Dark Fantasy Writing Challenge

[Uwuwiii_676]

What are your thoughts on writing a dark fantasy story with mature themes (optional) and a single female lead?

The protagonist could be either male or female.

How challenging is this kind of story for you to write, and what difficulties do you typically encounter when handling its themes, tone, character depth, power system, and world building?

In addition, should we start a contest for dark fantasy novels?

 

[LilythGeist]

Soo... I have nearly 400k words of a VERY Dark Science Fantasy novel already published (the Chronicles of Dwynveia).

It features:
-A lot of mental trauma
-Permanent limb loss
-Rape
-Slavery
-Terrorism
-Discrimination
-Gruesome Deaths
-Suicide (and suicidal ideation)

At the current level characters can be described as highish level and powerful. That amounts to jackshit as far as survivability goes as at the end of the day most of the characters are squishies and those tend to not to fare well when dealing with Bolt-action rifles and grenades.
Or sentient embodiments of Rot.

For me the challenge is pulling punches enough so that the characters can survive any combat, but not escape unscathed.

 

[Uwuwiii_676]

Soo... I have nearly 400k words of a VERY Dark Science Fantasy novel already published (the Chronicles of Dwynveia).

It features:
-A lot of mental trauma
-Permanent limb loss
-Rape
-Slavery
-Terrorism
-Discrimination
-Gruesome Deaths
-Suicide (and suicidal ideation)

At the current level characters can be described as highish level and powerful. That amounts to jackshit as far as survivability goes as at the end of the day most of the characters are squishies and those tend to not to fare well when dealing with Bolt-action rifles and grenades.
Or sentient embodiments of Rot.

For me the challenge is pulling punches enough so that the characters can survive any combat, but not escape unscathed.

Battle scenes and techniques are really hard to describe in words, especially when involving magical abilities.

 

[Eldoria]

How challenging is this kind of story for you to write, and what difficulties do you typically encounter when handling its themes, tone, character depth, power system, and world building?

The difficulty isn't just the technical aspects of writing, but also the writer's mental resilience. Writing in fantasy sub-genres, except dark fantasy, such as wholesome fantasy, power fantasy, or wish-fulfilment, allows you to relax and imagine something pleasant. But dark fantasy requires you to confront the dark side of humanity... entering a grey, sensitive, and often taboo area. Can you imagine yourself standing in the Nanking tragedy... and writing that horrific scene?

If you lack mental resilience, you'll experience severe depression and even trauma. In fact, after writing almost a hundred chapters, I felt depressed after writing just one dark chapter. And it's important to understand that I write dark chapters not because I like them, but because they're necessary. Often, we can't do anything about tragedy and can only stand, write, traumatised, and devastated. Don't write dark fantasy if it hurts you.

In addition, should we start a contest for dark fantasy novels?

No need, this isn't a competition. It's a lifelong struggle about who can remain consistent, patient, and self-sacrificing until the end.

 

[CinnaSloth]

Soo... I have nearly 400k words of a VERY Dark Science Fantasy novel already published (the Chronicles of Dwynveia).

It features:
-A lot of mental trauma
-Permanent limb loss
-Rape
-Slavery
-Terrorism
-Discrimination
-Gruesome Deaths
-Suicide (and suicidal ideation)

At the current level characters can be described as highish level and powerful. That amounts to jackshit as far as survivability goes as at the end of the day most of the characters are squishies and those tend to not to fare well when dealing with Bolt-action rifles and grenades.
Or sentient embodiments of Rot.

For me the challenge is pulling punches enough so that the characters can survive any combat, but not escape unscathed.

Ah. dangit... you beat me. I only have 175k words. lol

The difficulty isn't just the technical aspects of writing, but also the writer's mental resilience. Writing in fantasy sub-genres, except dark fantasy, such as wholesome fantasy, power fantasy, or wish-fulfilment, allows you to relax and imagine something pleasant. But dark fantasy requires you to confront the dark side of humanity... entering a grey, sensitive, and often taboo area. Can you imagine yourself standing in the Nanking tragedy... and writing that horrific scene?

If you lack mental resilience, you'll experience severe depression and even trauma. In fact, after writing almost a hundred chapters, I felt depressed after writing just one dark chapter. And it's important to understand that I write dark chapters not because I like them, but because they're necessary. Often, we can't do anything about tragedy and can only stand, write, traumatised, and devastated. Don't write dark fantasy if it hurts you.

No need, this isn't a competition. It's a lifelong struggle about who can remain consistent, patient, and self-sacrificing until the end.

I'm jaded, baited, grey, and gay, to me, its all the same,
taboo, and trauma, are plainly tame, but sin and murder are the game.
You experience such sole depression
I take it wholly as my expression
when darkness comes through devastation
i do declare a presentation
though traumatized, and harmful true
a headpat and hug from me to you. <3
Be well, Eldoria
we cherish, love, and adore ya.

 

[LilythGeist]

The difficulty isn't just the technical aspects of writing, but also the writer's mental resilience. Writing in fantasy sub-genres, except dark fantasy, such as wholesome fantasy, power fantasy, or wish-fulfilment, allows you to relax and imagine something pleasant. But dark fantasy requires you to confront the dark side of humanity... entering a grey, sensitive, and often taboo area. Can you imagine yourself standing in the Nanking tragedy... and writing that horrific scene?

This is the closest I got to it. So far.

Ren

I wasn’t prepared for what we found at the blast site. The screams, the massive crater where multiple houses once were, several buildings turned to rubble with more on fire, mangled and charred corpses, severed limbs and people bleeding out on the streets.

And the smell… Burning flesh, excrement and blood... I felt my breakfast stir inside my stomach, but I managed to hold it down.

I want to say that I immediately rushed in to help, but I just froze. I had no idea what to do. How to help. I looked at Deirdee for help but she also just stood still, her face a sickly shade of green. To her credit, she almost made it to the side alley before she fell to her knees and vomited.

‘Not a sight you are used to, Dee?’ I asked her while helping her get up.

‘N-no,’ she replied. ‘No. No matter what we did… it was never that bad. Why would someone do this…’

She bent over again and vomited again.

This is ground zero of an explosion caused by someone detonating, as one of the characters later puts its, "enough C-4 to make a suicide bomber harder than steel". This is was a mix of "covering tracks" and "a final fuck you"

Death toll is over a hundred with hundreds more wounded.

 

[MFontana]

What are your thoughts on writing a dark fantasy story with mature themes (optional) and a single female lead?

The protagonist could be either male or female.

How challenging is this kind of story for you to write, and what difficulties do you typically encounter when handling its themes, tone, character depth, power system, and world building?

In addition, should we start a contest for dark fantasy novels?

I'm already doing it.
It is a challenge, sure, but it helps maintain the stakes and verisimilitude of the setting and is the heart of the main conflict that drives the series.
Hope -vs- Hopelessness
Personally, I'd say the hardest part of writing this one is not losing myself to the story, and the best way I've found to combat that hopelessness in the story, is to write something else when it gets to be too much.
It doesn't have to be another series. Just writing anything can help. Something silly. Something fun. Anything that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Another trick to help, I've found, has been to inject some comic relief and levity into what would otherwise be too dark and depressing to write, but not so much that it dampens the stakes.

Otherwise, writing in the genre hasn't really been any more difficult than writing in any other in my experience.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

Pretty easy since I'm originally a dark fantasy writer, have been for roughly ten years. Think like, dragon age.
Currently challenging myself to write 'normal' or 'watered down' fantasy. Kinda fun!

 

[Naravelt]

I like dark fantasy. It is best written when it has meaning, rather than glorifying darkness that has none.

For example, it can devolve into constant gore and kill them all mentality purely for the sake of edginess, all with no narrative weight. The story ends up enjoying suffering instead of questioning it.

There are cases labeled as dark fantasy where the dark fantasy story never truly exists, only the setting. It ends up being more of a power fantasy with a dark aesthetic, rather than an actual dark fantasy narrative.

 

[Cookiez_N_Potionz]

Idk, depends on how dark

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Conceptually I love dark fantasy. In practice, it tends to more annoy me when it goes into long form (horror can sometimes as well - love both more in short form fiction than long). As a writer, I have trouble maintaining the darkness without getting TOO dark. As a reader, I often find either the dark elements feel forced, or get tedious after a while.
There are exceptions (P. N. Elrod's I, Strahd - kind of a retelling of the Dracula story from the vampires POV, and set in a fantasy world instead of an historical one; there was also a similar book that came out about the same time that I'm blanking on the title and author of, but the cover showed the name "correctly" as "Draculya" - Dracula would be the feminine form of "child of the dragon" in Wallachian, or "child of the Devil" in Turkish, while "draculia,' or "drakugla" would be the masculine - was another), but in general, this is what I've seen.