The Problem With Angst
I felt like writing a limyaael-style rant today, so here it is, cross-posted from fanficrants.
In the past few days, I've come to realise that something separates me from a goodly portion, not only of LOTR and Potterverse fandom, but the majority of most other fandoms as well.
I don't like angst.
I don't mind tragedy, or even normal grief. And I can cope with everyday irritations popping up in fics. These things are not angst.
What drives me insane is Raven Serenity Moonbeam sitting in her dorm room in Hogwarts, pearly tears falling down her perfect face because she doesn't understand her Potions homework and she doesn't know if Fill-in-the-Blank-Boy likes her and she's having prophetic dreams about a possible attack on Hogwarts and she doesn't know what to do about any of it and oh Merlin's beard, TEH ANGST.
What I want to do in this case is slap Raven Serenity Moonbeam upside her silly head and tell her to do something. Because all of these problems can be solved. If she asks around, she will find a Potions tutor (someone has to be good at it), and her friends might have a clue or two about whether or not Generic Boy Wizard likes her (and if not, how to attract his attention), and she can surely talk to Dumbledore the Legilimens about her prophetic dreams. Or start trying to stay awake all night so that she doesn't dream. Or record her dreams on parchment. Or tell her friends. Or research in Hogwarts Library about prophetic dreams and how to know if they're accurate or not.
But all too often, Raven Sue does none of the above. She weeps and wails and angsts and keeps all this to herself until Snape volunteers to tutor her in Potions, or the Boy-of-Her-Lurid-Fantasies reveals that he has loved her deeply since they were in first year (because eleven-year-olds fall in love all the time!), or the dreams come true and people are lying stunned or dead on the Hogwarts grounds.
Any one of these events are the cue for Raven Sue to say to herself, "Why didn't I mention this before? Oh, well," she will add, "it worked out perfectly anyway." (Or, in the case of the attack on the school, "It was foretold. There was nothing I could have done to change it anyway.")
Now, I've asked Suethors in reviews: "Why? If your OFC was lost in Diagon Alley, why didn't she just stop in a store and ask for directions? If she trusts McGonagall or Dumbledore or Gandalf above all others, why is she not telling this trusted soul about being pursued by Death Eaters or Black Riders? If she loves Legolas or Faramir or Boromir to distraction, why doesn't she just say so and get it over with, instead of mooning about for eight chapters about how much she loves the guy, and Oh Dear Eru, she can never never tell him that?"
The usual reaction that I've gotten--when I haven't gotten the "OMG U R SO MEEN!!!" response--is, "But-but I can't do that! That would ruin the story!"
The problem, I think, is that a lot of Suethors have angst confused with drama. Angst--anxiety, apprehension and/or depression about an insoluble problem--is fine, and can lead to drama. But when your character has a problem that she could do something about, or that she could reasonably think of solutions for...then you do not have drama. You have what is known as "the idiot plot"--a plot that doesn't work unless the characters don't think.
It is all right for the characters to be stymied sometimes. It is all right for them to despair, and to be confused, and to have no idea what to do. But it is not all right for the characters to be passive. It is not all right for the characters to just wait for a deus ex machina to resolve their problems. This does not make for drama.
Even if the character can do nothing under the circumstances but endure (as, say, in a torture scene), the torture victim should be doing something--fighting the pain, mentally resisting the questions of the torturers, striving not to crack, battling fear and bewilderment and rage. If the torture victim reacts like a rape victim I saw in a fic today--limp and passive until her rapist penetrated her, at which point she "jerked and awoke from her open eye sleep"--the readers will lose sympathy. If the protagonist doesn't care enough to react or to struggle, why should they?
I remember a couple of Suethors who claimed that they had very intricate plots planned for their stories, and that was why Raven Sue couldn't do or say anything about X, Y or Z. First she had to find the Jewels of Purity, and then she had to share them between herself, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville, and then she had to find the hidden chamber leading to the Death Eaters' Secret Lair, and then she and the others had to work together to activate the jewels by turning them counterclockwise on a night of the second full moon in March, which would only work if they had by then found the Mystical Swords of the Angels, one of which had been designed to kill Voldemort a thousand years ago and which would shatter if it were in the hands of the wrong owner, and...
At which point I interrupted. "Does she have an instruction manual? Like a scroll or a magic book or a clay tablet that tells her all this?"
Well, no, the Suethor admitted. The OFC didn't.
"So," I said, "Why wouldn't your OFC try the simple solutions to her problem first, find out that they didn't work, and then gradually build to the intricate solution you've created?"
The Suethor had no answer. She'd forgotten that though she knew the answer, her main character didn't--and that the character would, logically, try to solve the problem any which way she could...including a number of ways that didn't and couldn't work. But, after the Suethor re-wrote the story to allow the OFC to try various solutions, the author learned that Neville knew something about magical plants that grew near the hidden chamber, and that all of the team had ideas about what would work and how, and that errors were dangerous. Potentially lethal.
And suddenly, the difficulties in solving this mess had multiplied. But the team was actually beginning to work together as a team, and the errors were giving them better ideas about what to do next. The characters were struggling to do something--and this moved and created plot.
Angst by itself isn't enough to create drama. For that, you need action--physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. The attempts at solutions don't have to be successful...but despite anxiety, apprehension, depression or despair, the character has to try, to move, to act. Because the protagonist is the one with the problem. She should want to solve it.
And doesn't having the character try to change or eliminate or solve the problem despite despair and depression make the character much stronger...and the story far more interesting?
In the past few days, I've come to realise that something separates me from a goodly portion, not only of LOTR and Potterverse fandom, but the majority of most other fandoms as well.
I don't like angst.
I don't mind tragedy, or even normal grief. And I can cope with everyday irritations popping up in fics. These things are not angst.
What drives me insane is Raven Serenity Moonbeam sitting in her dorm room in Hogwarts, pearly tears falling down her perfect face because she doesn't understand her Potions homework and she doesn't know if Fill-in-the-Blank-Boy likes her and she's having prophetic dreams about a possible attack on Hogwarts and she doesn't know what to do about any of it and oh Merlin's beard, TEH ANGST.
What I want to do in this case is slap Raven Serenity Moonbeam upside her silly head and tell her to do something. Because all of these problems can be solved. If she asks around, she will find a Potions tutor (someone has to be good at it), and her friends might have a clue or two about whether or not Generic Boy Wizard likes her (and if not, how to attract his attention), and she can surely talk to Dumbledore the Legilimens about her prophetic dreams. Or start trying to stay awake all night so that she doesn't dream. Or record her dreams on parchment. Or tell her friends. Or research in Hogwarts Library about prophetic dreams and how to know if they're accurate or not.
But all too often, Raven Sue does none of the above. She weeps and wails and angsts and keeps all this to herself until Snape volunteers to tutor her in Potions, or the Boy-of-Her-Lurid-Fantasies reveals that he has loved her deeply since they were in first year (because eleven-year-olds fall in love all the time!), or the dreams come true and people are lying stunned or dead on the Hogwarts grounds.
Any one of these events are the cue for Raven Sue to say to herself, "Why didn't I mention this before? Oh, well," she will add, "it worked out perfectly anyway." (Or, in the case of the attack on the school, "It was foretold. There was nothing I could have done to change it anyway.")
Now, I've asked Suethors in reviews: "Why? If your OFC was lost in Diagon Alley, why didn't she just stop in a store and ask for directions? If she trusts McGonagall or Dumbledore or Gandalf above all others, why is she not telling this trusted soul about being pursued by Death Eaters or Black Riders? If she loves Legolas or Faramir or Boromir to distraction, why doesn't she just say so and get it over with, instead of mooning about for eight chapters about how much she loves the guy, and Oh Dear Eru, she can never never tell him that?"
The usual reaction that I've gotten--when I haven't gotten the "OMG U R SO MEEN!!!" response--is, "But-but I can't do that! That would ruin the story!"
The problem, I think, is that a lot of Suethors have angst confused with drama. Angst--anxiety, apprehension and/or depression about an insoluble problem--is fine, and can lead to drama. But when your character has a problem that she could do something about, or that she could reasonably think of solutions for...then you do not have drama. You have what is known as "the idiot plot"--a plot that doesn't work unless the characters don't think.
It is all right for the characters to be stymied sometimes. It is all right for them to despair, and to be confused, and to have no idea what to do. But it is not all right for the characters to be passive. It is not all right for the characters to just wait for a deus ex machina to resolve their problems. This does not make for drama.
Even if the character can do nothing under the circumstances but endure (as, say, in a torture scene), the torture victim should be doing something--fighting the pain, mentally resisting the questions of the torturers, striving not to crack, battling fear and bewilderment and rage. If the torture victim reacts like a rape victim I saw in a fic today--limp and passive until her rapist penetrated her, at which point she "jerked and awoke from her open eye sleep"--the readers will lose sympathy. If the protagonist doesn't care enough to react or to struggle, why should they?
I remember a couple of Suethors who claimed that they had very intricate plots planned for their stories, and that was why Raven Sue couldn't do or say anything about X, Y or Z. First she had to find the Jewels of Purity, and then she had to share them between herself, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Neville, and then she had to find the hidden chamber leading to the Death Eaters' Secret Lair, and then she and the others had to work together to activate the jewels by turning them counterclockwise on a night of the second full moon in March, which would only work if they had by then found the Mystical Swords of the Angels, one of which had been designed to kill Voldemort a thousand years ago and which would shatter if it were in the hands of the wrong owner, and...
At which point I interrupted. "Does she have an instruction manual? Like a scroll or a magic book or a clay tablet that tells her all this?"
Well, no, the Suethor admitted. The OFC didn't.
"So," I said, "Why wouldn't your OFC try the simple solutions to her problem first, find out that they didn't work, and then gradually build to the intricate solution you've created?"
The Suethor had no answer. She'd forgotten that though she knew the answer, her main character didn't--and that the character would, logically, try to solve the problem any which way she could...including a number of ways that didn't and couldn't work. But, after the Suethor re-wrote the story to allow the OFC to try various solutions, the author learned that Neville knew something about magical plants that grew near the hidden chamber, and that all of the team had ideas about what would work and how, and that errors were dangerous. Potentially lethal.
And suddenly, the difficulties in solving this mess had multiplied. But the team was actually beginning to work together as a team, and the errors were giving them better ideas about what to do next. The characters were struggling to do something--and this moved and created plot.
Angst by itself isn't enough to create drama. For that, you need action--physical, mental, emotional and/or spiritual. The attempts at solutions don't have to be successful...but despite anxiety, apprehension, depression or despair, the character has to try, to move, to act. Because the protagonist is the one with the problem. She should want to solve it.
And doesn't having the character try to change or eliminate or solve the problem despite despair and depression make the character much stronger...and the story far more interesting?