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"Nobody wants to see a story about the Village of the Happy Nice People."
Richard Walter
"Creating is heaven. Or close enough."
Eric Maisel from A Writer's Space
"“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson "
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about weaknesses and negative emotions in characters, since they create the most conflict, and therefore, the drama in our stories.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
All people have weaknesses. As such, most conflicts in the stories are caused by the weaknesses, and most stories involve weaknesses. Weaknesses cause problems for the protagonists, the antagonists, and those around them. In adventure stories, weaknesses are usually physical like kryptonite is for Superman. In literary stories and in other genres, a weakness can become the theme or it may drive the plot forward.
Weaknesses can be psychological or moral or both. When the weakness is psychological, the inner person is damaged in some area, and this can cause the character to act in a certain way. When a psychological weakness causes someone else to get hurt, it also becomes a moral weakness. A character with a moral weakness always has a direct negative effect on the events and other characters.
Sometimes, a writer may think he has given a moral weakness to a character, when in essence, that weakness is a psychological one. Any weakness can become a moral one if it really harms another person. For example, when a character has an inferiority complex and feels inadequate with whatever he does, this is a psychological weakness, but if a character’s inferiority complex drives him to hate a successful person to such a degree that he harms him to bring him down, then his weakness becomes a moral one.
Weaknesses usually have to do with feelings resulting from earlier hurts in the backstory of a character. Most of those feelings are destructive, but if the character you are creating is a moral one, he or she is going to fight against that weakness, since morality has to involve struggling against the self or one’s selfishness.
Weaknesses arise from the mind as destructive states. Destructive states of the mind are:
Low self-esteem,
Overconfidence,
Jealousy and envy,
Lack of compassion,
Inability to have interpersonal relationships,
Harboring and feeding on negative emotions.
In a protagonist, if he is a moral one, most of these will stay below the surface and will not let him harm another person. If you have created a villain, however, these mental states will need to be exaggerated since they will foster negative emotions more strongly. Although there are countless negative emotions, let’s look at a few of them that can create havoc for our characters.
Anger: A strong burst of anger is irresistible. The character feels helpless and powerless to stop it. He has no choice in experiencing it. Yet, when we look deep into anger, we find it is a collection of different events and emotions. At the very core of it, anger may not even be malevolent.
Pride: Pride has many aspects, such as being proud of achievements, feeling superior to others, holding others in contempt, wrong assessment of qualities in oneself and others, and not recognizing the good qualities in others.
Jealousy: In essence, jealousy is the inability to rejoice in others’ happiness. One is rarely jealous of suffering, and jealousy is usually directed at others’ happiness, good qualities, and achievements.
Attachment: An attachment is clinging to one’s way of perceiving things. Sometimes turned into an obsession, attachment shows up as the plain desire for sensual pleasures, an object the character wants to possess, the subtle fixation in oneself as selfishness or the “me, me, me” syndrome, or fascination with ideals and other phenomena.
Ignorance: Ignorance is a mental factor that prevents the lucid and true determination of reality. It can obscure the ultimate wisdom and the knowledge of proper action. This negative emotion has little to do with what is taught in general education. In a way, it can be said that ignorance is an emotional disorder because it bears a lack of judgment between what needs to be accomplished or avoided in order to achieve happiness.
Hatred: This is a deep feeling that triggers one’s animosity internally. It is closely connected with other related emotions such as resentment, bearing grudges, contempt, etc. Hatred is the most dangerous negative emotion since it eventually turns into an irresistible wish to harm people and to destroy them.
An important point to remember in our writing is that negative emotions are intermittent. If you are showing a negative emotion in a person, you do not have to make him feel that emotion all the time, regardless of what happens to him.
Another point is, as negative emotions creep into the mind, they transform into moods and eventually into traits. So in a story, you can evolve a negative emotion as a mood first and make it take root in your character.
Then, do not protect your positive, even saintly characters from negative emotions. A highly evolved character will know how to use an antidote to the negativity he or she is feeling, such as using love against hatred or trying to see the good in the other person or finding out the roots of that emotion.
Until next time, enjoy creating negative emotions and weaknesses in your characters. 
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Enjoy!
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Thank you very much for reading our newsletters and fortifying us with your feedback. 
This Issue’s Tip:
 Try to place each character in a conflict not only with the hero or his values, but also with other characters and their values. You'll end up with an intense conflict and a dense plot.
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Elisa the Bunny Stik 
Hello there, Joy. I'm half tempted to forward a copy of this newsletter to one of my former creative writing professors. I imagine he would put this under the category of theme, which he said is a byproduct of many stories. I can understand why some people would take that stance, as a lot of beginning writers tend to start off with a theme in mind only to sometimes have the story fall apart. What do you think? And by the way, if anyone is interested in exploration of drama as a genre, I did expand upon it in http://www.writing.com/main/newsletters/action/archives/id/2845
Thanks for the feedback and the link, Stik.
I guess moral argument could go under theme, but then, theme is such a wide, fleeting concept. Ask a few teachers or writers from varying backgrounds, their definitions for theme will be different from each other.
As to starting with a theme, from what I have heard from successful writers and what I have read or listened to in writer interviews, theme usually happens halfway through the story. Surely writers can start with a theme, but unless they are seasoned writers, like you said, the story will either fall apart or become preachy.
For not too experienced writers, I suggest they start planning their stories around well-rounded characters, or if they are writing in the adventure genre, they stress on the action of the story. The theme will show up eventually, if their writing is strong. When they sense a theme anywhere along in the story, then they can stress on the theme.
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Adriana Noir 
Awesome advice. Every unforgettable drama has quite a few of these pointers nestled within.
Thank you very much, Adriana.
About unforgettable dramas, I think so, too.
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KimChi
Outstanding newsletter. I will no doubt read it several more times before the information sinks in, and enjoy every minute. Thanks for the moral argument, a topic not often seen-- probably because it's ephemeral, deep, and hard to condense into a newsletter. Kudos! 
Thanks Kim,
I'm glad you liked the NL.
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pooja_sr
You gave me something to chew on, Joy. Will look into the newsletters you suggested. One original classic version that's still so vivid in my mind is "The Scapegoat" by Daphne Du Maurier.
A published writer friend of mine suggested Somerset's short stories. Wonder if I'm too young for complex literature, but since I'm taking it up as a subject next year in college, I think every book I read would be a learning experience.
I'm currently reading "The Japanese Wife" by Kunal Basu. It's a lovely book, so very descriptive and thought-stirring. There's so much good writing in India, especially from the Bongs. :)
Keep news-lettering!
Thank you, Steph.
First, check Stik's link for more info on the topic of drama. It is right under this issue's tip.
And you are right. Every book becomes a learning experience. Yes, there's a lot of good, no, great writing that comes out of India. I do like Bharati Mukherjee a lot. Then, there are a few others whose books I read or listened to but can't remember the names offhand. I'm putting "The Japanese Wife" into my reading list. Thanks for the tip.
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Acme
Ace newsletter, Joy. A thoughtful explanation of theory, followed by practical tips, on how to implement deep-writing techniques.
Thanks, Acme.
Like the other feedbacks, your feedback is very valuable to me.
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esprit
Joy, I enjoyed reading this editorial about moving up to the next level in our writing. You gave good examples and tips that I was able to learn from. Thanks!
Thank you, too, Esprit.
Your input is much appreciated.
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Happy April 2024! 
Good newsletter on the moral argument. I immediately thought of The Yearling. I read it when I was very young but still got the real point of the story. You're absolutely correct about those kinds of stories sticking with you. Thanks for the insight.
Thank you very much, Willow.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is a great writer, but Yearling always gets mixed reviews probably because of the difficult choice Jody had to make. In the similar vein, I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I think it is a great book written with great mastery, but it disturbed me although it will stay with me for a long time.
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Drama: April 08, 2009 Issue [#2963]
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