Frustration. I mean tear your hair out frustration.

Think of a time when your patience is completely gone. A specific time when your rage at the utter unfairness is so high you would happily tear your own hair out rather than face the frustration one moment longer. Get's your heart going just at the thought? Is your head pounding? Steam rising from your scalp? Maybe even developing a nervous twitch in your eye? Don't worry, we've all been there.

This is one of those emotions we all connect with, and it's incredibly useful in stories. You can pretty much count on your audience sharing a character's frustrations because we understand. It doesn't really matter if the hero or villain is frustrated, because shortly the audience will be too. Connections like that are precious currency within a story, and the way an author uses them demonstrates the depth to which the author knows where they are going within the story. In my opinion the frustrations of the hero are more important than their successes. After all, do you want to see the hero always win? No, it's boring. You want the hero to fight and keep fighting. That's part of the tension, and tension is where the story grows. One of the special tricks in an author's toolbox is getting the audience to tense up before the character does, and string along the audience as the realization slowly dawns on the characters. It's a marvelous thing to witness it done well, and really elevates a book to superstar status in short order.

Now, the question is, what do you do with those frustrations? In a story it's simple ... get to the end. Life isn't so neat, and for that you have my deepest sympathies. I find a lot of prayer and spilling my soul to my wife helps me (she is far wiser than I am, and I lean on her wisdom all the time). Time is the great softener though, and walking farther down the path does calm things down. I do have a suggestion that sounds very odd in these fast paced times, and that's to find a quiet corner and sit and calm down. Hope that helps.

- M