Fear....a writer's thread...believe it or not.

[ABSTRUSE]

I'm working on a halloween entry and being the main catagory is Erotic horror I have to ask.
I understand the erotic element, that's easy...but fear?

How do you define fear?

Is it abstract? tangenital? emotional? or in the psyche?

How do you approach it or feel it?


Discuss.

 

[LadyCibelle]

I'm working on a halloween entry and being the main catagory is Erotic horror I have to ask.
I understand the erotic element, that's easy...but fear?

How do you define fear?

Is it abstract? tangenital? emotional? or in the psyche?

How do you approach it or feel it?


Discuss.

It's all of those.....but it's also physical. You feel fear, your stomach knots, you sweat, your heart beat increases, you become light-headed, your muscles tenses etc....

It's important, IMO, to include the physical signs of fear too.

 

[S-Des]

Depends on the situation. Fear of the unknown...walking down the deserted alley, the quiet so unnatural that you imagine you can hear your heartbeat, every noise making you wonder if something is going to happen, adrenaline coursing through your body, making it quiver and making your legs feel heavy and your mouth go dry...there are lots of ways to tell it. The first Nightmare On Elm Street seemed to capture it well for me. Running from the monster, your steps coming slowly either out of blind panic or because the ground seemed to be grabbing at your feet...I vividly remember having those actual nightmares growing up. The movie hit them very well. I think those kinds of descriptions would be fairly easy to tell.

Emotional fear (which to me can have an equal physical reaction) is what my stories tend to deal in because I find it easy (and impactful) to write about. Fear of someone betraying you, looking into their eyes and being afraid you can no longer trust them, wondering what they've done while you were gone, doubting yourself as to your ability to make them happy or satisfied. It can have the same physical impact (i.e. making you physically ill), but is more of a slowly growing threat. You can tell it over the course of a story as the character tries to interperet what's going on around them and slowly begins to fall into a maze of distrust and paranoia. I think doing that in EH would be trickier, but to me it would make a more interesting story (even if the supernatural was eventually involved).

Hope that's what you were asking for.

 

[oggbashan]

Asterix

There is a comic book in the Asterix series called Asterix and the Normans (= Vikings to everyone else).

The Vikings are trying to find out what fear is. They don't know the meaning of the word. They know that 'fear gives men wings' but not how to feel fear. They fight; they die; they go to Valhalla and eventually they will die again when evil triumphs - so why fear anything.

The little Gaulish village teaches the Vikings fear by letting their bard sing to them. He is so awful that they have cold sweats, they feel sick, they want to run away...

All you need is a few songs from a Gaulish bard and your problem is solved.

Og

 

[Samandiriel]

bump for Charley.

 

[Aurora Black]

I'm working on a halloween entry...

YAY!

Ahem. Fear, true fear, fucks with your mind, ravages your body and cripples your soul. It makes you wake up in a cold sweat night after night, and it's a shadow that can follow you for the rest of your life. It's the river of blood that flows over your hands, and no amount of scrubbing will ever remove that damned spot.

 

[Nirvanadragones]

Pain is a warning that something is wrong
Fear is the amber light to life.

 

[cloudy]

for me, fear is the uncertain, the unknown. Once something is known, it becomes much less scary to me.

 

[CharleyH]

I'm working on a halloween entry and being the main catagory is Erotic horror I have to ask.
I understand the erotic element, that's easy...but fear?

How do you define fear?

Is it abstract? tangenital? emotional? or in the psyche?

How do you approach it or feel it?


Discuss.

Fear can be many things to many different people, love. It depends how you want to structure it? What fear? How do you want to structure it?

 

[CharleyH]

bump for Charley.

ROFLOL! LOL

It seriously depends on what the 'horror' is.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

For me, to my, admittedly shallow, mind, fear is an emotion. Plain but not so simple. Fear is an emotional responce to the unknown. It is how this responce is felt that varies so much from preson to person and instance to instance.

As it has been said above, fear often has physical symptoms. Shaking, tightness in the stomach, sweat, whimpering... etc. These things are easy to write about. It's a simple physical reaction little different than a person sweating after being in the hot sun.

It's the emotional response that is more complicated partly because people are afraid of different things. Sometimes people can have an overwhelming and seemingly completly irational response to something so mundane to most of us that it's hard to really grasp the characters emotional response. For isntance, writing about a character with Siderodromophobia could be very diffacult to do. It's simply hard for most people to relate to the fear of trains. So portraying this fear becomes harder. Now the writer has to instill (or at least attempt to instill) the blind, often irrational feelings of fear.

Also fear is natural part of the 'fight or flight' instinct. In response to a precieved threat, the body floods itself with adrenalin and prepares for battle... or the getaway. The sences can become, or at least seem to become, hyper sensitive. Every little shadow and noise is noticed that normally would be ignored. The muscles are on a hair trigger, ready to spring. In extreem cases, the body can begin to hyperventilate, flooding the blood with oxygen, again, for battle of running.

So that fear becomes something in your head first, then body. A feeling of deep dread and forboding often irrational, sometimes very logical. An almost palpable feeling that tences up your body in preparation for... something.

Sorry, this post runs around and doesn't really seem to go anywhere. Never post on a serious thread when overtired.

 

[CharleyH]

For me, to my, admittedly shallow, mind, fear is an emotion. Plain but not so simple. Fear is an emotional responce to the unknown. It is how this responce is felt that varies so much from preson to person and instance to instance.

As it has been said above, fear often has physical symptoms. Shaking, tightness in the stomach, sweat, whimpering... etc. These things are easy to write about. It's a simple physical reaction little different than a person sweating after being in the hot sun.

It's the emotional response that is more complicated partly because people are afraid of different things. Sometimes people can have an overwhelming and seemingly completly irational response to something so mundane to most of us that it's hard to really grasp the characters emotional response. For isntance, writing about a character with Siderodromophobia could be very diffacult to do. It's simply hard for most people to relate to the fear of trains. So portraying this fear becomes harder. Now the writer has to instill (or at least attempt to instill) the blind, often irrational feelings of fear.

Also fear is natural part of the 'fight or flight' instinct. In response to a precieved threat, the body floods itself with adrenalin and prepares for battle... or the getaway. The sences can become, or at least seem to become, hyper sensitive. Every little shadow and noise is noticed that normally would be ignored. The muscles are on a hair trigger, ready to spring. In extreem cases, the body can begin to hyperventilate, flooding the blood with oxygen, again, for battle of running.

So that fear becomes something in your head first, then body. A feeling of deep dread and forboding often irrational, sometimes very logical. An almost palpable feeling that tences up your body in preparation for... something.

Sorry, this post runs around and doesn't really seem to go anywhere. Never post on a serious thread when overtired.

Fear may well be an emotional response, but writing it? Creating fear in a reader? That is something different. It depends on the fear that the author wants to get across.

(No prob CD - much love to you).