma, but preserving the truth that she knows.

 Now, this is especially important for Christian writers to hear. Holiness in story is not passivity. It's moral clarity under pressure, Let me give you one more literary example because I think it's an excellent one and it deserves to be mentioned.

The Lord of the Rings, Frodo. Alright, So what is Frodo's wound? Frodo is wounded by the ring [00:11:30] and those wounds never fully heal the lie that he doesn't fully escape. Is that he must carry this alone. No one else can bear this. I am only valuable as long as I can endure, which is why Frodo's ending is so bittersweet. The story doesn't claim all wounds are healed in this life.

It simply refuses to say the wound defines the worth of the hero. And notice [00:12:00] salvation doesn't come through strength. It comes through fellowship. Again, where he was trying so hard to isolate. He tried to leave Sam behind. He thought Sam couldn't handle this thing. That was the lie of the ring. And in the end, Sam doesn't even argue with that.

You can't carry it. Sam. I know Mr. Frodo, but I can carry you. Makes me emotional. Just even mentioning it. [00:12:30] Again, the wound is acknowledged. The lie is confronted. It is exposed. And when you're writing, you need to ask yourself, what happened to this character and what do they think it means about them?

Because the most important part of your story may not be the wound at all. It may be whether the light ever gets challenged.

I want to conclude by saying that the point of both life and story is not to [00:13:00] erase your wound. It's to expose the lie you associated with it. It's to bring it into the light, to name it, to challenge it, to replace it with truth. because once you do that, you're no longer reacting from trauma.

You are living in freedom, and a free person can write a different ending. So here's the question I wanna leave you with. What wounds did you endure More [00:13:30] importantly, what did you decide it meant about you? Where did a real wound turn into a false conclusion?

 Sit with that. because the moment that you separate the wound from the lie, the story that you're living can finally begin to change, and so can your characters.

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