“Every fear contains a wish”

I didn’t come up with this particular aphorism. I got this from author Steve Almond (who has a new book out on the writing process called Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow which everyone should absolutely read). He recently came to the writing program I’m in to push us on how to make our writing better, and in the course of that, said these five words:

Every fear contains a wish.

I researched this a bit, and it may stem from a David Mamet quote: Every fear hides a wish.

I don’t know if this is a literal, unalterable truth – I think there are fears that are just fears.

But I do think there can be wishes woven into fears. It may be an unexpressed wish, but it’s in there. Buried, usually. When I dissect my own fears, it can be hard to find that wish. And I’m not talking the opposite of the fear – I fear sharks therefore my wish is to never encounter one in the wild – I’m talking the really buried stuff.

Like this one: There’s a reason why a lot of us in queer community sometimes speculate that our most vehement haters may actually be closeted queers themselves – the unexpressed, and sometimes unconscious wish is, I have these feelings, too. I want to be able to be who I really am.

Or this one: The unwritten social contract that women are supposed to strive to be as thin as possible, and if you’re not thin, you’re supposed to be working on being thin, and keeping it as your ultimate goal. But there are those who push back on this and are happily, unapologetically fat, and refuse to make weight loss their goal. And that deeply upsets people. The fear is, I don’t want to be like you, but the underlying wish is, I want to be able to accept myself like you do.

In both examples, the anger and hatred that fuels that fear is a feeling that it’s not fair and not right that queer people and fat people exist without feeling the need to hide. That they accept themselves and are accepted by others. Why should you get these things if I can’t have them? Almost like a misery loves company sot of situation.

I think we can all think of examples of fears – whether they be expressed as actual fear or as anger/hate – that have those underlying wishes in them. That is what Steve Almond was trying to get us to with building our characters. What do they fear, dread, hate – and what is the wish underlying that fear? The secret longing? The thing that may not even be a conscious thought?

A good story involves diving into the depths and dredging out some of those hidden things. Because those are the things we really connect with as readers and it gives the character both an arc and things they have to overcome – they have to conquer the fear, or at least stop being afraid of facing it, in order to get to the wish.

This can be light and romantic. It can be dark and horrific. It can lead to profound change, or maybe it sets the character on the wrong path. Answering this question is one really elegant way of understanding tension and obstacles and how the character will change.

Looking this morning at one of my works in progress. The fear that drives the character? I don’t want to spend my life in thrall to you. She fears that she will never be able to break the fixation she has on another young woman, and the other young woman exploits that – not in a genuine way, but just enough to keep my protagonist close. The wish? I want you to see me as a true partner. And that wish is a bit tragic, because that’s what never happens. My protagonist is used as a crutch to navigate the quotidian while less worth women get the passion and the poetry. So I’m tangling with a character who is, on one level, hellbent on destruction, but on another level, longs for connection. It’s been an interesting story to write.

What are your characters’ buried wishes?

What are yours?