Author’s Note: It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I got caught up with all my other stories and just ignored this.

Despair is a feeling that can lead to insanity, which was covered in Chapter 3. It is that feeling of hopelessness that assuages one when they feel as if they have nothing to live for--as if there is no hope and nothing will ever get better.

Events leading to Despair: Divorce between parents, severe injuries, the death of a very close friend/family member, etc…

Vocabulary words for despair: Hopelessness, depression, anguish, infelicity, distressed, dejected, despondent.

A despairing character usually wallows in emotions. ’What ifs’ plague his conscience everyday of every minute usually. When they try to get away from it, usually something triggers a sad memory and they also feel alone.

If you’re not alone then there’s hope, right? Things will get better as your friends would say and try to cheer you up. Depression takes a long time to recover from, but if you had friends that cared about you, then you would eventually recover.

Depressed characters never feel that way. This intertwines with sadness, but this is more deep. These characters see black and blue in everything. Winter seems to be everywhere for them because the world is cold, dark, gloomy, and unreceptive. Such characters shy away from social groups and happy occasions, convinced that nothing will help them and that they wish to be alone.

Most of everything that happens to a depressed character is through what they see and the thoughts that you give them. They hardly every interact, so crushing memories are always arising before their eyes and this is where the angst comes in.

When writing angst, I find that it’s good to repeat oneself. Of course, I think I repeat often with every emotion that I write, but it’s only the extreme emotions where that should be applied. If your character is bouncy and happy then becomes deflated for a few minutes, then you won’t want to use repetition.

Example from ’The Chaotic Soul’ a Redwall fanfiction: “Inas trudged mechanically through the mud bare-pawed in a state of shock. With his head bowed, the water only splashed on his forehead and trailed down his muzzle as he kept his head down, his eyes crinkled in sadness. His thick tail left a clear dip in the mud as he dragged it along, but he didn’t bother keeping it out. He wanted the Redwallers to find him.

There seemed to be no point in living anymore. He wouldn’t be able to get away with the heinous crime against a beloved friend of Redwall, let alone get away with stealing the sword. The sword, Martin, they had caused him to behave so irrationally. He couldn’t even think about taking the sword! He was sure the warrior mouse had directed his actions. While in shuddering at the thought of not being in control of his own actions, the weasel couldn’t help but shed a few tears on the fact he couldn’t prove it was Martin.”

The angst is not incredibly heavy in this excerpt, in fact it’s rather light, but this is as prime an example as I can give you. He is not depressed, but has committed such a crime that he feels that there is no point in running because he’s going to get caught and die anyway. He will not get away with such a crime…So what’s the point in living?