The Character House, Pt. 3: First Floor Fears

If you’re looking for a tool to help you create a cast of well-rounded characters, you’ve come to the right place! With the Character House, you can build characters from the ground up, from backstory to personality traits and everything in between.

Here are the other posts in this series so far:

In the Character House, the First Floor represents the character’s fears and goals. Just as the basement walls support the first floor, characters’ beliefs influence what they fear and what they want. (When I use the term “first floor,” I mean the floor itself, not the walls. The walls represent the character’s dialogue and actions, which we’ll discuss in future posts.)

Next week, we’ll discuss the top half of the First Floor: character goals. This post will explore the bottom half of the First Floor: character fears.

Why Are Character Fears Important?

Everyone is afraid of something. Spiders, failure, drowning, rejection, fire, public speaking—the list of possible fears is as varied as human beings themselves.

Realistic characters should have fears—people, places, things, emotions, or situations that they avoid at all costs. These hidden insecurities often hinder characters from achieving their goals. As they face obstacles, they may overcome their fears—or they may succumb to panic. Either way, readers will immediately connect with characters who battle fear and become stronger in the process.

Developing Character Fears

Characters often have both external and internal fears. External fears are physical, tangible objects, such as fire, water, heights, spiders, sharks, and small spaces. By contrast, internal fears are concepts and situations, such as failure, rejection, betrayal, and abandonment. A comprehensive list of internal fears can be found at One Stop for Writers, while this list from author Stephanie Morrill includes both internal and external fears.

Deep, emotional internal fears can make your characters more relatable. Many people can relate to a fear of change, conflict, or losing control, so they’ll root for your character to overcome these struggles.

Likewise, external fears can humanize characters by giving them relatable quirks. After all, numerous readers can relate to a fear of fire or heights. However, a fear of fire probably can’t carry the entire story—unless you link that external fear to an internal fear. For instance, a character might be afraid of fire because a loved one died in a fire. The external fear (fire) stems from an internal fear (losing a loved one).

The following tips will help you choose fears that fit your characters and engage your audience.

1. Start with what you know.

As mentioned in the overview post, the Character House helps you work backward from the known to the unknown. You can use this process to figure out your characters’ fears: start with a known backstory event, and consider what fears that event may have produced. If you know your character accidentally caused a car accident on a rainy day, the character may develop a fear of driving in the rain (external fear), hurting others (internal fear), or both.

You can also start with a known quirk, personality trait, or other detail, and brainstorm what fears produced those tendencies. If your character tends to take foolish risks to fit in with others, this habit may indicate a fear of rejection. If your character refuses to swim in a lake, this avoidance may reveal a fear of water that resulted from a near-drowning experience.

What if you already know your character’s fear? In this case, you can use the fear to brainstorm other components of the Character House, such as the backstory. Consider two questions: What is your character afraid of? When in the past did that fear come true? A character with a fear of failure may have previously failed in a way that hurt many people. A character who’s afraid of abandonment may have previously been abandoned by a family member or close friend.

(Note: Sometimes characters will be afraid of bugs or darkness for no apparent reason. These external fears are simply quirks, so they don’t necessarily need backstory explanations. In these cases, internal fears can provide the depth that external fears lack.)

As these examples illustrate, you can develop the elements of the Character House in any order that suits your needs.

2. Consider the character’s beliefs.

As mentioned in last week’s post about the Backstory Basement, the backstory wound causes the character to adopt a false belief (Lie), which often results in a fear.

To use a simple example, a person might incorrectly believe that every insect will sting or bite, which could result in a fear of insects. This example illustrates that a false belief can generate a fear.

The same principle applies to internal fears. A character who has experienced abandonment (backstory wound) may believe, “I’m not worthy of love” (Lie), which could lead to a fear of rejection. Likewise, a character who grew up in an unstable household (backstory wound) might believe, “If I’m not in control, I’m going to be hurt” (Lie), which may result in a fear of losing control.

This backstory doesn’t have to be extremely dramatic. Perhaps your character grew up in a stable household, but his parents showed favoritism to his talented older brother (backstory wound). Now your character might believe that he must be the best at everything to gain respect. This Lie can spawn a fear of being viewed as worthless.

3. Give your characters multiple fears.

Well-developed characters often have multiple fears, not just one, that connect to a common struggle. In The Time Travel Team: The Great Historic Mystery, Tyme’s main fear is failure, but she’s also afraid of letting others down, being rejected for her flaws, and not living up to the standard set by her ancestor, Isaac Newton. All these internal fears stem from Tyme’s struggle with perfectionism.

A character may also have multiple external fears. Maybe she’s afraid of heights, water, and alligators. Although internal fears are arguably more important, external fears can provide story conflict—especially if this character must climb a cliff, sail the ocean, or protect her younger sister from an alligator.

Like internal fears, multiple external fears can relate to a single theme. Maybe this character fears heights, water, and alligators because she’s afraid of being unsafe in general. A fear of heights might not carry the story, but a fear of lacking security certainly could.

Giving characters multiple distinct but related fears can propel your plot and conflict.

Showing Character Fears

Now you know what your characters fear and why. But the readers won’t become engaged unless these fears impact the characters’ lives in the story. You can show—not tell—your characters’ fears with the following tools.

1. Show fears through behavior.

Don’t tell us, “Jason was afraid of fire.” Instead, show him refusing to go near a bonfire. Show him smelling candle smoke and remembering the house fire that killed his brother. Jason’s fear can also be illustrated through word choice. Other characters might say that the flames of a fireplace “danced,” but Jason might say they “writhed.” This word choice connotes danger and fear, which reveals his attitude toward the flames.

Similarly, don’t tell us, “Dakota was afraid of not being loved.” Rather, show her trying to please all her friends and buying extravagant gifts for them. Show her being abandoned and blaming herself for not being good enough. The fear of not being loved is a broad concept, but these specific details show what this fear looks like in your character’s everyday life.

In A Time to Die by Nadine Brandes, all citizens have clocks counting down to their death. With only one year left to live, Parvin’s fear of wasting her life motivates her to take audacious risks in an attempt to leave a legacy. This dread drives Parvin’s actions, which propel the plot of her story.

When considering how fears influence behavior, remember that people often hide fear with different emotions. A character who fears losing loved ones might grow increasingly nervous when her husband fails to return her call. Once he returns late, the character might cover her fear with anger, feign indifference, laugh and make jokes to distract herself, or show a different reaction. Her response depends on personality and (you guessed it) backstory.

Even when characters aren’t directly facing their fears, they may react to sights, sounds, smells, and other sensory details that remind them of their fears. Suppose Daniel is afraid of encountering his controlling father, who always wears a particular type of cologne. If Daniel smells that cologne in a store, he might become tense or leave the room.

Showing fears through behavior draws readers into your story, inviting them to picture your characters’ actions for themselves.

2. Show fears through strengths and flaws.

When characters consistently hide fears with certain behaviors, they may develop strengths, flaws, or both.

A character who fears losing control may become disciplined and responsible but also strict, domineering, and argumentative. A character who fears commitment might become fiercely independent, which can be both a strength and a weakness. When characters display both positive and negative traits, they become more realistic and well-rounded.

Because they have different personalities and backstories, people with the same fear often display contrasting reactions to that fear. If Hannah, Connor, and Nate are all afraid of failure, their different reactions can demonstrate their distinctive personalities. Maybe Hannah becomes a perfectionist to keep herself from failing. Perhaps Connor hides his fear by arrogantly criticizing others to keep the blame off himself. And maybe Nate purposely underachieves to avoid disappointment.

The same principle applies to external fears. After nearly drowning, one person might refuse to enter the water ever again, but another might get right back into the ocean to fight the fear.

3. Incorporate fears into character arcs.

As mentioned in last week’s post, a positive character arc begins with a backstory wound that produced a Lie (false belief). Throughout the story, the character gradually rejects the Lie and accepts the Truth (the story’s theme).

You can also understand character arcs in terms of fears. The backstory wound produced a deep-seated internal fear, but the plot forces the character to face this fear over and over again. Driven by fear, the protagonist makes poor choices that hurt others and impede progress toward the story goal. Finally, the climax forces the protagonist to overcome this internal fear in order to successfully achieve the story goal.

In Charles Martin’s When Crickets Cry (spoiler alert!), a heart surgeon is afraid to admit his surgical mistake, which caused his wife’s death from a heart condition. When the surgeon meets a young girl with the same condition, he repeatedly denies his past—until overcoming his fear becomes the only way to save the girl’s life.

In book series, characters often continue to struggle with fear. They may regress to fear-driven habits, or they may become frustrated at a lingering fear. The events of one book may burden them with fears that they must face in later books.

If you’re struggling to figure out your character’s arc, consider internal fears. Audiences love seeing characters face daunting trials until they’re no longer controlled by the fears that once ruled their lives. These triumphant stories equip readers with the courage they need to battle their own real-life giants.

Try These Practical Exercises

What is your protagonist’s main external fear and main internal fear?
Why did your protagonist develop these fears?
What would your character do in a situation where avoiding one fear means experiencing another? For example, if your character is afraid of water and losing a loved one, how would she react if her best friend were drowning, and she were the only one who could help? Would she overcome her fear and save her friend, or would she be too terrified to move? Putting your characters under pressure can reveal their priorities and values.
Write a one-page scene where one of your characters encounters an internal or external fear. Use the action, dialogue, and word choice to convey the fear without directly stating it.

Character Fears Are Nothing to Fear

Character fears can create story conflict, portray relatable struggles, and build a connection with the audience. Just as the basement supports the first floor, you can brainstorm fears by considering backstory, beliefs, and other known traits. Once you pinpoint what your characters are afraid of, you can show these fears through actions, strengths, flaws, and arcs.

When you connect the backstory, beliefs, fears, actions, strengths, and flaws, you create a unified and coherent character for whom readers will root until the very last page.

Next week, we’ll discuss the other half of the First Floor: Goals. Discover how strong character goals drive your story forward and ensure that your audience remains engaged in every scene.

What are your characters afraid of? How do these fears drive their actions? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!