Glossary of Story Experiences
If you’ve had a story experience that isn’t listed here, please propose a new term for WonderCat!
| Acceptance of Loss | The ability to transfer the emotional bond from a person who has died onto their memory |
| Alienation | Distrusting yourself. Alienation is the inverse of paranoia, which involves distrusting someone or something outside of yourself. |
| Awe | The feeling admiration or astonishment (wonder) mixed with fear or respect, often inspired by something that seems powerful |
| Being Wrong | The emotions associated with discovering that one’s prediction was wrong. |
| Catharsis | The experience of purging strong emotions. Clearing or purifying by getting rid of unhealthy tension. |
| Confusion | The feeling of being bewildered or unclear. |
| Connection | Feeling linked or bonded to others in community. |
| Conversion | The adoption of a specific set of beliefs, excluding those that were previously held. |
| Courage | The feeling of being genuinely afraid of something and simultaneously bold enough to face it. |
| Curiosity | When we feel we have some idea about an answer, but are unconfident about what that answer is. The active form of wonder. Where the first form of wonder is passive (essentially pausing in astonishment as a miracle washes over you), curiosity is active. |
| Dissociation | Sense of detachment from what is happening. |
| Distress | Anxiety or mental suffering that you have not chosen |
| Double Identification | Sharing a conflict faced by a character through the perspective of a character you already identify with |
| Empathy | The feeling of understanding another person’s actions. You may not condone the actions or identify with the person, but you accept that their actions weren’t wrong |
| Empowerment | The feeling of knowing and claiming your rights. You feel that you have the freedom and power to control what happens to you. |
| Eustress | Stress that you have chosen |
| Existential Nausea | Despair in the face of a meaningless universe. |
| Frustration | An emotional response to the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual’s will or goal. Frustration is likely to increase when a will or goal is denied or blocked. |
| Generous Love | Loving others for who they are, not for who we want them to be. |
| Gratification | Satisfaction that a character you identify with gets what they want |
| Identification | Recognizing, in a character’s experience, a conflict that you have experienced |
| Immersion | Absorbing or engrossing involvement in a story. You might feel as though you’ve been swallowed by the story. |
| Love | Affection, attraction, and emotional attachment |
| Mind Wandering | Having thoughts unrelated to a specific task |
| Moral Omniscience | A clear sense of what is right and what is wrong |
| Nimbleness | The feeling that you are prepared to handle a variety of situations |
| Optimism | The belief the positive outcomes are more likely than negative ones |
| Paranoia | A feeling of threat triggered by environmental irregularities |
| Ready to Grow | Realizing that there are things you could do to improve as a person |
| Relearning | Learning something you have learned in the past and partially forgotten |
| Released Emotion Brake | Feeling comfortable enough to experience emotions after feeling numb to emotions because of traumatic experiences |
| Relief | The easing of distress |
| Resilience | Relief from the negative feelings you experience when you fail (self-loathing, self-hatred, rumination, etc.) |
| Righteousness | Resentful anger aroused by an act that you believe is immoral |
| Righteousness + Identification | Resentful anger aroused by an act that you believe is immoral and has been harmful to you |
| Self-Acceptance | Accepting yourself without shame or disgust |
| Self-Efficacy | The belief that you are capable of accomplishing a specific goal |
| Self-Irony | Recognizing that you resemble a character being satirized in a story. Because you recognize that you are not perfect, you are able to laugh at yourself. |
| Self-Love | Affection for your own nature, flaws and all. |
| Self-Trust | Believing that you can rely on your own abilities to navigate the world |
| Skepticism | A doubting or questioning state of mind |
| Sober Uplift | Spirits raised without intoxication |
| Superiority | An elevated (God’s-Eye) view of a situation |
| Suspended Judgment | Being unsure how to evaluate something that is unfamiliar |
| Thinking “What if?” | The state of imagining possibilities that do not exist |
| Togetherness | A feeling of being united in understanding with other people |
| Tranquility | a peaceful calm state, without worry |
| Wonder | An uplifting emotional experience of discovery. As Fletcher puts it, wonder is “life through the eyes of a child” (16). It is like pausing in astonishment as a miracle washes over you (84). |
