- 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
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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.
