"What's the difference between the FEAR and MISBELIEF?" | #AskAbbie

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- What's up, my friend? Abbie here, and welcome back to "#Ask Abbie", where I answer your writing questions and help you make your story matter. Today's question comes from MJL1966Y. Can you talk more about the heroes, fear and misbelief, the difference between them, and their relationship to each other? I've been studying a lot of films looking for these two elements and sometimes I see one or the other, but not always both. I'm really struggling to wrap my head around these two things and how they work together. If you can suggest some stories, film, or book that you think illustrate these principles well, that would be awesome too. Okay, this is a great question and this is a common question. So a lot of writers wonder how the misbelief and the fear kind of correlate, and a lot of times you'll hear the misbelief referenced as the fatal flaw or the character's lie. So all of these terms are kind of interchangeable if you're like, hmm, I've never heard it referenced as a misbelief before. To anyone who's watching, maybe you've heard it referenced as the fatal flaw or the lie, and these are all kind of the same thing. They are a thing that your character believes is true, but isn't actually true, and it's kind of the the root of all their other beliefs. Every principle they live by, every decision they make is based on this fundamental misbelief. So the easiest way to think about these two things working together, the misbelief and the fear is that the misbelief is the root of the fear. The reason I have this fear is because I mistakenly believe something is true. So for example, if my fear is of abandonment, let's say, I'm afraid that nobody will ever really care deeply for me and that they will always leave me, the misbelief is that I'm unlovable, right? So obviously there's a nuance difference there between the fear and the misbelief. The fear is I'm afraid that someone will abandon me, okay? And the misbelief is that I fundamentally believe that I'm not worthy of love. So I made a video a while ago about the five minute rule, which is basically showing the character's internal conflict, their desire, fear, and misbelief within the first five minutes of the story. And in that video is a science of story video, I case studied a bunch of examples from well loved iconic Disney movies. So let's roll a clip of that video right now so that you can see some story examples of the clear difference between the fear and the misbelief. Frozen follows the storytelling technique I like to call the five minute rule, revealing the main character's internal conflict within the first five minutes of the story. Through a backstory sequence in the beginning of "Frozen", we learn about our two protagonists, Elsa and Anna, they're sisters, and obviously close. But Elsa is different. She has a special power that gives her the ability to magically create ice and snow. It's all fun and games until Anna gets hurt, and Elsa's fear of hurting others with her power takes root. How much time has passed since the film started? Five minutes and 10 seconds. Throughout the following 10 minutes, we learn the rest of the character's internal conflict. Elsa's desire to be herself and to be free, to not hide her power from others. ♪ Don't let them see ♪ ♪ Be the good girl you always have to be ♪ - Elsa's fear? That she will hurt the people she loves and that she will be seen as a monster by others. Elsa's misbelief? In order to be happy and live freely, she must be isolated from everyone else. What does Elsa do in order to achieve her goal and avoid her fear? Elsa flees into the mountains and build herself an ice castle to live alone and be free to use her power, but she inadvertently freezes her entire country as a result. - You kind of set off an eternal winter everywhere. - [Narrator] Running parallel to Elsa's plot, we have Anna, who is also affected by the past. Anna's desire? To have a life outside her castle and fall in love. Anna's fear? That she'll be trapped and isolated, that she will never be loved. Anna's misbelief? That her sister Elsa has shut her out because she doesn't truly love Anna. What does Anna do in order to achieve her goal and avoid her fear? Anna is determined to marry Hans because she's afraid she will never have another shot at true love. She doesn't know she's walking into a trap, because she's too busy trying to accomplish her goal. We see similar character goals in "Mulan", not the live action 2020 version, which totally failed to bring the internal conflict and thus, failed to make us care about the characters, and thus, failed to make a profit. But in the original film, the writers actually constructed some good internal conflict for our protagonist. While everyone is telling Mulan what she is supposed to be, she knows that she is meant for so much more. She doesn't really fit in with her society, but what others see as weaknesses are actually her greatest strengths. Mulan is clever, valiant, and thinks outside the box. She wants to make her family proud, but struggles with the idea of conforming to society's expectations of her. We begin to see all of this within the first five minutes of the film. Mulan's desire? To be free to discover who she really is and to use her talents to make her family proud. Mulan's fear? That she will bring shame upon herself and her family. Mulan's misbelief? That in order to bring honor to her family, she must hide who she really is. ♪ When will my reflection show who I am inside ♪ - [Narrator] What does Mulan do in order to achieve her goal and avoid her fear? Mulan joins the Imperial Army disguised as a man taking the place of her father. She uses her clever resourcefulness to overcome challenges and ultimately save the day. "Tangled" is another movie that relies on a backstory sequence to show us who the characters are and why we should care about them. Born with magical healing powers, Rapunzel is kidnapped at a young age by the evil mother Gothel, who hides her away in a tower and exploits Rapunzel's magic to keep her forever young. But Rapunzel is discontented with her life and longs to be free. We learn all of this in, you guessed it, the first five minutes of the film. Rapunzel's desire to see the floating lights and in effect, be free to enjoy her life and discover who she is. Rapunzel's fear? Basically everything, thanks to her mother scaring her with ideas of what the real world is like. But Rapunzel is mostly afraid of disappointing her mother. Rapunzel's misbelief? That she's weak and incapable of handling the real world. What does Rapunzel do in order to achieve her goal and avoid her fear? Do you know what these are? - You mean the lantern thing they do for the princess? - Lanterns? - Rapunzel is determined to see the floating lights and find out why they appear on her birthday every year. To do this, she must make a deal with a wanted criminal on the condition that he will return her safely to her tower so she doesn't break her mother's heart. Are you starting to see a pattern here? Protagonists trapped inside a bubble, also known as their comfort zone, unable to break free and achieve their goal because something is holding them back. It doesn't always have to be a physical place or antagonistic force holding them back, but it does have to be rooted in their fear. So boom, those are some fantastic examples of the clear difference between the fear and the misbelief. You can kind of see now how they are related to each other, but they're different. And hopefully that will give you something to go off of as you now explore some of your favorite films and books and unpick the mysteries behind these characters and why they do what they do. That's really what it's about. It's about motivation, right? The motivation of their every decision. And once you start asking yourself, why, why, why? Why is this character doing this? Why do they want this thing? Why are they afraid of this thing? We start to dig down to the beliefs. That's really what drives us. That's what is at our core. That's what's at your core. That's why you do everything that you do, is because you believe something is true. So hopefully that helps. If you wanna see the full episode of Science of Story that I took that excerpt from, you can watch that right here. Very insightful If I do say so myself. It's one of my favorite videos that I've ever made so definitely check it out. If you would like your question answered here on YouTube, there are two ways to submit questions to the show. The first way is to hit the join button below this video, get inside the YouTube community and post your question in a comment on the #Ask Abbie Post. The second way is to go to patreon.com/abbieemmons, join the Inner Circle Facebook group and poster question there. Just make sure you hashtag it #Ask Abby so that I see it. Smash that like button if you liked this video, and be sure to subscribe to this channel if you haven't already because I post videos every single Wednesday and weekend, and I would love to have you here in the community. Until next week, my friend, rock on. So that kind of throws your reader, throws your audience for a loop when it's like, well, wait a minute, you just promised me one thing and now you kind of broke your promise. That's really what it feels like with a magic system that doesn't follow any specific set of rules. It just kind of conveniently does what it needs to do, what the writer needs it to do at the moment.
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Channel: Abbie Emmons
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Length: 9min 56sec (596 seconds)
Published: Sat Sep 17 2022
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