Animal Phobias

by Lisa Binion

I am surrounded by animals. They make my life so enjoyable that I cannot imagine living without them. There are people, though, who live their life as far away as they can from certain animals. For some reason, animal phobias tend to be more common in females than in males.

Those suffering from cynophobia have an irrational fear of dogs. This is not a phobia that normally comes from something fearful during childhood occurring with a dog, such as being chased, attacked, or bitten. To the person who has this phobia, it isn’t irrational. This person may avoid visiting friends and family members who have dogs, may barricade herself in yards, or cross the street to avoid coming in contact with a dog.

Say your character has cynophobia as a result of being attacked by a dog when she was just a little girl. She has done everything possible to avoid contact with them since. Then she comes home from work to find a puppy in a basket on her porch. Obviously it is a present from someone. How does she react? Does she keep the puppy or call to have it taken away? If she keeps the puppy, does it help her to overcome her fear of dogs?

Ailurophobia is an irrational fear of cats. Why would someone fear a cat? Most of them are cute and cuddly. The person could fear cats in general or fear being scratched or bitten by a feline. Black cats (my favorite color of cats) have a reputation of being evil and associated with witches, so their evil reputation could be feared.

There are many Halloween stories written where black cats get a bad rap. Edgar Allen Poe wrote “The Black Cat”. Stories like this where cats are not depicted as loving may be the root of ailurophobia for some.

Try writing something different about Halloween. Write a story about a lady with ailurophobia. This phobia developed in her a child because she read so many stories about how wicked and evil cats, especially black ones, are. It is Halloween and she is taking the trash out when she sees a black cat running down her road as fast as it can go. The cat is being chased by a gang of kids. She can tell that their intentions for this cat are not good. Though she is deathly afraid of this cat, she has a good heart and cannot bear the thought of these kids harming the animal. What does she do?

Someone who has murophobia, a fear of mice and rats, would probably want to have some cats around to keep their residence free from what they fear. This person also has something in common with elephants. Did you know that elephants have murophobia? How could something so big be afraid of something so small? It isn’t actually the mouse they fear, it is the noise the mouse makes before he can be seen, for elephants have a natural fear of nearby noises when they cannot tell what is making them. This phobia in people may stem from the fact that mice and rats carry disease.

How about writing a story where a cat has murophobia? How is he treated by the other cats? What caused him to have this irrational fear? Allow the cat to be cured of this phobia. How is he cured? Do the other cats somehow talk him into catching and eating mice? Or is he befriended by a mouse?

If you suffer from ornithophobia, a fear of birds, you might not want to watch The Birds, an Alfred Hitchcock movie. People with this phobia may just fear birds of prey, or it could be so severe that they fear even parakeets. This phobia usually stems from an unpleasant encounter with a bird or group of birds. Maybe one stole some food from your hands, or maybe it gained entrance to your house through an open window and tore up everything as it flew frantically around looking for a way of escape.

Cats love to catch mice; they are also known for catching birds. Why not write another story with a cat? This time, when the story opens the cat is not afraid of birds. In fact, he catches more birds than any of the other cats. Then one day something happens to cause him to be afraid of what he once hunted and caught so easily. What happened?

Strange Phobias

by Lisa Binion

Unless you are afflicted with one of the following phobias, you will probably find them kind of humorous. It is hard for me to believe that some people really have fears about things that are so much a part of our everyday life, things that are so vital to our way of living. They do make characters interesting, though.

Remember, when someone encounters something they have an excessive fear of the experiences rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, anxiety, panic, terror, and/or dread.

Ablutophobia is the fear of washing or bathing. This phobia ranges from just a fear of showering (possibly from watching Psycho) to a fear of any type of washing or bathing. Obviously, there are social complications that arise from this. These range from being avoided and called names to loneliness and disease.

Your character doesn’t have ablutophobia, but meets someone who does. Where and how does he or she meet this individual? How old is this individual? What caused them to suffer from ablutophobia? Have your character feel compassion for this individual and find a way for him to overcome his fear of bathing.

Basophobia is the fear of walking or standing erect. Hmmm. How does a person who has basophobia get around? Jump? Crawl? Wheelchair? What would cause someone to have a phobia such as this? Maybe a bad fall.

Write a story where your character takes all kinds of risks. Then one day he or she takes a bad fall, one where he is injured pretty bad. When he recovers, he is afraid to walk or stand erect again. Is he able to overcome this fear? If so, how does he do it? How understanding are his friends and family members?

Cathisophobia, on the other hand, is the irrational fear of sitting down. Maybe a person who suffers from this phobia sat down on something that hurt really, really bad at one time in his life. Or maybe someone kept pulling the chair out from under him every time this person went to sit down. Anyway, I wonder, is it possible for a person to have both cathisophobia and basophobia? Write a story in which you have a character that suffers from both phobias. How does this person get from one place to another? What happened to cause this person to suffer from both phobias?

Cibophobia is a phobia that I definitely am nowhere close to suffering from. It is a fear of food. Yes, you did read that right, a fear of food. This phobia can worsen over time and get to the point where the person suffering from it endangers his own life.

Sometimes it is confused with anorexia, but there is a pretty major difference. Those suffering from anorexia fear the effects that food will have on their body image, while those with cibophobia fear the food itself. A person might appear to have some of the symptoms, but just want to eat healthy. If the symptoms get continually worse over time, then there could be a problem.

There are a lot of variations with this one. Know someone who is fanatical about expiration dates? What about someone who is overly concerned about making sure his food is well done, even to the point of burning it? Or maybe you know someone who refuses to keep leftovers for more than a day. Possibly a person suffering from this phobia would have very strict rules to govern his eating habits. This phobia has the potential to keep growing worse and worse to the point where an individual suffering from it would rather go hungry than to eat things that he thinks are questionable.

The character and story possibilities seem endless with this phobia. A young lady’s anorexia morphs into cibophobia. Her family is happy because she is eating again. They don’t think anything is wrong. What happens to clue them into that one danger has given way to another danger? Who tries to help her? Is she finally cured?

Weird Phobias

by Lisa Binion

There are so many phobias. Each and every one of them is fascinating. I think there is a phobia for just about everything in existence. A lot of phobias are considered common, others are considered to be weird or strange. Below are some of the ones considered to be weird.

The majority of people like beautiful things. The normal reaction to things that are not so nice looking is just to look away. Cacophobia is the fear of ugliness - whether it be ugly characters, ugly people, or ugly objects. What do you consider to be ugly? Opinions differ on this. A person could be beautiful on the outside, but ugly on the inside. Would someone with cacophobia be scared of them? If a child has physical deformities, would his mother with cacophobia think him ugly and be afraid of him? Could it just be a fear of oneself being ugly?

Your character with cacophobia has so far in life managed to go the opposite direction when anything ugly comes around. While jogging down the road, he is almost run down by an out-of-control vehicle. The music coming through his walkman prevents him from hearing its approach. He is saved only because he is shoved out of the way by this woman, the ugliest woman he has ever seen. How does he react when his eyes open and he sees who saved him?

Trees are beautiful and provide much needed shade on hot, sunny days. Someone who suffers from dendrophobia, the fear of trees, would not be able to enjoy the shade. Nor would this person go anywhere there are an abundance of trees. This means hiking trails and parks would be out of the question, as would be camping out and building campfires. Someone with dendrophobia would not be able to truly enjoy nature.

Your character is a young child with dendrophobia. Her parents are overbearing and think that she is just being a baby about not wanting to go camping, so they force her to go. She is terrified the entire time at the campsite and refuses to come out of her tent. That night there is a violent storm that rips her tent out of the ground and leaves her without shelter. Her parents try and keep her calm as they run for shelter, but it doesn’t work. Lightning hits a tree and knocks it over, causing it to fall on her parents; it pins them to the ground. Now she is their only hope of being saved. Is she able to make it back to civilization to get help for her parents? What does she experience along the way?

Arithmophobia is an irrational fear of numbers. Yes, some people are actually afraid of numbers. People suffering from this avoid learning anything about financial issues, prices, or any other things related to numbers. This must be a hard phobia to deal with if you are a student. How would a character with arithmophobia deal with filing his taxes each year? How would he keep his checkbook balanced? What would he do if his child needed help with math homework?

Telephonophobia is the fear of telephones. Since telephones are one of the most prominent ways of communication today, it would definitely be out of the ordinary to avoid using them. Imagine your character experiences life without a telephone, landline or cellular. How would he communicate with other people? What would happen if he were put in a situation where his only chance of communication was to use a telephone? Would he use it? Or would he rather suffer?

Fear of the sun is heliophobia. People suffering from this fear don't lay out in the sun and they keep their skin covered when they must be exposed to the sunlight. Since the sun is our main source of Vitamin D and is crucial to our health, this phobia could be detrimental to a person‘s health. This phobia would be common among vampires. Or someone with this phobia may believe he is a vampire. His skin would be deathly pale and he would wear sunglasses anytime he had to go out during daylight hours, though he would do everything in his power to avoid going out during the day.

If your character suffers from heliophobia, he would most likely have a night job, one that would allow him to be out and about during the night and sleep during the day. Very little light would be allowed to come into his house, his excuse being that he needs total darkness to sleep when he gets home from work. In his eyes, his life is perfect. Something happens that brings total chaos into his perfectly balanced life. What is it?

Phobias That Could Thwart Writers

by Lisa Binion

Halloween is the time when we think about scary things. What is out there that would scare a writer? Since there is a phobia for just about everything, it wasn't hard to find specific phobias that would hinder a writer's success. Some may even keep him from writing at all. If the thought of having one of the following phobias is bad, then just how bad would it be if you actually did have one or more of them? I wonder, would the desire to write be strong enough to overcome your fear?

If you don't have any of the following phobias (and I really hope you don't), then why don't you write a story about a wanna be writer who has one or more of them? Help this character overcome the phobias he or she has, then have your character go on to become a published writer, one whose books are in great demand.

Anthropophobia is the fear of meeting people. This one wouldn't so much hinder one from writing anything, but it could develop into a problem when the writer needs to meet new people like agents, publicists, or fans.

Bibliophobia is the fear of books. Maybe a writer afflicted with this phobia could just write short stories or articles. But a fear of books would make researching any subject difficult. Research could always be done on the internet, but if this writer also has Interophobia, the fear of the Internet, then using the Internet would also be out of the question.

Catagelophobia or Katagelophobia is the fear of being made fun of or ridiculed. I used to fear that people would make fun of the stories and/or articles that I wrote, but since I have been with BellaOnline, this fear has subsided. This fear doesn't so much hinder your writing as it impedes you letting others read your writing. It could also keep you from sending your creations off to publishers.

Glossophobia of is the fear of speaking in public. This phobia may hinder one from joining a writers' group. If an author's writing is a success, then this may slow down his or her career when invitations to appear on televion show or radio shows for interviews are turned down. This phobia would even make one not want to speak to a classroom full of those wanting to learn more about writing.

Ideophobia is the fear of ideas. Where would a writer be without any ideas? New ideas are such a huge part this career. Why would one be afraid of them? There isn't a lot of information on this phobia, but I don't know if someone with this phobia could be a writer.

Logophobia or Verbophobia is the fear of words. Wow. Not only would that hinder writing, it would hinder speaking and listening to others talk. How would one manage to communicate with a fear of words? Sign language? Even this would require having a vocabulary.

Panphobia or Pantophobia is the fear of nothing specific, but the fear of everything. A person with this phobia lives in a state of anxiety all the time.

Peniaphobia is the fear of poverty. Maybe this phobia wouldn't so much thwart writers as much as make them work harder at attempting to write a best seller. It really isn't easy to become rich by writing. There are a few lucky ones whose first novel becomes a smashing success, but that is not the norm.

Scopophobia is the fear of being seen or looked at. I guess one could just become a recluse and never leave the house or be seen by anyone, but writers do need to see other people. How would you know how people act without watching them? Characters on television act the way their writers make them act, not necessarily how they would act if they were real.

Sophophobia is the fear of learning. How can one write without learning anything? What about research?

Tropophobia is the fear of making changes. This would be bad, especially when one had to make changes to the story thought to be absolute perfection. A writer's ego, usually a fragile thing anyway, just might not be able to handle being told that his or her perfect story was not so perfect after all.

If there are any other phobias you believe would thwart a writer's success, please tell me about them in the forum.

Phobias

by Lisa Binion

Is there anything that you are afraid of? Anything that you try to stay away from? Everyone has their own set of fears. Sometimes there is a reason for those fears, sometimes not. A phobia is a persistent, irrational fear of an object, activity, situation or person that leaves a someone with a compelling desire to avoid it no matter how much reassurance of its safety this given.

What happens if someone encounters the object of their fear? They could feel dread, nausea, or breathlessness. They could sweat excessively or lose the ability to think or speak clearly. They could lose control and become angry. Detachment from reality is a possibility, as is a full-blown anxiety attack.

One of my favorite television shows is Monk. Sadly, the series has ended. If you ever watched any of the episodes, I’m sure you are at least casually acquainted with his many phobias. He was scared to death of several things. Some of these feared objects are common phobias or fears, like his fear of snakes; some of them were not so common, like his fear of milk.

Phobias are an excellent way to make your characters unique. Give him or her a strange phobia to set him apart from all of the rest and show how it affects his daily life and interactions with others. There is a list of phobias longer than you could ever imagine. Over time, I will try and cover them all.

The extreme fear of chickens is called alektorophobia. Those who suffer from this phobia aren’t just afraid of being around chickens. This fear also extends to chicken eggs or feathers. A fear of contamination because chickens eat their food off of the ground is also present. There are a few that fear even cooked chickens, but most of the time this phobia manifests itself around uncooked or live chickens.

Your character has alektorophobia. This doesn’t slow life down much, as it is easy to avoid chickens, dead or alive. Then his uncle dies and leaves him a million dollars. Before he can receive his inheritance, there is one thing the will states that he must do - he must stay at a chicken ranch for one week and take care of the chickens himself. Will he be able to do this?

This next phobia would definitely make life interesting and challenging. Vestiphobia is an overwhelming, irrational fear of clothing. In today’s society, walking around unclothed all the time just isn’t socially or legally acceptable. People who suffer from this fear may insist on wearing loose, over-sized clothing. If they suffer from an extreme case of Vestiphobia, they may withdraw from society completely and live out in the middle of nowhere so they can run around naked all the time.

Your character with Vestiphobia is blessed to live in a society where clothing is optional. Then one day he walks through a time portal and goes back to the time when the Pilgrims had built a colony in the New World. Clothing was definitely not optional, it was a requirement. What happens?

Coulrophobia is fear of clowns. A person who suffers from this phobia would definitely not want to visit a circus. But there are more ways than going to a circus to run across clowns. Filmmakers and authors - for example, Stephen King - have made use of this abnormal, exaggerated fear of clowns. A person who suffers from coulrophobia could also fear covering up one’s facial features with face paint, feeling that someone who hides their face is up to no good.

Your character has coulrophobia. It isn’t hard to avoid clowns, unless your family works with the circus. Your character’s parents just happen to be part of the biggest circus around. And their best friend is the clown. How does your character deal with this? What is the underlying reason for his phobia?

Peladophobia is a fear of bald people. Your character has peladophobia. So all she has to do is avoid relationships with people who have no hair. This is easy to do, until she walks into work one day and finds out her boss has been replaced - by a bald man. Even worse, this is a guy she went to school with who had a crush on her. Could he be the reason she has this phobia? Or will he be the one to help cure her of this fear?

Gift Ideas for the Writer in Your Life

by Lisa Binion

Do you have a friend or loved one who is a writer? Having problems deciding what to get for his or her birthday or Christmas? You can always buy them writing books, reference books, or books by their favorite author. Or you could give them something that would inspire their writing and put their creative minds to work.

A gift that would be low cost, appreciated and useful for anyone who writes is a journal in a jar. To make a journal in a jar, first you need a large jar with a lid. Next, come up with 365 questions about the person’s life, one for each day of the year. Some suggested questions are at the end of this article.

Write or type out each question on a small piece of paper. When you have a question for each day of the year written out, fold them in half and put them all in the jar. Put the lid on it and tie with a ribbon.

Include some instructions with the journal in a jar - "Take out 1 piece of paper each day and either answer the question about your own life or base a story on the question. At the end of a year, you’ll either have enough material to write your own life story or you’ll have written 365 short stories."

Of course, you can change theme of “journal in a jar” to anything you believe the writer would enjoy. You can ask 365 questions about any subject underneath the sun, or combine questions on several different areas that the individual is interested in.

Examples of questions to ask about someone’s life.
1. Was your name chosen for you because it had some special meaning to your parents?
2. What music groups were popular during your teenage years?
3. How did you meet your first boyfriend or girlfriend?
4. What was the political climate like in the world when you were born?
5. What is the one thing you could not possibly live without?

Tell the name for each of the following fears.
1. A fear of atomic explosions.
2. A fear of belly buttons.
3. A fear of the number eight.
4. A fear of frogs.
5. A fear of writing.

Yes, those are actual phobias. You can do an internet search and find the names for hundreds of these irrational fears.

You could also give them a writing prompt for each day of the year. There are several places on the web where you can find good writing prompts. Or you could always write them out yourself. Instead of putting these in a jar, you could print them out on paper and give the prompts with an attractive notebook and pen.

Examples of writing prompts.
1. After a hard day at work, Mary arrives home and finds something in her house that shouldn’t be there. What is it and how did it get there?
2. The king’s mistress gives birth to twins. Scared that the king will find out, she sends one of them to be raised by a couple in the village. Why doesn’t she want the king to find out she had twins?
3. Clarissa buys a coat during the summer at a yard sale, but doesn’t wear it until winter. When she first puts it on and sticks her hands in the pockets, she finds a small pouch of diamonds. How did they end up in the coat?
4. Barry and Melissa have just moved to a new neighborhood with their family. Their first night in the new house, they are kept awake by strange noises coming from the underneath their beds. What is making the noises?
5. Old Mrs. Murphy loves animals. She has a whole menagerie of animals that she cares for. A curmudgeon has moved into the house next door to Mrs. Murphy and believes that the neighborhood would be better off, at least for him, if the animals were sent away. Can Mrs. Murphy teach her neighbor to love her pets as much as she does or will she have to get rid of them?

Unless you give the writer a notebook and pen to go with the journal in a jar, the gift costs only your time and effort. This is a gift that would be used and appreciated.

There are many variations of the gift you could come up with yourself. Have fun with it and adapt it to something the writer in your life would truly enjoy. Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Show, Don't Tell

by Lisa Binion

“Show, don’t tell.” What exactly does that mean? How does one show what is happening instead of just telling? What are the benefits of doing so?

Telling is easy.

The room was bare.

Showing takes just a bit of thought, a bit of description, and sometimes a bit of conversation.

The sun peeked through the dirt encrusted windows onto a dusty wooden floor. Huge cobwebs hung low from the ceiling. No couch or chair to relax in after a hard day’s work awaited whoever came home. No shelves full of books to read or television to watch caused Henry to think this would be a great place to hide out.

What are the benefits of showing instead of simply telling? First of all, it will be more memorable. In the above examples, which one would you be more likely to remember? I’m willing to bet that you would be more likely to remember the second one, the one that leaves you wondering just who or what Henry wants to hide from.

What does the above paragraph tell you about the room? The room is bare, yes, but there is also dirt encrusted around the windows and the floor is dusty. There is no furniture, no television, no books in the room. It is pretty obvious that no one has lived there for quite some time. A few well-placed adjectives can keep you from having to write long, boring descriptions that may cause the reader to want to put down the book. Or the reader might have a habit of just skipping over the 'boring' parts.

When you get one of your characters to describe another person or a place, this is called half show-half tell. Instead of saying,

People began to talk about Henry because he stole Mrs. Frobisher’s jewels,

you could half show-half tell. This is done through the conversations of your characters.

Imogene grabbed hold of Mary as she walked by. “Did you hear what Henry did? The police arrested him for stealing Mrs. Frobisher’s jewelry, the stuff her uncle left her in his will. The idiot left his hat behind for the police to find."

When you show instead of tell, another benefit is that the reader becomes more involved in the story. He actually feels as though he is one of the characters. When the character is hurt, the reader feels hurt. When the character cries, the reader sympathizes and may even cry along with the character. When the character feels joy, the reader will smile along with him and be happy. In other words, the reader becomes emotionally involved with the story. Once this happens, he will find it nearly impossible to put the book down.

Showing instead of telling is great, just be careful not to overdo it. You need to pick what you show and what you tell.

A telephone rings. Unless it is pertinent to the story, the telephone just rings.

The dishes are washed. Again, unless there is something about washing the dishes that is vital to the story, the dishes are just washed.

Too much showing and you run the risk of boring your reader, especially if things that are not pertinent to the story are described in too much detail. You obviously use more words when you show.

To practice showing and not telling, try ‘showing’ things around you on paper. Show a dog playing with a Frisbee, an elderly lady with visual problems grocery shopping, a disabled man or woman climbing a steep set of stairs, a frustrated mother with a crying baby, and a husband celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife, now deceased. Feel free to post your exercises in the forum.