‘Dark Fantasy’ isn’t done well

I intend this to be a critique and poll regarding something I’d overcome recently. A corner of my mind always asked me why the dark storylines written by newer writers succeed more than those who had been writing for some time.

Not the difference between amateur and veteran writers, but just the time they spent writing.

One thing I realised is that simpler dark storylines about revenge with petty gratifications each chapter about killing bullies, the thing newer writers usually do to start off, is usually superior in terms of focus compared to older writers.

There could be many reasons for this, but the end point is that some people tend to write uselessly violent stories that don’t really have anything to say.

The protagonist gets into a tragedy and becomes angsty, but normally character is always developing in some way for a future purpose. On the other hand, there are Dark Isekai where the MC is tragic and that’s it.

I’m not sure if what I said would make sense to others, but I’ll put it out there.

Now for the poll.

There are many tropes used in dark fantasy on the Webnovel platform scale, but which ones are your favourite?

Best dark fantasy comes from really extensive dark world-building and pitch-perfect mood throughout, and those two things create the bleak situation and worldview of the characters, not the other way around. Joe Abercrombie’s First Law books, Glen Cook’s Black Company, and and Kentaro Miura’s Berserk are good examples.

It doesn't make sense to me.

I don't read much dark fantasy novel. But I think the new writer who write the mc killing all his previous bully can be why they get more attention since a lot out there wish to do that on an everyday basis.

For a favorite story in dark fantasy, I would say Berserk and Ubel blatt.

Meh, dark stuff is boring. Take WH40k. Lots of death, no hope, very boring. The mood and atmosphere are always a dark rainy gray. Also RL is already dark. Anyone who doesn't think so probably doesn't know current events and recent history. Like just last week, the CCP drowned 100,000 people to save Beijing. I rather get my depressing stories from RL, and leave books to be stuff that'll lift my mood.

As for dark theme, my fav is revenge. Because it can bring justice to the untouchable. Nothing quite like a live organ harvesting doc getting shanked and the gov officials who ordered the transplant getting beat to death with a pipe.

There was one RL story of a mayor getting beat to death them eaten by villagers he screwed over. Crazy, but satisfying.

It's not on the voting list, but: optimism, hope, love, positive stuff like that!

For me, the problem with some dark fantasy is it tries to paint with an entirely dark palette, to the point it's hard to see what's bad anymore because it's all just a morass of depressing terrible-- you need brighter colors to contrast with it for them to meaningfully register to me.

Some people like super grimdark stuff, though, so that's just a taste thing.

corruption

I like my dark fantasy with a dash of hope. Extra point if said hope gets snuffled out by the end of the series :D

For me it is a tossup between tragedy and death. I actually like well-done tragedy.

Revenge is winning yay!

Not looking at anything in the thread but 50 bucks says Anon picked revenge.

Corruption all the way. Nothing better than a character turning from an icon of virtue into a deprived caricature of their previous values.

Also corrupting characters in a sexual way in smut stories is a peak fetish.