I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

TS Eliot

Elsewhere in this issue, we have a quiz about phobias. Why do people make lists of them? Partly, it's to reassure themselves that yes, other people are afraid of the same things they are. Another reason, of course, is that those faux-Greek words lend a sort of dignity to what is, after all, a very undignified emotion: sheer terror. But then, so much of fiction deals with fear, especially at this time of year, that it's worth looking into the problem of discussing it a bit further.

Now, if you're HP Lovecraft, you don't name your fears. You go on (and on and on) about 'nameless dread' and such, and let readers fill in the blanks. Apparently, any number of readers are happy to do so. However, other fears, phobias or otherwise, need to be handled in specific, concrete detail. How do we go about it?

The first question to settle is an epistemological one, and it's personal to the writer: what do you think fear is all about? Do you believe, with Freud, that the monsters in the cellar are just chimeras of the confused child-mind, and can be exorcised by adult understanding? Or do you side with Jung, holding that those monsters are lurking archetypes, ready to pounce on the unwary? This will have a lot to do with the kind of fiction you write.

Here's what vampires shouldn't be: pallid detectives who drink Bloody Marys and work only at night; lovelorn southern gentlemen; anorexic teenage girls; boy-toys with big dewy eyes.

What should they be?

Killers, honey.

Stephen King, 'Suck on This', intro to American Vampire.

Obviously, Mr King is more of a Jungian. He thinks those thought forms are nasty, and he likes them that way. He also seems to think that most people are afraid of the same things: axe murderers, vampires, falling out of airplanes, clowns, dust bunnies…

I beg to differ. Personally, I don't believe everyone's afraid of the same things. For example, my little sister had nightmares one night after seeing a trailer to one of those Harry Harryhausen dinosaur movies. The same kind that would have excited, say, Bluebottle into a frenzy of glee and anticipation. Moi? I fell asleep in a cinema while watching Jurassic Park. And those were much more 'realistic' dinosaurs. Why did I fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon, in Sensurround, no less? Well, I find dinos unappealing (sue me), and once they start eating people, the plot becomes quite tedious, so I nodded off. Not even Jeff Goldblum could keep me awake at this point.

Now, it's true, I prefer my vampires on the Romantic side – wait, I didn't mean I read that teen drivel, only that I like 'em Byronic – but then, I don't spend most of my time trying to make my readers hide behind the sofa. I'd much rather they laughed, or cried. But even then, you've got to deal with human fears. How do you do it?

1. You address shared concerns. Someone's missing. How do friends and family react? What does this say about their characters? There's an imminent threat of some sort. Who panics, who vacuums to get their mind off the problem? See what I mean?
2. Reassure the reader. Let the reader in on the source of fear, and the coping mechanisms, and leave space in there for them to think about what they themselves might do. If you don't – if you're too blithe about it – you'll find that they're yelling at their Kindle screens, 'No! No, no, no. You're doing it all wrong!; They might even tell you so.
3. Address hidden fears. What do I mean by that? Pay attention when you get to tricky issues that might cause audience stress, and deal with this proactively. To do this, first put yourself in the reader's place (ALWAYS a good idea).

That last point bears repeating. You may not be trying to write horror, suspense, or thriller fiction. Your story may be humorous or heart-warming. In the process, though, you can stumble across fears from everyday life or social situations that stress readers and cause anxiety. You have to decide: use it or defuse it? As usual, it depends on what you're after.

How many television dramas do you watch that involve danger to children? How are these situations handled in your favourite shows? Now, ask yourself this: do you have children at home? Does the answer to that question colour your response to a drama in which children are placed in severe danger? Now, as a writer, what does that tell you about your audience?

Here's another kind of fear: the fear of social danger. Example: an episode of the US TV show Psych. Psych is a witty dramedy about two 30-something bachelor friends who solve crimes while annoying the police, the criminals, and just about everyone else. They're best friends, since childhood. Shawn is white, Gus is black. Because this is the 21st Century, normally this is not an issue. They go everywhere, do everything together, and occasionally vie for the attentions of the same women. However, in one episode, the two needed to infiltrate a group of…Civil War re-enactors.

Watching this as an historical educator, I almost held my breath. How, I thought, will they get past this? This could be fraught, as they say. And if they pretend it isn't an issue that Gus is black, well, it will just ring false. I was delighted with the writers' choices.

'Gus,' says Shawn. 'We've got to join this group.' Gus demurs. No way,. Then he thinks.

'What could I play? You don't mean…' Shawn looks shocked – mirroring our thought exactly.

'Oh, no, buddy, hey, this is ME you're talking to. I would never ask you to do that. I'm thinking…' his eyes light up…'Denzel in Glory…'

Gus is thrilled. He continues to be thrilled at the prospect of re-enacting one of his film heroes until he finds out that the elaborate costume he's wearing is really a band uniform…joke explodes, so does audience…You get the point. The fear has been addressed. No one has been insulted. The issue, which is a genuine fear, the fear of persistent racism, has been dealt with effectively.

What does that have to do with TS Eliot? I can't speak for anyone else, but I always assumed that when Eliot wrote, 'I show you fear in a handful of dust', he meant to indicate that humans were afraid of death. Poetry, however, can be read resistantly – that is to say, I can make it mean what I want it to mean when I read it. And I read it this way: I show you fear in mundane occurrences. I show you fear in the frustrations of an incomplete daily life. I show you fear of the neighbours' hostility, personal failure, the unforeseen emergency.

But if I show you that, I need to go somewhere with it. I need to let my story – and you, the reader – ponder the reasons and possible ways out. I have little patience with horror stories, myself. I don't like them, and they bore me as much as Jurassic Park. I don't want to know about dead-end scenarios with monsters in. I want to know that there's some thinking going on. And if there's no light at the end of the tunnel – or if we can't figure out how not to go down that tunnel in the first place – then I say, that writer's trying to make me be afraid of clowns, and I'm not having it.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

20.10.14 Front Page

Back Issue Page