When reading, I have to be so captivated by the author's skill in storytelling, that the writerly part of my brain switches off and I stop noticing their technique; this is one of the drawbacks of being a writer, as I commented in an
old thread.
My pulse races at situations where the protagonist is facing overwhelming odds, trapped and unable to escape—so there's no choice but to face the situation. I think my fear may be traced to reading about the siege at
Rorke's Drift, in the Anglo-Zulu war, when I was a child. There was no flight or fight option: it was kill or be killed.
In real life, the scariest thing for me are little men with big power, the jobsworths who really run the world by administering official paperwork, issuing parking fines and generally acting as lickspittles for Big Brother...keeping us all oppressed.
