some thoughts on angst
Apr. 6th, 2006 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynneFirst of all, updated the website today. But that's not the main thing I wanted to talk about.
I was reading a bunch of the posts linked to in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom today, especially the ones about pacing and tension. That, perhaps randomly, made me think about angst, so...
I like angst. A lot. Not because I'm sadistic and like seeing people suffer or anything, but because of its outcomes--either a happy ending or a sad ending. (It may not be explicitly happy or sad--it may only point to eventual happiness or eventual sadness--but I can't think of a satisfying angsty story without either a happy or a sad ending.)
I like angst with happy endings because that means that the protagonist will rise above his/her suffering. Suffering is the kind of thing that will either make you or break you, and in people who it's "made", in good angst fic, we can see that person's inner strength, and why their suffering didn't break them. Harry survives everything JKR throws at him because he has conviction. Luke survived Vader's and Palpatine's attempts to turn him because he has faith. I love heroes, and angst with happy endings makes heroes of people. They don't necessarily have to be the heroes of their series like Harry and Luke are--Luna Lovegood, for instance, I would call a hero, because she doesn't let people calling her crazy stop her from being herself.
Angst with a sad ending is tragedy. I don't like this as much as I like happy endings, but, as the ancient Greeks knew, there's just something in watching tragedy unfold that calls to us. I'm not sure I can articulate very well why I like this, especially since I really do prefer happy endings. Maybe it's a kind of catharsis; when I hurt, sometimes I want to read fics full of angst and with unhappy endings, and I can soothe my pain by watching the characters with theirs. If nothing else, I can remind myself that at least my life isn't as bad as all that. There's also "watching a train wreck" syndrome, I suppose; there's something disturbingly fascinating in horrible things, and it can be pretty hard to look away.
Death does not automatically mean unhappy ending, as death can also make heroes of people, especially with the noble self-sacrifice, but take Star Wars. The prequel trilogy is angst with an unhappy ending, because Anakin falls and they were unable to stop it--in the case of suffering making or breaking people, he broke, even if he technically survived. In the original trilogy, on the other hand, it's angst with a happy ending, even though Anakin/Vader died. I tend to think of happy endings as ones with some hope of improvement, and unhappy endings as endings without hope. Who lives and who dies and who is maimed and who is whole doesn't matter. The Star Wars prequels have some home, thanks to the birth of Luke and Leia, but if you don't know what happens in the original trilogy (as I didn't, when I first watched RotS), then that hope is a pretty dismal thing, and it seems far more of an unhappy ending than not. The original trilogy gives it context.
But that's good, well-done angst. Angst is such an easy thing to drop the ball on; a trap that I see so many writers falling into is putting too much angst in a story without an appropriate pay-off. In happy ending angst, that's not to say that everything has to end up sunshine and roses, but even well-done hope of better things can be as good or better than directly portraying those better things. In sad ending angst, that doesn't mean that rocks fall and everyone dies. You just have to keep the ending in line with what you put the characters through.
So many people write gratuitous angst. Pouring suffering after suffering after suffering on a character desensitizes the reader. Maybe at the beginning of the story I'll feel sorry for the guy, and as the story--and the angst--goes on, I'll probably still hurt for him, but at some point it just becomes ridiculous. Is it really necessary to the story to have a guy find out he's gay, have his first lover suicide and then have the guy attempt suicide himself, have him come close to death multiple times, have all his close friends picked off, find himself reluctantly in love with someone half his age, travel to a confrontation which he knows he won't survive...and then have him raped on the way there? Something I think that writers really need to ask themselves is, "How will this event progress the story and/or this character's personal arc?" If you can't think of an answer, don't write the event. If you have an answer, but the progression can come just as easily in a non-angsty way, don't write the event, especially if you're already bordering on gratuitous angst.
Angst can definitely be a case of "show, don't tell" gone wrong. Sometimes the impact of angsty things is enhanced when you don't describe it in detail; otherwise, like I mentioned earlier, it might desensitize the reader, especially if you've already described dozens of other angsty things that have happened. Someone refusing to think about bad things that have happened to him, or starting to think about them and then deliberately thinking of other things, has an emotional impact just as great, if not greater, than that person dwelling on what happened in detail and with many poetic words and similes.
So, basically, don't go overboard. Gratuitous angst is highly unsatisfying.
*Everything here is my opinion, of course. Also, don't kill me for using the happy spider icon! I couldn't resist. :p
I was reading a bunch of the posts linked to in
metafandom today, especially the ones about pacing and tension. That, perhaps randomly, made me think about angst, so...I like angst. A lot. Not because I'm sadistic and like seeing people suffer or anything, but because of its outcomes--either a happy ending or a sad ending. (It may not be explicitly happy or sad--it may only point to eventual happiness or eventual sadness--but I can't think of a satisfying angsty story without either a happy or a sad ending.)
I like angst with happy endings because that means that the protagonist will rise above his/her suffering. Suffering is the kind of thing that will either make you or break you, and in people who it's "made", in good angst fic, we can see that person's inner strength, and why their suffering didn't break them. Harry survives everything JKR throws at him because he has conviction. Luke survived Vader's and Palpatine's attempts to turn him because he has faith. I love heroes, and angst with happy endings makes heroes of people. They don't necessarily have to be the heroes of their series like Harry and Luke are--Luna Lovegood, for instance, I would call a hero, because she doesn't let people calling her crazy stop her from being herself.
Angst with a sad ending is tragedy. I don't like this as much as I like happy endings, but, as the ancient Greeks knew, there's just something in watching tragedy unfold that calls to us. I'm not sure I can articulate very well why I like this, especially since I really do prefer happy endings. Maybe it's a kind of catharsis; when I hurt, sometimes I want to read fics full of angst and with unhappy endings, and I can soothe my pain by watching the characters with theirs. If nothing else, I can remind myself that at least my life isn't as bad as all that. There's also "watching a train wreck" syndrome, I suppose; there's something disturbingly fascinating in horrible things, and it can be pretty hard to look away.
Death does not automatically mean unhappy ending, as death can also make heroes of people, especially with the noble self-sacrifice, but take Star Wars. The prequel trilogy is angst with an unhappy ending, because Anakin falls and they were unable to stop it--in the case of suffering making or breaking people, he broke, even if he technically survived. In the original trilogy, on the other hand, it's angst with a happy ending, even though Anakin/Vader died. I tend to think of happy endings as ones with some hope of improvement, and unhappy endings as endings without hope. Who lives and who dies and who is maimed and who is whole doesn't matter. The Star Wars prequels have some home, thanks to the birth of Luke and Leia, but if you don't know what happens in the original trilogy (as I didn't, when I first watched RotS), then that hope is a pretty dismal thing, and it seems far more of an unhappy ending than not. The original trilogy gives it context.
But that's good, well-done angst. Angst is such an easy thing to drop the ball on; a trap that I see so many writers falling into is putting too much angst in a story without an appropriate pay-off. In happy ending angst, that's not to say that everything has to end up sunshine and roses, but even well-done hope of better things can be as good or better than directly portraying those better things. In sad ending angst, that doesn't mean that rocks fall and everyone dies. You just have to keep the ending in line with what you put the characters through.
So many people write gratuitous angst. Pouring suffering after suffering after suffering on a character desensitizes the reader. Maybe at the beginning of the story I'll feel sorry for the guy, and as the story--and the angst--goes on, I'll probably still hurt for him, but at some point it just becomes ridiculous. Is it really necessary to the story to have a guy find out he's gay, have his first lover suicide and then have the guy attempt suicide himself, have him come close to death multiple times, have all his close friends picked off, find himself reluctantly in love with someone half his age, travel to a confrontation which he knows he won't survive...and then have him raped on the way there? Something I think that writers really need to ask themselves is, "How will this event progress the story and/or this character's personal arc?" If you can't think of an answer, don't write the event. If you have an answer, but the progression can come just as easily in a non-angsty way, don't write the event, especially if you're already bordering on gratuitous angst.
Angst can definitely be a case of "show, don't tell" gone wrong. Sometimes the impact of angsty things is enhanced when you don't describe it in detail; otherwise, like I mentioned earlier, it might desensitize the reader, especially if you've already described dozens of other angsty things that have happened. Someone refusing to think about bad things that have happened to him, or starting to think about them and then deliberately thinking of other things, has an emotional impact just as great, if not greater, than that person dwelling on what happened in detail and with many poetic words and similes.
So, basically, don't go overboard. Gratuitous angst is highly unsatisfying.
*Everything here is my opinion, of course. Also, don't kill me for using the happy spider icon! I couldn't resist. :p
