Crap, you're making me flash to a song that I haven't heard in ages. Umm. "I'm happy 'cause I'm stupid / ... / If I wasn't so happy, I wouldn't be so scared of dying." I think. This is going to drive me crazy.
I guess there's a fine line with angst, and it kind of comes down to self-awareness of the character. Like, if the character is, apparently, thinking, "I AM SUFFERING NOBLY ARE THEY WATCHING," then yes, that's contrived and dumb. But when it's a quietly broken character who carries on, unaware of his/her...broken-ness, then that's different, isn't it? Maybe it has to do with the narrator, because it's definitely harder to take angst and stuff when the character dwells on it and rhapsodizes throughout. I personally appreciate the angsty one being someone separate that the narrator observes, etc. Does this make me a hack? Most likely.
And I understand the happy ending vs. rock-bottom ending, but you have to understand that it can be well-done. Obviously, fic-writing and writing class does not a classics period make, but I can only think of the Count of Monte Cristo [...I almost made an inappropriate typo] and how that was so horrifyingly rock bottom for everyone involved, and it made sense for the story. The story's point is that over-the-top revenge and driving people to despair isn't really good for anyone involved and isn't worth it, etc, so it accomplishes some meta, snotty high-class...thesis. Or something. Point is, it can work for the story in question, but I do concede that teen and twenty-somethings playing around and posting fic across the internet aren't exactly emulating Dumas.
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Date: 2008-01-31 05:02 pm (UTC)I guess there's a fine line with angst, and it kind of comes down to self-awareness of the character. Like, if the character is, apparently, thinking, "I AM SUFFERING NOBLY ARE THEY WATCHING," then yes, that's contrived and dumb. But when it's a quietly broken character who carries on, unaware of his/her...broken-ness, then that's different, isn't it? Maybe it has to do with the narrator, because it's definitely harder to take angst and stuff when the character dwells on it and rhapsodizes throughout. I personally appreciate the angsty one being someone separate that the narrator observes, etc. Does this make me a hack? Most likely.
And I understand the happy ending vs. rock-bottom ending, but you have to understand that it can be well-done. Obviously, fic-writing and writing class does not a classics period make, but I can only think of the Count of Monte Cristo [...I almost made an inappropriate typo] and how that was so horrifyingly rock bottom for everyone involved, and it made sense for the story. The story's point is that over-the-top revenge and driving people to despair isn't really good for anyone involved and isn't worth it, etc, so it accomplishes some meta, snotty high-class...thesis. Or something. Point is, it can work for the story in question, but I do concede that teen and twenty-somethings playing around and posting fic across the internet aren't exactly emulating Dumas.