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This is Part 2 of 2 offering some examples of books containing angst that "worked" for me. These aren't summaries, they're just brief descriptions of some of the tropes and themes that I found angsty and satisfying. Part 1 with the first three books is here.

Dragon's Winter by Elizabeth A. Lynn
A lot of psychological angst dealing with guilt and questions of loyalty and personal identity. Karadur struggles with the idea of loving people who have betrayed him; Azil struggles with guilt while hiding his physical and emotional pain from Karadur. Azil also deals with his identity as a harpist after his hands are badly damaged. The way that Lynn writes is so sparse, it leaves a lot of room for the reader's own interpretation to be fitted in between what is said (and of course MY mind is going to interpret the maximum amount of angst possible). There are themes of imprisonment as well.

Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat
Book 1 angst was all James for me: magical healing is a trope that just invites the character to be heavily tortured and everyone around them takes their suffering for granted because… "eh, they'll heal". Then the aspect of the collar added a level of restricted freedom, coercion, and humiliation to James' whole situation that I found really satisfyingly angsty.

Book two brought Will angst to the table. I won't go into spoilers, but his backstory got dark *quick* and then the coup de grace at the end was great. I like when sad characters get a tiny glimmer of hope and happiness and then have it all dashed in one dramatic rug-pull.

Some additional themes that I think added to the angst are the question of fate/pre-destination, social rejection, and objectification (in particular of James, seeing him as a powerful tool instead of a person).

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
It's almost impossible to discuss the angst/whump in this series without spoilers but I'll try to be as vague as possible. There are characters who are incredibly devoted to their chosen leaders and willing to risk anything to serve them and their interests. When a character suffers because of devotion to another, that seems to be a big angst trigger for me. I also love hyper-competent characters, which we get a LOT of in this series. There are also themes in the series about restricted freedom, but in this case it's due more to circumstances of birth and a sense of duty than being physically imprisoned, although there is that too.

I've got a ton more angst books that I could analyze but I think this is a good starting point. Next post will be about books that DIDN'T tickle my id, despite looking on paper like they should.

Welcome 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