On “angst dissonance”
Someone sent me this link in the context of a discussion they showed me about “manpain” etc.
Must say this TVtropes post is fairly good about analyzing what is so annoying about it. IME though, I don’t come across it too much, but… that is because I try to avoid sucky things, and angst dissonance/manpain is, I believe, indicative of poor writing in general, sort of like Canon Stus/Sues.
I think also #16 is a problem, because there are a lot of neverending serial works where the character’s problem must be brought up and is never resolved or developed because the story must go on and on.
There’s also the sense of perspective the author brings. If the author sort of does acknowledge the character is overdoing it, or is neurotic/disturbed about it, that also helps. (And of course some readers are just kind of intolerant about these things; actually fandom often makes me feel like a really tolerant reader! I put up (or just don’t care) with a lot of things that drive people batty, it seems.)
