How much is too much angst?

Hmm, I see you've had no replies here. I'll toss in mine.

I don't think you can have too much "angst" in a story, if you mean conflict or trauma. Keep it coming!

But it depends on how the hero/heroine deals with it. If he has a pity-party for awhile...he's human. But if he wallows in it endlessly, it's not very appealing (well maybe in literary fiction?!) If he's to be a real "hero" he must overcome at least some of his angst, imho.

If the angst serves a real purpose, propelling him forward as a character (eventually - after he suffers & learns) than go for it!

Good luck!

I find angst tricky. Shakespeare used to just get his characters to shout it at the audience (yeah, I'm not a big fan of Hamlet), and that's never really gone out of style - think of the music industry. However, in the romance genre, I'm not sure if as readers we're still as tolerant of the shouting. It's usually expressed as a character musing to her/himself, and I think that solitary musing is now considered to slow down the pace of the story. Angst has to be wrapped into the characters' actions, and the protagonists' interactions. When its written as part of the progress of the story, I like the added tension and depth of it. When angst is written as isolated musing, ugh. All of which, however, is just my personal opinion.

Unrelieved angst becomes irritating after a while. I've read books where the suffering just goes on and on and on and I just want to slap the heroine or hero (or both, if both are wringing their hands in despair).

Let them have their self-doubts, fears, angst, but show how they deal with it. If they become too self-absorbed, people like me will throw the book down and not finish it.

This is just my opinion, however. I'm not typical in most cases.

I agree with Jodi. I love some good angst, but when it just goes on and on it starts to veer into self-parody territory. I read a book like that recently, where everything that could go wrong for the main character went wrong. Anything that could be misconstrued was misconstrued. It got to the point where I was waiting for him to slip on a banana peel, step on a rake, or have a piano fall on his head. Maybe even all at the same time.