Fear

Jordan Summers has an interesting post about the subject. I usually avoid writing about my personal fears and phobias in my books, but I've been editing Lost in Suburbia and came across a scene I'd forgotten was in there. A spider falls from the ceiling into the heroine's hair. One of my biggest fears is of spiders, second only to heights, (yeah, ridiculous, I know *g*) and the spider incident is something that actually happened to me. It's been years since it happened, and though I can laugh at the comical scene in the book, it still gives me the creeps just a little. Fear of heights is probably something I won't ever touch on in a book, since I can't really deal with it all that well myself. Just ask my family what I'm like on a plane. *bg* They get a kick out of it since my dad's an FAA inspector. Okay, more than enough about me. When you're reading, does it bother you if characters have fears similar to yours? Does it help you relate to them more? If you write, do you give your characters fears similar to your own or do you avoid doing so?