Tuesday, April 1, 2014

A: Anger

I believe it was Terry Pratchett who said that you need a little anger with the world before you can really write. He was discussing the differences between his earlier and later works, claiming that his later works have more depth because he had been jerked around by life a little more by the time he wrote them. (I tried to find you a link to the interview for you but it seems to have been lost in the clutter.)

I wrote my first manuscript when I was a freshman in high school. It was a story about a horse who was jealous that the girl who owned her got a new horse. It may have had some fun dialogue in it but the conflict was more or less nonexistent. There was a horse race and a horse thief and an annoying snobby girl and I never went any deeper than that. How could I? I was fourteen. I lived a very happy, very sheltered life and there wasn't much for me to draw from.

At least not the sort of things I would have wanted to write about . . .

Fast forward twelve years. Add some awareness of who I am and what the world is and how difficult it is to reconcile the two. Skip past long hours of loneliness and exhaustion and loss and confusion. The stories I tell now come from a deeper place inside me. I'm not mimicking my favorite authors anymore. I am abstracting words from my soul because there is no other way the scream of my existence can come out.

I am angry with the world. That doesn't mean I don't see its beauty too. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy my life or that I hate the people in the world. It means that I see how much better things could be. It means that I wish I could change the universe with a whisk of my wand. With a stroke of my pen.

So I do. Word after word, I paint what I see. It's terrible and beautiful and it is fueled by the kind of anger that can only exist alongside joy.

What do you think? Do you need anger to write? Do stories need anger to create conflict? Do stories need conflict? Does the world need conflict?

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8 comments:

  1. S. L. HennessyApril 1, 2014 at 12:33 PM

    I think writers need all emotion, and anger is definitely one of them. It fuels the passion I'd say.

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  2. UnknownApril 1, 2014 at 12:50 PM

    I once likened anger to the black crayon in the box. Depending on how we use anger or any conflict, it can draw out the details of the scene or mar it beyond recognition. All the emotions, like all colours, have their place in the art of life.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownApril 1, 2014 at 2:24 PM

      That's a very descriptive analogy. Tools are just tools. It's what you do with them that matters.

      Delete
  3. Roland D. YeomansApril 1, 2014 at 2:23 PM

    S.L. has a point: our stories need basic, primal emotions to "feel" real. Anger is one of them -- but like pepper, anger can overwhelm a story, negating its flavor. Emerson wrote that every minute that we are angry is 60 seconds of our life that are wasted. Tell that to Captain Ahab -- but look how that story ended for him!! :-)

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    1. UnknownApril 1, 2014 at 2:36 PM

      Ah, that may be a bad analogy for me. I'm like Cruela DeVille. I put too much pepper in everything and love it that way.

      But you certainly have a point. Anger can become overpowering and even destructive.

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  4. Yvonne OsborneApril 1, 2014 at 2:36 PM

    All stories need conflict. I also believe one becomes a better writer after knowing sadness and loss and experiencing different cultures, people, events and places outside your comfort zone. Yes...conflict.

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    Replies
    1. UnknownApril 1, 2014 at 2:46 PM

      Yes! Outside the comfort zone is the main point. Sometimes for the reader as much as the writer.

      Delete

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