Guidance on storytelling almost always includes a focus on goals. On the secondary level, wants and needs are explored. But fear is often ignored, even though it offers opportunities for understanding values, doubts, "bad" choices, unlikely alliances, and even humor.
On the last, anyone who is obsessed with movies (as I am) knows that Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes. This fear humanizes him, making him less of a super man. It's funny when a man who faces outrageous odds and isn't fazed panics in the presence of snakes. But that fear is also used to demonstrate a kind of Hemingway-esque courage when he faces down a room full of snakes in an Egyptian tomb.
Fear can also be used to explain bad decisions. My favorite is in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where Sundance isn't afraid of an impossible cliff dive because of the height. He's afraid and refuses because he can't swim.
Many stories turn on unlikely alliances between people who need to cooperate to avoid otherwise certain death. Their motivation doesn't even need to be explained. And this is true for many other fears that are strong and most of us, such as fear of humiliation or abandonment/expulsion (or even being rejected by a clique).
Because all this comes so naturally, it's understandable that fear isn't featured by some story gurus. But I found that fear has a real advantage in solving one of the problems I often face when teaching. People just don't want to identify flaws in their protagonists. Some say any real flaws (like the Seven Deadly Sins) make their protagonists unlikable — despite recognizing that many of their favorite characters in fiction have such flaws.
On another level, I suspect that some writers identify so deeply with their protagonists they feel personally threatened by any exploration of weaknesses. And here's where fears have a real advantage. It's a lot easier for most people to talk about protagonists's fears than their flaws. Why? It may be that admitting fears doesn't challenge core beliefs. It's easier to admit to fearing poverty than it is to acknowledge a tendency towards greed. In the musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Molly says, "it's not the money I love, it's the not having it I hate."
Exploring fear allows discovering a deeper understanding of flaws from a safe distance. (Of course, fear of snakes, spiders, heights, flying, etc. provides even more distance from the real vulnerabilities in a character or a writer.)
How do you do this? Identifying fears is easy enough. There are plenty of lists online of phobias or you can find them from your own experience or just think of some favorite characters and what they fear. For your story, it's important to have a sense of how that fear fits in. The second Indiana Jones movie shows the origin of Indy's fear of snakes, and that can be useful.
Poverty, trauma, losing a parent, and more will tend to both provide deep (and even irrational) fears and suggest a larger context that fills out the character. And many fears simply match the circumstances of the character. A small, relatively weak character is more likely to fear bullies than a large powerful character would.
So, finding of fear, making sure it's appropriate to the character, making sure there is a context and perhaps a back story provides a good basis for the next step — writing a scene where the fear is active. This can involve the character avoiding the fear or overcoming the fear, but it's helpful if the character is able to form a strategy to deal with the situation.
Also, it’s tremendously valuable to include the emotional and physiological reactions to the fear. Many people get angry when they are afraid. Others get quiet and retreat within themselves. Some run away and some attack. Some gain power in some lose it. Swearing, sweating, laughing, blaming, getting inventive, and pleading for help are all human reactions to fear. How does your character react? And by writing the scene, rather than just listing bullet points, a lot can be learned that feeds into other scenes.
Living through the fear with the character's amazingly powerful tool. So, even if the "fear scene" doesn't belong in the story, it's worth the trouble to create it.
It can be worthwhile to test the fear in a number of ways. People will respond to a fear and reveal themselves differently when they are alone or when they are with friends or when they are among enemies or strangers. They'll respond differently to a threat when they know it's coming from the way they'll react when the thing they fear most comes out of nowhere. (Comic relief is often used to manipulate the fear of audiences by getting them to put their guard down. Think of how often something funny happens before a big scare in a horror movie.)
Stakes also make a difference. People will face tremendous fears to do something attached to the principles or people that mean the most to them. I suspect most people would sacrifice themselves for the children, for instance. And history is filled with tales of courageous soldiers who gave their lives for their peers or their country and with martyrs to die for the sake of their faith.
I have not exhausted all possibilities, story-wise , that come from exploring the fears of characters. My hope is that some of the examples I've offered will open some doors that will add richness to what you're writing.
Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved. . . . Love endures by a bond which men, being scoundrels, may break whenever it serves their advantage to do so; but fear is supported by the dread of pain, which is ever present.
Machiavelli
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