Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing: EP 471 - Fear in Storytelling with Becca Puglisi

EP 471 - Fear in Storytelling with Becca Puglisi

Apr 24, 2026

Mark interviews Becca Puglisi about the new book THE FEAR THESAURUS which she co-authored with Angelea Ackerman.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes, a personal update, and a word from this episode's sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by the Show, Don't Tell Writing Podcast with Suzy Vadori. In this weekly show, Suzy brings you writing techniques, best practices, motivation, inspirational stories from real live authors out there making it in the world, and actionable advice that can help you turn that book you’re writing into the bestseller you know deep down that it can be.

In their interview, Mark and Becca talk about:

The Descriptive Thesaurus series and how The Fear Thesaurus is book 11 in this series
How Becca and Angela are trying something new this year with their latest release - selling it direct before making it available on all the various retail channels
The fear that came in the process of putting this book together
How there's not a lot out there about character fears
The human needs that become impacted because of past trauma, and what a person fears and tries to avoid
The way so many of these experiences connect directly to a character's fear and ultimately their character development in your writing
Looking at healthy/normal responses versus trauma inspired or unhealth/abnormal responses
How fears can cross over from something normal and unremarkable to another thing that becomes an overblown reaction
The way this book is a great accompanying text to the Emotional Would Thesaurus
Looking at how fear plays into story
A bit of a background behind the series and the first book: The Emotion Thesaurus
The common element of "show, don't tell" that runs through all of their books
The authors' hope is that the entries in the book gives them ideas that they can take, modify and apply to the specifics of their characters
How their previous book The Emotion Amplifier ties in beautifully to this book
A character's greatest fear versus an everyday fear
The way that fear is a great way to mobilize the reader's connection to the story
The breakdown of fears and the way the book is laid out
Selling this book directly on their Shopify store on April 15, 2026 before launching it to all the other retailers a month later
The Fear Hub available at their website when they order the book off their direct store
The overall website of Writers Helping Writers and the great 20+ years of resources that reside there, including free resources and downloads and handouts
Combining one's gifts with the things one is passionate about
The origin story of how Becca and Angela first met and decided to collaborate on The Emotion Thesaurus
Advice Becca would share with beginning writers based on her more than twenty years as a writer and almost twenty years of helping other writers

After the interview Mark reflects on several different things related to his conversation with Becca.

Links of Interest:

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and best-selling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and other resources for writers. Her books have sold over 1.4 million copies and are available in multiple languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online resource for authors that's home to the Character Builder and Storyteller's Roadmap tools.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0