The Fear Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to What Holds Characters Back (PDF)

Fear is a primal force, a built-in warning system alerting characters to danger. It can push them to protect themselves or trap them, making their deepest insecurities and past trauma loom larger than life. It’s also the underlying current fueling plot and arc—a struggle that must be faced and subdued for characters to reach their goals.  

Inside this guide, you’ll learn to:

• Master the psychology of fear so you can show how it distorts perception, hijacks reason, generates false beliefs, and drives the character’s choices and behavior
• Write authentic character struggles using over 80 in-depth fear profiles that explore possible disruptions to a person’s life, specific triggers, reactions, and internal conflicts
• Use universal fear categories—Survival, Stability & Control, Relationship, Identity, and Moral & Existential—to plot challenging situations, personal battles, and opportunities for growth
• Pinpoint your character’s greatest fear by exploring their emotional wounds, secrets, unmet needs, and other related factors
• Identify your character’s fatal flaw, which is central to their fight with fear and the story’s resolution
• Strengthen story structure by weaving fear into the main turning points that define a character’s journey

Force your characters to face their inner demons while giving readers a front row seat to their own internal battles. The Fear Thesaurus helps you write stories that feel real—where fear shapes choices, fuels transformation, and reveals the courage it takes to change.

Read a sample.
Also available in Print and as an ebook.

Plus, a Fear Thesaurus Companion Hub!

Like bonus resources? We do, too! Owners of this guide gain immediate access to exclusive content: A Fear Factor workshop, a valuable Fear in Genres handout, and a Character's Greatest Fear worksheet.