What makes a novel memorable? Is it the characters? The sex? The plot? The setting? The writing? The angst? All of the above play a part, but for me angst is king.
What is angst?
Angst is moving, and emotional, and evocative. It is 100% relatable. Everyone has doubts, fears heartbreak, has experienced pain.
In a romance novel angst is the big conflict. It is the elephant in the room or the giant hurdle the leads have to overcome together. It will drive a wedge in the relationship and they will separate as they try to figure things out for themselves. The test of the relationship is in the angst.
How deeply did they feel?
Angst is valuable and purposeful, not because it’s a way to eek out an extra 15-30 thousand words for a story. Angst is important because it is the culmination of all the little hints and worries and fears into the singular instance that will bring the conflict to its head and start the argument or break up of the leads. Our reaction to it as a reader is a measure of how much the writer got us to care. When we are invested everything changes.
How deeply do I feel?
The payoff:
Nothing worth while is achieved without effort and hardship and this includes the HEA.
"[A]bove all, in an ending, the reader/audience has to CARE. A good ending has an emotional payoff, and it has to be proportionate to what the character AND the reader/audience has experienced." Alexandra Sokoloff
Angst is just the first step in the emotional payoff the writer gives the reader for reading the story. We know going in that there will be highs and lows, happiness and sadness, fluff and angst. The second step in the emotional payoff is in the fixing of the mess or problem. This can be done any way the author feels like, but it must make sense.
A hero wouldn’t suddenly believe the heroine’s tale about how the man she spent the night with all alone at the inn was in fact her cousin if he’s prone to jumping to conclusions or is highly skeptical and jaded when it comes to women and their feelings. He will confront her and not give her a chance. He has to learn the truth of what actually happened outside of the relationship. Then he has to feel guilty for not trusting her and only after all that can he be allowed to find a HEA with the heroine. This usually comes after a nice long grovel. This heroic grovel is our reward as readers for dealing with difficult heroes and it tastes damn good.
When it comes time, how do you like your angst?
Photo Credits: David Robert Wright
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5 comments ↓
I love angst, in print and on film, however, there must be a point to angst and a very good payoff. I dislike angst for angst’ sake! Is that kind of like so be good for goodness’ sake? If the misunderstanding and the groveling are mere plot devices, uh-uh, I’m gone. I like a realistic butting of the heads and a slam-bam thank you ma’am coming together again.
If it was a choice between angst and light and frothy, I’ll take angst any time. But I have to side with Julia, too — angst for the sake of angst is wearing and is the base of melodrama; all good soap operas are rooted in it.
[...] Love Romance Passion has an interesting post about the emotional payoff of angst in books. [...]
I like angst, as long as I feel the characters deserve all the crap that’s being thrown at them. If they don’t, then it just seems depressing and/or annoying.
[...] Emotional Payoff: Why Angst is Awesome “Angst is valuable and purposeful, not because it’s a way to eek out an extra 15-30 thousand words for a story. Angst is important because it is the culmination of all the little hints and worries and fears into the singular instance that will bring the conflict to its head and start the argument or break up of the leads. Our reaction to it as a reader is a measure of how much the writer got us to care. When we are invested everything changes.” [...]
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