Posted by VHunter on 7/10/2007, 2:42 pm, in reply to "Re: I know I'm not Maureen but....." --Previous Message--
24.153.215.183
I couldn't agree more, Boswell. I have the same problem. Some of my friends won't even read some of the songs or poetry I write because they say it's depressing. But you're so right. We need to remember that life is not always going to be perfect, and we need to learn how to handle the hard times.
: Hello,
:
: Yes I agree with Cyle, only my area of
: frusteration is the songs I write, they are
: all sad, depressing, and true to the day's
: problems, but no matter what I do there is
: always someone saying 'write a happy song'
: but why? I think some people just don't
: want to face the fact that the world is
: screwd up, it scares them.
:
: people want to believe that everything will
: turn out fine in the end, although we really
: have no proof that it will.
:
: People want to feel warm and fuzzy at the
: end of a song or story, but you know? life
: isn't like that it's a lie to just appeal to
: the popular idea of a 'good' ending.
:
: "though ye die in combat gory ye shall
: live in song and story, go to
: imortality" - Gilbert and Sullivan.
:
:
:
: --Previous Message--
: Ah, the angst and tragedy....
:
: For a while we had a rash of "Holmes
: Kills Himself", "Lestrade Kills
: Herself", "Holmes Gets
: Killed", and "Lestrade Gets
: Killed" stories. Some of these were on
: fanfiction.net and some here. Some of them
: were good, some not so much. (Which is about
: what I'd expect from character death stories
: in any fandom.)
:
: The trouble is... a tragedy isn't all about
: feeling depressed. You get your Greek ones
: where it all comes from someone's tragic
: flaw. You get your operatic ones where
: everybody screws up. But either way, a
: tragedy doesn't work well unless it's a
: really thoroughly satisfying, logical and
: emotional, truly human, and totally
: cathartic tragedy. And that's not easy, to
: be frank. It's a lot easier to write gently
: sad endings, or slightly dark endings, or
: whatever.
:
: And it's not the sort of thing that people
: are used to getting these days, unless they
: _are_ fans of opera or Shakespeare or
: whatever. They don't sit down like
: Victorians to read a book where everybody
: succumbs to tuberculosis or ends up martyrs.
: There is zero possibility that a generic
: romance book from the grocery store will end
: in two people dying for love or for their
: own weaknesses.
:
: So you have to work harder to get the
: audience to get satisfaction out of a
: tragedy, and not to feel like slitting their
: own wrists (one loses more readers that
: way!).
:
: OTOH, there have been whole fandoms full of
: a love of tragedy. Geez, I don't know how
: many tragic X-Files stories there were, but
: definitely a ton. So there probably is an
: untapped audience. Again, the problem is:
: how to tap it?
:
: Believe me, I understand your frustration
: and sympathize. You've taken on a challenge.
:
:
:
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