Our Characters' Fears | Anjuelle Floyd

Our Characters’ Fears

Posted by Anjuelle Floyd | Filed under Articles and Essays, Musings

Identifying our character’s fears is like uncovering the groundswell of what drives her or him to act and speak as she or he does in order to accomplish their larger goals. On another level it’s like discovering why we feel compelled to write.

Let’s say for instance that your protagonist fears love, and yet she or he wants to marry her fiancé before he is deployed to Iraq in the next two weeks.

Within her overall goal to get married, her deeds and actions focus on ascertaining the accoutrements of becoming a wife, perhaps a large wedding, rather than the foundation of their relationship.

Little is said of the emotions that bind them rather she dwells on the material aspect, organizing the outer signs that indicate that she is married. She may perhaps want an extravagant wedding band, one consisting of several diamonds.

But let’s say that the soon-to-be husband gives the protagonist a diamond wedding band, one that exceeds her wildest dreams.

And in the midst of placing it on her finger during the wedding ceremony, he tells her that he will go to Iraq fighting not simply in the service of his country, but with the hope of also returning to live out his life with her.

He adds that even if he does not return, he will die knowing that he loved someone, and they loved him. He will meet death having experienced what so many never do.

It may appear at this point in the story line that the worse possible obstacle for the protagonist to face is that of her husband never returning from war, or that if he does, he is injured, a perhaps worse obstacle to overcome.

Yet the greatest challenge lies in a plot that depicts the protagonist’s husband returning, unblemished, but ever more thankful that he survived and eager to shower her with love.

Remember, the major character’s fear is love. Love transforms. The protagonist fears change, what or who she might become, if subject to her husband’s love, or what, in the face of that love, she might discover about herself.

I am convinced that to face love is to face the greatest of uncertainties. Rejection we all await, in fact expect it. Love, undying and given freely without strings frightens us.

The writer’s love of writing cannot be understood except to say that without these words we weave into characters and stories of them facing and overcoming dilemmas we feel lost.

And yet what happens when others, readers, find solace in our words is beyond belief. We grow frightened. Our words mean more than we imagined. They have power. And this we are transformed.

What frightens you about writing?

What is the most moving thing about the stories your write?

Tags: actions, character, desires, dialogue, fears, fiction, writing

Permalink | Comments (2) | July 15, 2009

2 Responses to “Our Characters’ Fears”

Jennifer C. Says:
July 21st, 2009 at 7:47 am

In my writing my fear is that I will right a story that no one can relate too.

Just about all my stories have very emotional moments. Not anger but heartbreaking, tears falling emotions.
Anjuelle Floyd Says:
July 21st, 2009 at 12:32 pm

Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. I am so feeling you.

I too write stories of where the characters experience a vicissitude of emotions. And likewise I worry that I will burden the reader. Instead I have found that readers, those drawn to my type of work find kinship and identification with my characters.

We simply have to trust. These are words for myself too. We have to have faith in the process and our hearts.

So good to hear that someone else has these same fears.