Guest Post from Annabelle Grayson

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Annabelle. She was born out of wedlock and although her parents stayed together for the first few years of her life, she always had a sense of not belonging. Like she wasn't supposed to be on this earth. It didn't help that her parents fought constantly. Over her father's drinking problem. Over the fact that her mother was attending college, even though both of them knew they didn't have the money. Over Annabelle - what school she'd go to when she was old enough, what she should be when she grew up, who would get her when her mother finally made good on her threat and left. And it wasn't as if both of them wanted her. Neither of them wanted the burden of a five-year-old girl as they continued on with their respective lives.

Her mother finally left, leaving Annabelle with an angry, alcoholic father. Although he had never expressed violence, the anger of his girlfriend leaving him pushed him into worse and he began to beat her. Sometimes it would be days between beatings, and other times he would hit her twice in a day. There would be days he hit her so hard she threw up. There would be days she had to call someone to take her to the hospital because he broke something inside her. There would be days when she didn't think she was going to make it.

She began to panic. Every time she thought of him, her heart rate would speed, the room would close and she would begin to cry. Every time he opened the door and slurred her name. Every time someone asked her about her family. She didn't dare tell anyone what was happening. She didn't want to discover what he would do to her if she turned him in.

It was a teacher who gave her the idea. She made an offhand comment of how stories helped some people process life. And Annabelle wondered if that would change the panic attacks she kept having. Her only real example of stories was a collection of old fairy tales her mother had left, so she began to make up her own, making herself the princess, her problems the dragons and her life an enchanted fairy-world where she could invent princes and fairy-godmothers to save her from whatever means she invented.

She made her princess-self the opposite of the names her father called her, names she knew were true. The princess wasn't worthless or ugly or a coward. She was a beautiful, brave girl who could do whatever she put her mind to.

And it worked. She stopped panicking. Her problems were manageable.

She was nine before anything happened. Her rescue came in the form of her new neighbor, a middle-aged man, who was the first one to care about the screaming and shouting he heard from the run-down apartment. He pulled Annabelle aside on her way to school and asked her if everything was okay at home. Annabelle hesitated, remembering the way her father threatened her on the subject of getting help. He would never need to know it was her though. There wasn't any way he could hurt her if he was arrested. So she told the man and whispered for him to please call the police, but to not breathe a word about getting the information from her.

She was pulled out of school early by two police officers and her father was arrested that afternoon. But right before he was shoved into the police car he gave her a look that said that he wasn't done with her and that he would get her back no matter what. The authorities found her mother and Annabelle moved in with her.

So, this part of my story really isn't worth telling, but the author of my story wanted me to write a post concerning my backstory. And don't worry. There's more. And there's hope in the end. It wasn't easy writing this. That's why it's in fairy tale format. It's still the only way I can handle things. Even now, seven years after his arrest. Sorry about that. Feel free to comment.

~Annabelle Greyson

Author's note: All the ideas here are copyrighted to Hannah De

Fear

Every character should have something they fear. Something that, no matter how brave they are, will send them running. I saw an excellent example of this in a TV show that my sisters were watching. It was a Little House on the Prairie episode called Blind Journey, and normally I don't like Little House on the Prairie, but this one expertly showed fear with a legitimate root.

Adam Something-or-Other is married to Mary Ingalls and both are blind. They teach at a school for blind children and teach them how to live life without sight. They're moving the school to a different location and they know they must cross a river in order to get there. They're camping close to the river (I think) and Mary is curled up next to Adam, and even though she's blind, she knows something's wrong. "You're shaking," she observes. He assures her that it's nothing and they go to sleep. They get to the river and the ferry doesn't arrive, so they have to ride a zipline-type thing across the river, one-by-one. Adam is the last to go over and he's curled in a ball and he won't let go of the rope that connects him to the wagon. He shouts at the man who tries to get him across, "I won't go and you can't make me!"

Later, when they've finally got him across, he's laying next to Mary again. He hasn't said anything since the incident. He's breathing heavily and shaking and Mary tells him, "We're okay. Everyone is safe and sound." He doesn't answer for a second, and finally he whispers, "I'm a coward." He tells her a story of when he was a little boy and his father took him fishing. He hopped around on the rocks, without a care in the world. Then he tripped and hit his head. When he woke up again, he was in a hospital and he couldn't see. Since then he'd always been afraid of water. "I acted like a coward, Mary," he says again, sobbing now. 

She comforts him saying, "After what you've been through, you have every right to cry."

Every character must have a fear, and, if possible, a legitimate root to that fear. We relate better to a person who doesn't have everything together and is sometimes afraid, and even more so, when we can understand their fear. Hope this got your creative juices flowing. Do you know of other stories that pull this off well?