Fear Thesaurus Entry: Criticism

Debilitating fears are a problem for everyone, an unfortunate part of the human experience. Whether they’re a result of learned behavior as a child, are related to a mental health condition, or stem from a past wounding event, these fears influence a character’s behaviors, habits, beliefs, and personality traits. The compulsion to avoid what they fear will drive characters away from certain people, events, and situations and hold them back in life. 

In your story, this primary fear (or group of fears) will constantly challenge the goal the character is pursuing, tempting them to retreat, settle, and give up on what they want most. Because this fear must be addressed for them to achieve success, balance, and fulfillment, it plays a pivotal part in both character arc and the overall story.

This thesaurus explores the various fears that might be plaguing your character. Use it to understand and utilize fears to fully develop your characters and steer them through their story arc. Please note that this isn’t a self-diagnosis tool. Fears are common in the real world, and while we may at times share similar tendencies as characters, the entry below is for fiction writing purposes only.

Flaws That May Emerge
Antisocial, Defensive, Evasive, Haughty, Inhibited, Insecure, Jealous, Know-It-All, Nervous, Perfectionist, Pretentious, Timid, Verbose

Hindrances and Disruptions to the Character’s Life
The character stagnating because they’re unable to accept feedback
Being limited professionally because of an unwillingness to change
Never being able to truly express themselves
Giving up a passion because of criticism in that area
Gaining a reputation for being easily offended, uncooperative, or uninterested in self-improvement
Living with relationship friction due to the character misreading a spouse or parent’s intentions or character (accusing them of being overly critical or believing the other person thinks poorly of the character, etc.)
A lack of self-awareness keeping the character from growing and improving

Scenarios That Might Awaken This Fear
Having to change jobs and start over with a new supervisor
Being put in a situation where the character or their skills are on display
Being assigned a job that is beyond the character’s abilities (being set up to fail)
Being rejected (in an interview, on a date, when sharing an idea, etc.)
Being paired with someone whose performance is always lauded
Receiving harsh criticism from a trusted individual
The character’s skills being brushed aside or devalued
Encountering a loved one whose desire to help looks a lot like criticism

Other Fear Thesaurus entries can be found here.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed, the rest of our descriptive collection (16 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

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