EXERCISE: Horrors, horrors, everywhere!

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 5 October 2007

Let's see. It's Friday, October the Fifth, and the deadline is Monday? Monday is the eighth, fifteenth, twentyoneth? Eep, that's only a couple of weeks away?

Yipes! Let's consider what you might write about. Horrors and fears, right? But which ones?

Okay, pick a number from one to eight. Got it?

Here's what you picked:

1. Fear of death and danger
2. Fear of the unknown
3. Fear of Animals
4. Fear of School
5. Fear of Medical
6. Fear of Failure
7. Fear of Criticism
8. Fear of scary things

Now, given a fear, refine it. What exactly is the fear? Go ahead and make a list of between five and ten specific fears in that area. For example, death and danger - starvation, fire, drowning might come to mind. What else? Or maybe animals - do you dislike snakes, insects, spiders, bats, llamas? Medical - there must be enough diseases and such to fill volumes, just pick some that make the sweat run cold on your back.

Think about which ones you know something about. You might want to do a bit of googling to get some details, or just dig into your memory. Remember the time when . . . oh, does that make goosepimples rise? Good!

Or you can take a look at the phobias on the web! Over at http://www.realfears.com/ they will give you a random fear, or you can look around at some of them. Fear of demons?

Don't like that spin of the wheel? How about taking a look at the hierarchy of needs? You remember. Maslow. Physiological, breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, shelter. Safety: security, employment, resources, morals, family, health, property? Love/belonging: friends, family, sexual intimacy. Esteem: self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect. And that self-actualization one up top, with creativity and such for all? Now flip it, and consider that the loss of these things is a kind of hierarchy of fears. Losing esteem, belonging, safety, and physiological needs will drive a person - well, that's your story!

Again, stretch it out and pick your details. Make a list, think about the alternatives, maybe consider how the dominoes fall. Losing your job may not seem like much, but when the house goes, and then . . .

Then quickly pick the worst possible thing for your character. Suppose that little itch really does turn into the creeping crud, and the best the doctors can come up with is repeated amputations? Choppity-chop, his scalpel went snickersnack?

Okay, let's get started here, there isn't a whole lot of time left to put together a story that makes stomachs clench and tears start, that makes people hold their breath to see how it all comes out, that makes them shiver when they finish!

But you can do it! Let the horrors roll!
tink
(where is fear of deadlines? That really should be in the list somewhere, shouldn't it?)

[Based on a couple of factor analyses of youthful fears, based on the Fear Survey Schedule. Citation? Okay, take a look at: Shaefer, B. A., Watkinds, M. W., and Burnham, J. J. (2003). Empirical fear profiles among American youth. Behaviour Research and Therapy 41: 1093-1103.
Available at http://www.public.asu.edu/~mwwatkin/Papers/EmpiricalFearProfiles(2003).pdf
Identified five factors:

1. Fear of death and danger
2. Fear of the unknown
3. Fear of Animals
4. Fear of School/Medical
5. Fear of Failure/Criticism

There's another one by Burnham, Shaefer, and Giesen (2006) An empirical taxonomy of youths' fears: Cluster analysis of the American fear survey schedule that looks pretty good from the references. This one is a bit harder to get - have to dig through the reference libraries, and - Aha! Got it - six factors, separating school and medical, dropping failure/criticism, but adding fear of scary things. Not much help, actually.]