Showing Character Fears

[DwayneA]

I came up with a gread idea for a book I am currently writing.

The main character accidentally burned her house to the ground, almost killing herself while at the same time killing her aunt and uncle. Because of this, she's now afraid of fire. She gets nervous around lit candles, runs screaming from the room whenever someone lights the fireplace, panics when a lit cigarette lighter is held before her or whenever she smells smoke from someone smoking.

Okay, now here's the interesting bit. She's having nightmares during the book where she encounters a dragon - compromised entirely out of fire! Apparently, the dragon itself is a manifestation of her greatest fear. In the book's final climax, when she, her love interest, and an old friend are trapped in a burning house, she imagines the flames in the form of the dragon and ultimately braves her fear and destroys the dragon to save herself and her lover and friend.

How does this idea sound? How do your characters express or show fear?

[Doodlebug]

Very interesting story concept :)

I think that showing fear is tough, too. I hate to rely too much on the cliches like trembling, sweating, etc.

From my personal experience, I am terrified of flying. This summer, however, I took my kids to Disney World (and we flew because the tickets were so cheap). Ordinarily, I am so afraid of flying that just passing an airport will make my palms sweat; I even refuse to pick up people from the airport. Needless to say, I dreaded this trip the entire summer - every day I would try to visualize getting onto that stupid plane. When I was at the airport with my family, I was hyperventilating, my vision tunneled, I couldn't concentrate on what anyone was saying, I felt sick to my stomach, and I thought for sure that I was going to die. I did have medication, but it really didn't kick in until after the flight was over (and then it made me a total zombie).

But, somehow, I still enjoyed the Magic Kingdom. :tongue

[Theognome]

I came up with a gread idea for a book I am currently writing.

The main character accidentally burned her house to the ground, almost killing herself while at the same time killing her aunt and uncle. Because of this, she's now afraid of fire. She gets nervous around lit candles, runs screaming from the room whenever someone lights the fireplace, panics when a lit cigarette lighter is held before her or whenever she smells smoke from someone smoking.

Okay, now here's the interesting bit. She's having nightmares during the book where she encounters a dragon - compromised entirely out of fire! Apparently, the dragon itself is a manifestation of her greatest fear. In the book's final climax, when she, her love interest, and an old friend are trapped in a burning house, she imagines the flames in the form of the dragon and ultimately braves her fear and destroys the dragon to save herself and her lover and friend.

How does this idea sound? How do your characters express or show fear?

This isn't far from reality.

My father, back in 1975, was a truck driver for Gulf Oil Co. While pumping gas from his tanker into the ground tanks at a gas station/car wash in Anaheim, CA, it exploded. Windows shattered for three blocks around. The car wash was destroyed.

My father miraculously survived. Although he was standing right there when it went up, he was an odd truck driver. In the mid 70's truck drivers all wore boots... except my dad. He wore basketball shoes, and he attributes this to his survival. He ran like a bat out of hell (more the truth than you'd think) and then rolled on the ground. He suffered 3rd degree burns on over 60% of his body, and it took about a year for him to fully recover.

To this day, he is absolutely afraid of fire. There's no less than three smoke detectors in every room of his house. He won't use a lighter. He won't go near open flame for any reason.

And the nightmares he had. I remember vividly his waking up in the middle of the night, screaming bloody murder for the 'fire demons' chasing him. Although I moved out of home over 20 years ago, I hear that these nightmares still haunt him.

Yes, it's a very workable story. And it really does happen.

Theognome

[HourglassMemory]

My main story's MC is simply disgusted by moths.
Eccentric body movements describe it very well.

[HourglassMemory]

Very interesting story concept :)

I think that showing fear is tough, too. I hate to rely too much on the cliches like trembling, sweating, etc.

From my personal experience, I am terrified of flying. This summer, however, I took my kids to Disney World (and we flew because the tickets were so cheap). Ordinarily, I am so afraid of flying that just passing an airport will make my palms sweat; I even refuse to pick up people from the airport. Needless to say, I dreaded this trip the entire summer - every day I would try to visualize getting onto that stupid plane. When I was at the airport with my family, I was hyperventilating, my vision tunneled, I couldn't concentrate on what anyone was saying, I felt sick to my stomach, and I thought for sure that I was going to die. I did have medication, but it really didn't kick in until after the flight was over (and then it made me a total zombie).

But, somehow, I still enjoyed the Magic Kingdom. :tongue

Lol. The stuff one has to go through to have a little bit of fun...

[windyrdg]

See my comment on your other post. What can I say? I do the best I can.

[Devil Ledbetter]

She gets nervous around lit candles, runs screaming from the room whenever someone lights the fireplace, panics when a lit cigarette lighter is held before her or whenever she smells smoke from someone smoking.My sister's home burned a year ago this week. She was there when it happened, but fortunately escaped. The fire is believed to have started from an unattended candle. She still smokes and displays no fear of candles, fireplace fires and the like. Of course, she's not your character (nor was her fire the terrifying blaze Theognome described), but my point is "running screaming" and "panic" around cigarette lighters might be a tad over-the-top, even given the circumstances of her tragedy.

Be careful not to ninnify your character. A little subtlety can go a long way.

[Sean D. Schaffer]

I came up with a gread idea for a book I am currently writing.

The main character accidentally burned her house to the ground, almost killing herself while at the same time killing her aunt and uncle. Because of this, she's now afraid of fire. She gets nervous around lit candles, runs screaming from the room whenever someone lights the fireplace, panics when a lit cigarette lighter is held before her or whenever she smells smoke from someone smoking.

Okay, now here's the interesting bit. She's having nightmares during the book where she encounters a dragon - compromised entirely out of fire! Apparently, the dragon itself is a manifestation of her greatest fear. In the book's final climax, when she, her love interest, and an old friend are trapped in a burning house, she imagines the flames in the form of the dragon and ultimately braves her fear and destroys the dragon to save herself and her lover and friend.

How does this idea sound? How do your characters express or show fear?


The idea sounds excellent to me. I love the way you use the dragon in the story to make this character's fear of fire more real to the reader. I know a lot of people associate dragons with fire because dragons were said to breathe fire, so what you have described paints a grand picture in my own mind of the character's fear and more importantly, how she overcomes that fear. I love it!

Of my two present main characters, the male one shows his fear by being confused and standing in place, unable to move unless physically forced to do so. Then he goes back to his right mind after that initial shock, and does what he has to do to survive.

The female character becomes really quiet when she is afraid. Quiet not only in her voice but also in her movements. She uses a setup similar to Fight Or Flight, except in her case it's more like Flee or Sneak. Of course, the fleeing is fairly obvious. If she thinks she has to flee, she runs like a bat out of hell. But if she thinks she can sneak her way past a bad guy, she will silently find what she can use against that individual and use it whatever way that object affords her.

Both characters are together almost the entire length of what I have finished of the book (it's my NaNo novel, and I'm winging it, so I have no idea what is coming next), and they use their unique ways of overcoming their own personal fears to help the other one to overcome theirs, as well.

[Scrawler]

I like your idea.

My characters show extreme fear by: getting sweaty, feeling dizzy, being unable to speak or stuttering, heart pounding like mad, blurry vision, weak kneed, the overwhelming need to flee, jerky movements...
I think Doodlebug summed it up nicely.

[Garpy]

Terry Gilliam deploys this concept to great affect in his movie 'The Fisher King'. A man driven mad by remorse sees 'fate' personified by a large flaming samurai warrior on horseback. Might be worth watching the movie, which is excellent anyway, to see how another creative person handles the concept.

[dmytryp]

In George Martin's 'Song of ice and Fire' he has a char that is afraid of fire because his brother shoved him into a fireplace when he was a boy. The char is otherwise is a really bad ass, tough guy. Martin shows his fear of fire in a coulple of scenes very well.