: Re: How do I portray irrational anger in first person? Characters (and people) get angry at all sorts of things that might not make sense to the outside observer: Marty McFly and the word "chicken,"

@Harper186

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How do you behave when agitated? What do you do. Which little things are done differently? Too much force is used to close a door, answers to people are entirely shorter than they deserve to be, judgements are made too quickly and likely in error. Their temper is simply going off without significant justification and will then begin to spiral out of control.

And Yes, they can be absolutely aware of the irrationality of their own actions. Being aware they they're doing these things will almost certainly feed into them being angry. Everything piling up until they're a ticking bomb waiting to go off with the next thing that goes wrong, or the next thing they imagine goes wrong.

Because even being aware you're irrationally angry doesn't stop you from acting on it. You're angry, in a non rational way, it's going to test your self control. Have your character act rashly and attempt to stop themselves as soon as they realize what they're doing, their impulse control will be reduced considerably.

Further, aware or not of being irraitonal, they'll almost certainly regret what they did while angry. Which feeds into a cycle of regret and self incrimination that can easily keep someone upset. In addition to whatever is happening, have them argue with themselves over their own actions, demanding justification of what they just did. It's a great way to make yourself angrier.

Often times anger is part of a self feeding cycle that people let tear themselves apart. Write someone coming apart at the seams and destroying their life or simply making a situation worse through rash actions they cannot justify even to themselves. Then you have irrational anger.

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