Even though I started with apathy, I realized this would be a lot easier to just go through the book alphabetically. And perhaps more fun, as I can let you know what the next emotion is.
Today, as you can see, is anger. Anger, as Hood writes, is a difficult emotion as well – though perhaps still not quite as difficult as apathy. A lot of writers can get anger across; but to get it across effectively and realistically, that’s the rub. Anger is one of those ones that rarely come alone – usually, it brings friends, or friends bring it: frustration, exhaustion, and sadness to name a few, are usually in close cohorts with anger. So to have characters suddenly yelling at one another, or punching one another, is not terribly effective or real. So let’s see what I can do to bring this emotion alive.
Jason sat with his head on the desk, trying to breathe as the sharp edge pressed harder against his chest. The world, it seemed, was intent on denying him sleep. A shadow framed the edges of his vision, and he looked up: Dr. Langer stood in front of him, looking sideways at another student as the paper dropped from his fingers.
“Thanks,” Jason mumbled. He didn’t feel it, and hadn’t for a long time, but still he said it. As Dr. Langer smiled and moved on, Jason picked up the paper and glanced over it. Dr. Langer was one of the few professors here who graded with a pencil. It was so non-confrontational, the soft lead scrawling notes of praise and condemnation equally. As he read, Jason was glad the notes were not in red, where everyone could see them – there was, in the margins, probably more essay than what he had written.
He continued to flip through the ten-page diatribe, skipping over the sparse exclamations of “nice!” and getting to what mattered – the parts where he fell short. There were a lot of those. Somewhere around page eight, Jason stopped and flipped back a few pages.
It can’t be this bad, he thought. He read an instruction, and looked at the paragraph it annotated. But I meant to do that! he thought. Dr. Langer really couldn’t see that? Of course it stuck out – so had the piece of Xenophon’s speech.
Jason flipped forward again. Another condemnation, falsely leveled at what was actually the more brilliant part of the paper, Jason thought; as was a note on the next page, and the next. By page eight, he was barely paying attention to what was written.
Whatever. This guy obviously just doesn’t get it. Jason flipped to the last page, and set his jaw. Add another C-plus to the stack, he snapped in his mind. He pushed the paper into his backpack, not caring that a folder snagged a few pages and bent them upward. He yanked the zipper closed, turned back to the desk, and put his head back down, feeling the edge of the desk crease his ribs once more.
Just some sleep. Can I just get some sleep?
Still feel free to leave a prompt in the comments, if you so desire. If I don’t get some other inspiration, Tuesday we’ll be looking at anxiety. See you tomorrow.
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