I’m taking a little break from all the holiday festivities to continue my acrostic for T H A N K F U L. We’re up to the “F” which as the blog title suggests, stands for Fear.
A number of years ago I worked with a man who was investigating various philosophies behind man’s motivation for why he does the things he does. This man bought into the idea that many of the decisions and actions we take in life are based on fear. The obvious ones are easy to see: we obey rules because we fear the consequences of not obeying them. Tickets to speeders, jail time for thieves, etc. Does a child obey his parents out of love, or out of fear of displeasing them and the isolation felt from that?
Whether fear is the greatest motivator is certainly debatable, but what isn’t in question is that an element of fear is almost universal in novels. It’s interesting to think about the various layers we can incorporate into our novels regarding fear. It can be played out in anything from the sweetest romance to the darkest suspense, and even comedy in between.
In the very first pages of books like The Help or The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, the reader’s sympathy is stirred by babies. Will they get the love of their mother that all babies deserve? Fear that they won’t is the reason our sympathy is evoked.
Vulnerable characters are the perfect vehicles for fear—but so are strong characters if you can show a vulnerable side to them. In the epic movie Ben Hur, Judah fears for his mother and sister when they’re wrongfully imprisoned. Revenge for what Rome did to them drives Judah until he softens in the shadow of Christ.
Maybe fear isn’t as overt in a sweet romance as it is in a dark suspense story, but it’s still there. It’s not just about two characters falling in love. Underneath all that, perhaps one character (or both!) fears rejection, particularly by the one they’re starting to love; they fear being alone; they fear being unwanted.
Fear is one more way we can connect our characters to our readers. What is a goal without an obstacle to overcome? Fear plays out through the obstacles—whether it’s fear of physical harm or emotional damage.
One way to get to know your characters is to ask what they fear. There will probably be a range of things they fear. Short term fears, long term fears, big ones, little ones. Ones they can face as well as ones they don’t think they could—which are of course the very things you as the writer should make that character face.
Of course, how they face their various fears will reveal exactly what kind of character they really are. Their reactions will vary based on their personal histories, the personality traits you’ve drawn for them, the depth of the commitment to the goal vs. the depth of their fear—both of which have to be great enough, and important enough, to sustain an entire novel.
One exercise that’s been helpful for me from time to time is to draw a table for each of my major characters, and answer some of the questions I’ve presented here. What is their biggest fear, and how does that contrast with whatever goal they want to achieve? What is the dominating personality trait that highlights this fear? How will their fear change throughout the story? What other factors are affected by their fears?
Fear is one of those vital elements no story can do without!
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