by Lisa Jordan, @lisajordan

Walking onto the page, your character has goals with stakes, and your job as the author is to prevent him/her from achieving those goals right away. As your character travels through the plot of the story, he goes on another journey as well—a journey of emotional growth and change. By the end of the book, your character needs to be a different person than when he started the story. So how does that change happen? 

The Story Equation, (or SEQ) written by Susan May Warren, teaches you how to get to know your character from the inside out. In her book, Susie May wrote:

The SEQ helps you create the perfect HEA ending. It’s not enough to let your character catch the villain, get married, and ride off into the sunset. The perfect HEA ending involves healing deep emotional wounds and realizing greatest dreams.

Creating your character’s SEQ begins by asking one vital question, “Who are you?” Once you establish your character’s identity, then you will keep asking questions to get to the character’s Dark Moment Story, or DMS. From there, we learn the character’s greatest fear, lie, wound, and flaw as well as secret desire, want, competence, competing values, and moral center. 

Character Wounds

The wound is emotional fall-out or response from the Dark Moment Story—that specific, relatable event from your character’s past that shapes his belief system today. What emotional damage did your character experience from that past event?

Wounds can:

• be physical such as a disability, a scar, or a weight issue. 
• be mental or emotional. 
• come from failing, making a crucial mistake, or being betrayed. 
• come from injustice or some sort of crime. 
• come from feelings such as abandonment, isolation, loneliness. 

Discovering Character Wounds

In The Story Equation, Susie offers three questions to help you get to the root of your character’s wound:

• What emotional hurt did the DMS cause?  
• What longing does your character have that is specific to this moment?  
• What small gesture would help ease the pain of this Wound?

By creating the SEQ for your characters, you’ll see how all the different elements flow organically from one point of origination—the DMS. When you’re creating the character wound, be sure it’s believable for who your character is. And remember—males will respond differently than females. Stay within the point of view of the character.

Importance of Character Wounds

Wounds are important facets of our character’s development because they make them vulnerable, sympathetic, and relatable to the reader. Additionally, wounds can sidetrack characters from achieving their goals. And they give the reader insight into the character’s behaviors and attitudes. Characters will do what they can to prevent those wounds from being reopened. 

Healing Character Wounds

As our characters move through the story, they have to make choices to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. The healing of their wounds are opportunities to show their willingness to change and grow. They can release the lie, embrace the truth, and open their hearts to see how worthy they are. 

As writers, we need to dig into those dark, twisty emotions to create relatable characters and experiences for our readers. Those dark places hurt! We may pull back to prevent pain, but if you’re willing to delve just a little deeper, then you will create authentic characters who can be used to speak truth and light into your readers.

---

Rescuing Her Ranch

A fight for her future…

Might not be the one she thinks.

Returning home after losing her job, Macey Stone agrees to care for the daughter of old friend Cole Crawford. Then she discovers that Cole’s uncle’s company wants to bulldoze her family’s land. Seeing the devoted dad with his child soon has her falling for the enemy. But can she choose between saving Stone River Ranch…and helping the man who’s stolen her heart?

Heart, home, and faith have always been important to Lisa Jordan, so writing stories with those elements come naturally. Represented by Cynthia Ruchti of Books & Such Literary Management, Lisa is an award-winning author for Love Inspired, writing contemporary Christian romances that promise hope and happily ever after. Her latest book, Rescuing Her Ranch, released in January 2023. She is the content manager for Novel Academy, powered by My Book Therapy. Happily married to her own real-life hero for over thirty years, Lisa and her husband have two grown sons. When she isn’t writing, Lisa enjoys quality family time and being creative with words, photos, fibers, and papers. Learn more about her at lisajordanbooks.com.