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Fannish 50 - What Tickles My ID: The Introduction
Friday, February 7th, 2025 03:02 pmWelcome to my Fannish 50! The theme of my series is called "What Tickles My Id" but you could also think of it as an investigation into writing strong angst and hurt/comfort in fiction (both publishing and fan works) and why it sometimes works for me and sometimes doesn't. This is going to be very much a personal take on angst; it's going to be what tickles MY id. I recognize that many people undoubtedly feel differently about pretty much all the opinions I'm going to express. That's why I want to take the opportunity, in this post, to level set by defining some terms and introducing what I'm going to be talking about.
Everything I write about in this series is my opinion. If I say something that sounds like a crazy generalization, please feel free to mentally append "for me" to the beginning of any sentence. It will save me having to repeatedly type it out. But yes, the global caveat, here it is: this is all IMO.
I've struggling with exactly *what* I want to examine in this series, but I kind of envision it as an exercise in close reading and analysis to figure out why a scene written by one author can provoke an intense emotional reaction from me when another very similar scene leaves me cold. I'm hoping that by teasing out the nuances in the writing, maybe I can take away some lessons on how to write emotional, intense angst that is something that I, as a reader, would enjoy. And maybe I'll also be better able to identify what will/won't work for me as a reader so I can find more angsty faves!
One thing I want to clear up for myself is my terminology. I tend to say that I enjoy "angst" fiction but there's more to it than just being angsty. It has to be emotionally powerful.
When I'm reading discussions around these topics I hear the term "angst", sometimes I hear "hurt/comfort", and sometimes I hear "whump". None of the terms on their own is enough to convey exactly what I'm looking for as a reader. Angst probably comes the closest because of the three I think it implies the most psychological suffering, which is an important component (I'll be diving into that a lot I imagine). But angst is subjective. What is angsty to one person, another might not even notice.
Hurt/comfort is a popular tag and many works I enjoy get tagged as hurt/comfort. But hurt/comfort can be so broad of a term and it's often the case that the comfort side of the equation is given a lot more significance than the hurt. And even with tags like "hurt, no comfort" I find that it's often about the MC being physically harmed. Which can be angsty, but isn't always. Whump is another term like "hurt, no comfort" but I see whump used a lot more in TV fandoms than in book fandoms. Also, for no logical reason I'm aesthetically opposed to the word whump lol.
So if none of these terms is perfectly accurate, what exactly AM I trying to write about in this series? It's hard to put a finger on, to be honest. But I know it when I feel it because it's a literal physical feeling that I get when I read the exact right combination of words at the exact right moment in the exact right frame of mind. The bottom of my stomach drops out and my head gets fuzzy. The blood drains from my face. I suspect it's some kind of empathy response because I get a really similar feeling when I look at another person's wound. It's most similar to the feeling of a roller coaster going down a big hill.
So I guess that's it. I want more stomach-dropping, deep, dark angst fiction, and this series is going to analyze where that feeling comes from so that I can hopefully find more and maybe someday write some into existence for others.
I guess it is probably prudent to also warn that I will be discussing dark topics in this series. If you're not into that, no hard feelings. I will put all spoilers and triggering content under a cut!
Keep Reading - Part 2
Everything I write about in this series is my opinion. If I say something that sounds like a crazy generalization, please feel free to mentally append "for me" to the beginning of any sentence. It will save me having to repeatedly type it out. But yes, the global caveat, here it is: this is all IMO.
I've struggling with exactly *what* I want to examine in this series, but I kind of envision it as an exercise in close reading and analysis to figure out why a scene written by one author can provoke an intense emotional reaction from me when another very similar scene leaves me cold. I'm hoping that by teasing out the nuances in the writing, maybe I can take away some lessons on how to write emotional, intense angst that is something that I, as a reader, would enjoy. And maybe I'll also be better able to identify what will/won't work for me as a reader so I can find more angsty faves!
One thing I want to clear up for myself is my terminology. I tend to say that I enjoy "angst" fiction but there's more to it than just being angsty. It has to be emotionally powerful.
When I'm reading discussions around these topics I hear the term "angst", sometimes I hear "hurt/comfort", and sometimes I hear "whump". None of the terms on their own is enough to convey exactly what I'm looking for as a reader. Angst probably comes the closest because of the three I think it implies the most psychological suffering, which is an important component (I'll be diving into that a lot I imagine). But angst is subjective. What is angsty to one person, another might not even notice.
Hurt/comfort is a popular tag and many works I enjoy get tagged as hurt/comfort. But hurt/comfort can be so broad of a term and it's often the case that the comfort side of the equation is given a lot more significance than the hurt. And even with tags like "hurt, no comfort" I find that it's often about the MC being physically harmed. Which can be angsty, but isn't always. Whump is another term like "hurt, no comfort" but I see whump used a lot more in TV fandoms than in book fandoms. Also, for no logical reason I'm aesthetically opposed to the word whump lol.
So if none of these terms is perfectly accurate, what exactly AM I trying to write about in this series? It's hard to put a finger on, to be honest. But I know it when I feel it because it's a literal physical feeling that I get when I read the exact right combination of words at the exact right moment in the exact right frame of mind. The bottom of my stomach drops out and my head gets fuzzy. The blood drains from my face. I suspect it's some kind of empathy response because I get a really similar feeling when I look at another person's wound. It's most similar to the feeling of a roller coaster going down a big hill.
So I guess that's it. I want more stomach-dropping, deep, dark angst fiction, and this series is going to analyze where that feeling comes from so that I can hopefully find more and maybe someday write some into existence for others.
I guess it is probably prudent to also warn that I will be discussing dark topics in this series. If you're not into that, no hard feelings. I will put all spoilers and triggering content under a cut!
Keep Reading - Part 2
