About Asserting

Post 88:

            When I was little I heard the term passive-aggressive and thought it meant something more like bipolar, one minute you’re raging and the next you’re basically an emotional sloth.

            According to a website based on emotional health, it basically means that you’re expressing a negative sentiment but doing it in a way that is something other than confrontational. Whining, winging, whatever; it’s a retaliatory response that comes out as something other than what is. There’s a lot of definitions for it, but it’s like what someone said about x-rated stuff: you pretty much know it when you see it.

            So little me was wrong. Big me wishes that little me was right, that people would just say what they want to say the way they want to say it. No subtlety, no prevarication, no mumbling under the breath. That kind of thing makes me nuts.

            There are exceptions, but no one really likes Mr. or Mrs. Passive-Aggressive. It’s an annoying trait to carry around. People want to know where you stand if you’re a stander; if your deal is to sit and watch, that’s cool too—just don’t complain that the game is passing you by while you do it.

            I think it’s like this for characters in stories. You want strong characters. They can be complex, but on the whole they need to have enough about them that makes them easily identifiable. For me, this is the easiest thing to forget about when I’m writing. You get so focused on plot and making everything line up, myopia can seep in. There’s a point where your characters can help finish a story because they are one or the other—passive or aggressive.

            Now just so you say I’m playing nice, let me add that some characters are passive-aggressive intentionally—that is, that is their essence. Go with it if that's the case. I can think of a million ways that character can serve a story. Especially comically.

            Real life, however, not so much. Assert who you are, whether you’re assertive or not. Hope that makes sense. I mean, I think I did a decent job explaining it, but you know, some things are never good enough for you people… see what I did there?

            I know. I’m a dork. That’s my assertion and I’m sticking to it. See you after.