The Engine of Rage
Emotion and Writing
“Something I think a lot of people miss about Robert E. Howard’s writing is it has real emotion behind it. I think a lot of the time he was channeling frustration and rage into his work. It gives it a visceral feel his imitators can’t match because they’re imitating the surface prose, not the engine driving it. I can feel the anger there at times palpably.” -- Charles R. Rutledge, Facebook, 9 July 2026
Charles Rutledge is a mensch; he’s a pulp writer in the purest sense of the word, creating stories across a variety of SF/F sub-genres -- from cosmic horror to blood-and-thunder. I came across this quote last night and it’s lived in my brainspace ever since. I went to sleep thinking about it.
EMOTION IS THE ENGINE THAT DRIVES GOOD PROSE.
Seems like a no-brainer, right? I mean, grief and rage drove me down the path of Grimnir. Nostalgia and the want of a mental hug powered the Garden tales. But what emotions are powering my recent fiction?
I realized, turning this over in my mind as sleep took me, there wasn’t one easily identifiable emotion behind The Venetian. Or the Baibars idea, or The Day of the Lion, or any of the ideas I’d had since wrapping up the Grimnir Saga in 2023.
I have the surface prose — the chassis and the seats of an idea; the skin of craft — but there’s no engine. There’s no emotion. While not quite a “Eureka!” moment, I did flutter my eyes open in realization, then drifted off to sleep and dreamed of emotion and driving forces.
I still possess grief and rage in plenty; they’re not so close to the surface as they were in the 20-teens, but they’re still there. Nostalgia is my constant companion. I have an unhealthy dose of despair, now, and a sense of melancholy. And fear. I have fear — fear of growing older, fear of losing my faculties. Fear of dying.
I think this is the ingredient I’ve been missing. The thing I instinctively knew and used, but never gave much conscious thought. The task at hand, then, is to tap into the emotional engine of my current works-in-progress: what drives Enrico Caravallo? What singular over-riding emotion does his memoir display — or try to hide? And can I pick up that thread of black rage and use it to write a new Grimnir short story by August 1?
Let me tack this up here, one more time:
EMOTION IS THE ENGINE THAT DRIVES GOOD PROSE.
Maybe I won’t forget it, this time around.
Great point. Terry Pratchett once said that righteous anger is what fueled his writing, anger against injustice.