What does your character fear?
We all know that when moving our stories forward we’re supposed to make things worse for the protagonist. Is he lost? Let the sun set, let the rain come. Is he alone? Find someone to stalk him. Is she being hunted? Take away her defenses. Does she need to find a cure? Have it fall into the hands of the antagonist. This is all something fundamental, though many of us forget about it or fail to take it far enough. You know those books where the hero is having enough trouble as it is, and the next obstacle in his path makes us cringe? Then ten pages later it gets even worse? Sometimes we forget that things can always get worse.
So let’s try again. Is he lost? Let the sun set, make it a moonless night. Then let us know that as a child he was locked in a closet and darkness became his biggest fear (or set this up earlier in the story). Is he alone? Find someone to stalk him. Then twist his ankle. Make the stalker someone he knows, and let him drop his guard. These twists aren’t terribly exciting – they’re overdone at best – but you get the picture. Making things worse for your character increases tension, and playing on your character’s fear to do so is a great technique.
But fear is more than just a driving force in the main plot. Fear is a part of character – my character, your character, the hero’s character, your mom’s character, your really attractive 6th grade teacher’s character. It factors in to a lot of our decisions, even the everyday ones. So knowing your character’s fears is important.
Fear can be a main part of your plot or it can be part of a side-plot. It can be a theme that carries through your book, it can change a decision during a defining moment, it can even be something you keep to yourself in order to know your characters a little better, make them a little more real, help you understand them so you can explore other parts of who they are.
Remember that everyone is afraid of something. I can stand a thousand feet in the air and look over the edge without blinking, I stare out of the window of an airplane like an eight-year-old during takeoff and landing because I think it’s cool, but show me a spider and I’m out of the house and down the street ten seconds later. These things are a part of human existence, so putting them into your book, whether the reader is afraid of them or not, can make it a little more real.
When making character sheets we focus on physical appearance, tags, traits, what they want, what they need, habits. But we shouldn’t forget fear.
So I’ll ask you again. What do your characters fear? What keeps them up at night? What do they think about when all the lights go out? Figure it out. Write it down. Use it, or don’t. Either way your characters will be a little better for it. And who knows? Maybe it’ll become an important part of your story.
Do you use fear as a driving force in your writing? What do you think about knowing what your character is afraid of? How do you use it? How do you think you can use it in your future writing?
The above photo is from a great post about how to find and use your character’s fear. Here’s the link – http://www.writingeekery.com/fear/