Feel the Fear

Conveying a deep emotion.

 I’ve just returned from a very stressful trip abroad. I definitely wouldn’t recommend flying halfway across Europe in a global pandemic, although our reason for going – meeting a new grandchild for the first time – was definitely worthwhile.

I certainly ‘felt the fear’ at several points in the journey though. The country we were travelling to required a negative Covid test performed within no more than 48 hours of arrival. It was quite a mission getting it done, so my stress levels were already high before we set off. We were due to land at 2.30 and the 48 hours ran out at 3 pm. What if the plane was delayed? What if we were refused admission or dragged off to be quarantined somewhere? I could feel my heart beating faster with every imagined disaster. And then there was the plane journey itself. What if I was sat next to someone who coughed the whole time? What if I was taken ill mid-flight? What if regulations changed whilst we were away and we couldn’t get back?

My mouth was dry with apprehension and I got that swooping feeling low in my stomach that signals a surge of fear. I could sense my blood pressure rising by the second. But when my mind wasn’t consumed with panic, I realised how useful these disturbing sensations might be to my writing. I’m always looking for new ways of signalling fear in my characters and I was certainly finding plenty of evidence on this trip.

When I read through a first draft of my last novel, ‘The Child on Platform One,’  I realised I had a lot of stomach clenching going on whenever a character was frightened. I turned to ‘The Emoticon Thesaurus’ by Becca Puglisi and Angela Ackerman, a resource book for writers that I can’t recommend highly enough, and found a list of physical symptoms listed under fear. I copied these down, added a few others of my own, and used them as substitutes for my overused fear signals. Once I had made reference to one symptom on my list I crossed it out, to avoid repetition. It’s quite useful too to give each character a different stress signal in order to create variety and achieve more distinct characterisation. In my first novel, ‘The Oceans Between Us,’ I have a character who suffers from eczema. Every time he is anxious or worried, he scratches his arm and this signals to the reader what is happening in his head. Hopefully it works well.

We had a great trip and our new grandson is gorgeous. I wish it hadn’t been so stressful although I’m grateful I can add a whole lot more fear symptoms to my list. It’s all grist to the mill!