I’m writing a novel that explores fear. Defn: anxiety and agitation caused by the presence or nearness of danger, evil, pain; to expect with misgiving.
What in the world would move me to write about fear? I, and plenty of others, live at least some of the time with fear as our motivation. Sometimes it’s logical fear, and sometimes it’s not. Seems like God might teach me something working through fear in a novel.
What I know so far is that when I’m afraid of black widows, a stranger following me in the dark, or fire, that’s logical fear. When I’m afraid of all men, what someone might respond to something I say, or God ceasing to love me, that’s illogical fear. That second list should be easy to avoid, except I don’t always. I also know that fear can lead us to do intelligent things, like squish a black widow, head for a lit street, or spray water on the fire. Fear can also lead to doing really dumb stuff, like screaming and standing on a chair, thinking I can hide or play superhero, or spraying that water on a grease fire.
I guess what I’m looking for in the novel is how do we find the balance between fear and courage? How do we know when our fear is logical and when it’s not? How do we find the strength to stand up when fear turns us to rubber? Anyone got any thoughts on that?
