Aaaaaaaargh!

This is a weird one, isn’t it? It’s probably wrong to say so, but I do appreciate the time and care people take with the graffiti in this city. It’s so… unusual. Hummingbirds. Oil barrels. It’s a statement. Of something…


How do you write anger?

Yesterday I did a little experiment — I usually write with no music on whatsoever, or with very faint classical music on — today I tried writing for awhile listening to indie pop (Andrea Wittgens) to see if I could screw down my concentration to a point where I could free myself to write without obsessing over word choices or specifics, but still be enjoying, on another level, the music. I did that because I was editing/revising — I don’t know if I could swing that if I were writing all new material. I was writing a scene with a rather petulant person confronting her mother in a very aggrieved state, and it worked for me — the sentences were punchier, the scene was tighter and faster, and I think the voice was pretty believable. I’m not sure how the music helped to shape that, but… well, this is science. Experimentation continues apace.

I’ve noticed something about my writing — I tend to hide behind my main characters and look out through their eyes. And protect them. People don’t yell at them as much as they would in real life, they don’t behave badly and really shriek and argue with their parents. They’re leashed, controlled, and always pulled back from the brink. Well, that’s no way to live, much less any way to write. So, those first draft “controls” are ripped away as I revise.

And I have to dig into my own head for examples of emotion… but the problem is that when I get angry — not peeved, not aggravated, but straight, cold, I-wish-you-dead furious, I don’t yell. A.) I cry. In private, if I can, but in public if I have to… which generally just makes me angrier. And B.) I use very large words and speak in very short, emotionless sentences. Talk about leashed and controlled. C.) — Well, please hope you never get to C. Because I will do violence upon your person. Ask the people whose shins I have kicked with my large combat boots. You’d think I would have grown out of that, but, no. It’s a leftover relic from being a very teased youngest child. One minute she’s crying, the next she’s launching for your jugular vein with her fangs extended. My sisters thought I was insane. (Quite possibly they still do.)

*Ahem.* Where was I? Oh, yes, writing anger. As you may have guessed, I don’t have a normal the average person’s anger responses, as I learned early that anger was not ladylike or appropriate. I got in trouble for my temper constantly, which made me angry, go figure — but I knew I was behaving badly, and so over time learned to squash those impulses. That’s kind of a problem, now! I have a character whom I’ve been asked to write more jaggedly, more furiously — so I’m going to try a few things. I’m going to listen to angry music and try to write an angry scene. I’m wavering between Green Day or The Ballad of Sweeny Todd or …something. I don’t know from angry music; I have a feeling I’m not doing this right! (And no, I can’t listen to rap — yes, some fine lyrics and some good examples of angry, but too many words.)

Meanwhile, the scene remains unwritten. *Sigh* I may have to do this the old-school method acting way… by thinking of something that makes me mad, then trying to push it out of my mind long enough to write… Unless you have a better idea? How how do you do anger?


Wintergirls is out today. Congratulations Laurie Halse Anderson! Also, congratulations to Kerry Madden for her biography of Harper Lee, which Jama so generously pointed us to. (Do you ever wonder how she DOES THAT?! How she knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE’S BOOKS!?)

6 Replies to “Aaaaaaaargh!”

  1. Charlotte, I’m too big of a wuss to drive in the UK. Manual transmission on the wrong side of the car, driving on the wrong side of the road. I get twitchy still when riding in a taxi — I feel Imminent Head-On Collision signals in my brain every time.

    That being said, what a great idea!

    And Beth, I think yours is what really worked — just paced suddenly sat down and spilled something out.

    …which illuminated immediately what else was missing. I’m not sure if I’m thrilled or horrified by this. I’m leaning toward thrilled… and in line for a lot more work.

    But oh — the potential goodness…

    Thanks, you guys!

  2. Anger is perhaps the hardest thing to capture. That and true, actual love. Walk, stew, stir. Don’t write until you ache with the desire to put your scene down, at last.

  3. I like the humming bird very much.

    Viz anger–you could try driving in rush hour traffic? Unless the Scotts drive calmly. You could try to recover memories of vicious fights with siblings…it is so hard to believe that I actually rolled around on the floor, clawing other people with my fingernails. Umm. You could come to my house, and try to get my chldren up and out the door…but that’s more frustration than rage, so not much help. I remember once deciding to break something while angry, to see what it felt like, so the next time I got angry, I tried to hold onto it long enough to get one of my sister’s china thingys and throw it on the driveway. It was a total anticlamax. I have also expiramented with kicking things, but it was not very interesting.

  4. Gee, I’ve been force-fed Linkin Park and Rammstein through the ears and it hasn’t done a THING for my writing. Or… maybe it has and that’s my problem! I’ll have to beat the kids to the CD player and put on Leonard Cohen next time I write. (Saturday I’m getting that uninterrupted hour, for sure.)

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