Ty Arthur
asked
Ty Arthur:
Everyone seems to have a different concept of this style. How do you define the term "grimdark?"
Ty Arthur
I covered this one indepth for an Indie Wednesday feature through Bookwraiths! Here's an excerpt:
For me, grimdark is taking the uncaring nature of reality and injecting it into fantasy. Frodo doesn't always make it to Mount Doom with the ring. Sometimes he gets cancer instead. Giant eagles aren't always there to save the day – sometimes people die trying to do what's right, and there's no resurrection afterward. Suffering is sure to abound, and there aren't any easy answers in grimdark. Sometimes those who seem the most vicious or immoral might be working in the world's best interest. Grimdark subverts the escapism of fantasy, and makes it less clear from the beginning that the heroes will inevitably overcome the villain.
In Light Dawning, I wanted to focus on both aspects: the grim and the dark. Revolving around four people trying to survive an incredibly brutal occupation by an invading army, the outlook for all involved is bleak, and I worked hard to create a sense of claustrophobia. The walls are closing in, and hope of escape or victory is long gone. All that's left is to decide how you are going to conduct yourself with those few days you have remaining.
On the other half of the equation, I went with multiple interpretations of “dark,” some literal and some less so. Not only is one of the characters quite literally possessed by an incomprehensible entity of pure darkness – hailing from some void where light never existed at all and sane human thought has no place – but the entire cast is often “in the dark” so to speak about why the world is in the state its in, cut off from all outside news during three years of occupation.
Like most of my stories, Light Dawning starts with a kernel of truth, taking a real world experience and then translating that into a fictional setting with a horror twist. In this case, my wife and I went through two devastating losses in a row that left me in a despair so deep that I frequently thought of death as a preferable alternative. As a kind of catharsis, I needed to write a story bleak enough to match reality, and so “grimdark” was the only route to go. Much like with real life, the characters in this book are often cut off at the knees without warning by events they had no way of knowing were coming.
Read the full feature at https://bookwraiths.com/2017/05/10/in...
For me, grimdark is taking the uncaring nature of reality and injecting it into fantasy. Frodo doesn't always make it to Mount Doom with the ring. Sometimes he gets cancer instead. Giant eagles aren't always there to save the day – sometimes people die trying to do what's right, and there's no resurrection afterward. Suffering is sure to abound, and there aren't any easy answers in grimdark. Sometimes those who seem the most vicious or immoral might be working in the world's best interest. Grimdark subverts the escapism of fantasy, and makes it less clear from the beginning that the heroes will inevitably overcome the villain.
In Light Dawning, I wanted to focus on both aspects: the grim and the dark. Revolving around four people trying to survive an incredibly brutal occupation by an invading army, the outlook for all involved is bleak, and I worked hard to create a sense of claustrophobia. The walls are closing in, and hope of escape or victory is long gone. All that's left is to decide how you are going to conduct yourself with those few days you have remaining.
On the other half of the equation, I went with multiple interpretations of “dark,” some literal and some less so. Not only is one of the characters quite literally possessed by an incomprehensible entity of pure darkness – hailing from some void where light never existed at all and sane human thought has no place – but the entire cast is often “in the dark” so to speak about why the world is in the state its in, cut off from all outside news during three years of occupation.
Like most of my stories, Light Dawning starts with a kernel of truth, taking a real world experience and then translating that into a fictional setting with a horror twist. In this case, my wife and I went through two devastating losses in a row that left me in a despair so deep that I frequently thought of death as a preferable alternative. As a kind of catharsis, I needed to write a story bleak enough to match reality, and so “grimdark” was the only route to go. Much like with real life, the characters in this book are often cut off at the knees without warning by events they had no way of knowing were coming.
Read the full feature at https://bookwraiths.com/2017/05/10/in...
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