I love writing angst, but I fear I am not good at writing, well, good angst. Considering you are one of my favorite writers who writes excellent angst, would you mind giving some advice and tips and tricks or whatever as to how to write good angst? And maybe even how you became so good at writing it!
oh god, im glad you like my writing but it's by no means easy for me to write angst either.
you need to know that the first, second, and third draft are going to suck. angst is the one of the hardest genres to nail because you have to wrestle between the emotions, body language, and dialogue of your characters. plus you add ambience and heavy tension into the mix.
i start with the general idea: a fight, a confession, a scene that's going to precede a new arc. in this case, i tend to focus on the inner turmoil of just one character--the secondary one i only describe by their reactions and outsburts and how they impact my protagonist. i stick to a single pov.
second is, what's the point? the scene should end in a transformation from one emotional state to another. my character should leave the scene with another way of seeing things, either for good or bad. it needs to push the plot foward.
third: how does my mc think? do they have supressed anger? if so, they are going to snap. have they been surpressing sadness? they might break out crying in the middle of their argument or do something erratic.
Organize your draft in 4 parts:
you have your scene launch: which starts in the middle of something.
2. conflict arises: one of the characters says or does something. tension esclates.
3. climax: the fight, the confession. something is revealed here, new to either the characters or to the reader. the character can't go back to their previous state of mind after this comes to light.
4.denoument: a new question, action, or promise rises. the character know what to do (or not do) and prompts the next scene with another launch.
i advice you to focus on showing, not telling us how they feel.
are they saying something mean because they are hurt?
are they thinking logically?
what do they do with their hands?
how do they react to the secondary characters emotions and behaviour? (this reveals a lot about their feelings--called in literary devices as emotion cues by secondary characters)
is the light dim or hard?
is it a closed space or public?
can you add a conflict that makes them show their true feelings?
here's a preview of one of the heaviest angst i've written for this fic. hope it can serve as reference for what i explained.
after you somehow come up with a draft similar to what you had in mind, you focus on the dialogue, body language, and inner monologue being coherent and smooth. from there, you only revise, and fix things here and there.
reach out to me via dm if you need me to give you some advice based on your draft. wishing you the best ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ don't forget that most authors write the same scene up to 7 times until it matches their vision.
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