How to make a story really depressing in reality, but still be up-lifting and somewhat comedic?

[Western42]

I've been inactive in my stories and writing in general for quite some time, and as such I feel like I may have lost some of my touch and general attitude for writing stories. One of the ones I want to try out and post is called Our Bygone City [Title Pending]. The whole thing follows a small-time office composing of four members and their new recruit who get hired to protect a small area and, in turn, gets caught in a war between two criminal syndicates and a company.
The world in this story is rather dark and depressing, as is the overall things that happen in the story. The (mostly) main character and leader of the office, despite being the youngest one there and being bright and cheerful, has killed people before and will do so again for money.

Which brings about the question from above. The main character, Giachi, is meant to be bright and cheerful, and a dreamer whose ideas and spark is what really keeps her co-workers/friends invested. However, I feel like using Giachi alone as a gag to help relieve tension, make comedic scenes, and overall distract the readers from reading just a bunch of depressing words just won't work.
Are there any tips on how to make the story hide how depressing it is, or at least pair it with some funny and inspiring moments without relying on just one character?

[For the record, the story is going to have themes of suicide, gore, child abuse, genocide, children being killed, slavery, discrimination, corruption, experimentation, unfairness and despair. These aren't mentions, they will happen.]

 

[BearlyAlive]

You could do it the "slice-of-life" way by just not focusing on those gruesome things. Just write as if gang wars or crime stuff were normal around there. Or you acknowledge the stuff happening, but focus on the good things in life happening.

Then you could go what I call the "psychological horror" way by having your main character not notice all the gruesome stuff happening at all. There was an anime/manga zombie story like that about a girl just going to school and having fun with her friends, but the readers quickly notice something is weird... The "punchline" was extremely effed-up in that the girl was hurt in the head.

 

[Jerynboe]

Life goes on even when horrors happen. I’d say it wouldn’t hurt to have at least occasional acknowledgements from funny man that he is damn well aware of the fact that the world sucks and makes a conscious choice to make it suck less in both word and deed. That way he’s providing humor but he has a certain gravity to him that he’s not just an ignorant jackass, he’s someone actively running counter to the darkness on purpose.

There’s a guy in the movie Everything, Everywhere, All At Once (amazing movie) that has a monologue on that subject and it’s probably the single most awesome and least nihilistic thing in that entire movie.

 

[Eldoria]

Provide moral compasses that the characters can hold onto both statically and dynamically as a light in the darkness.

Who is the moral compass in your fiction?

Who is the Moral Compass in Your Fiction? Moral compasses are characters who embody human values in a fictional world. They are the people whose presence reminds the world (and readers) that humanism still lives in a fictional world, even in a dark world or in an apocalyptic world. They can...

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[Omarfaruq]

Provide moral compasses that the characters can hold onto both statically and dynamically as a light in the darkness.

Who is the moral compass in your fiction?

Who is the Moral Compass in Your Fiction? Moral compasses are characters who embody human values in a fictional world. They are the people whose presence reminds the world (and readers) that humanism still lives in a fictional world, even in a dark world or in an apocalyptic world. They can...

forum.scribblehub.com

It's a great idea.

 

[donutfan]

First, focus harder on the depressive elements.

When you are writing something that contains heavy themes, you cannot start looking for an escape immediately. Let your characters and the audience drown in it. Treat it with the maturity and reality that it comes with. Don't normalize it, and don't romanticize it. Just show all the pain you can. Then, once you have set the scene and have an audience which is appropriately settled into the narrative's darkness, absolutely anything you do will elicit a reaction of hope.

Having a kid who helps his mother get some water because she's bedridden. Having a guy who's in it all to get some money for his disease-ridden sister. You can do absolutely anything, and it will work.

But the only way to get there is to sell the world first. When you prove to the audience that this is a horrible place, and then naturally introduce characters who go against that flow, it create what you're looking for. Because then, the audience is not just being punished by the darkness, but uplifted by the random acts of kindness. Once you do that, what stays in their head is not how gruesome a particular story beat was, but how that one character refused to let it get them down and make them worse.

 

[autumnsugar]

I've been inactive in my stories and writing in general for quite some time, and as such I feel like I may have lost some of my touch and general attitude for writing stories. One of the ones I want to try out and post is called Our Bygone City [Title Pending]. The whole thing follows a small-time office composing of four members and their new recruit who get hired to protect a small area and, in turn, gets caught in a war between two criminal syndicates and a company.
The world in this story is rather dark and depressing, as is the overall things that happen in the story. The (mostly) main character and leader of the office, despite being the youngest one there and being bright and cheerful, has killed people before and will do so again for money.

Which brings about the question from above. The main character, Giachi, is meant to be bright and cheerful, and a dreamer whose ideas and spark is what really keeps her co-workers/friends invested. However, I feel like using Giachi alone as a gag to help relieve tension, make comedic scenes, and overall distract the readers from reading just a bunch of depressing words just won't work.
Are there any tips on how to make the story hide how depressing it is, or at least pair it with some funny and inspiring moments without relying on just one character?

[For the record, the story is going to have themes of suicide, gore, child abuse, genocide, children being killed, slavery, discrimination, corruption, experimentation, unfairness and despair. These aren't mentions, they will happen.]

SVSSS did this really well by focusing on the characters inner comedic monologue rather and “censoring” and gruesome events with his system. But yeah, anytime you feel like you story is getting too gruesome have your character think/say/do something to relieve the tension, or add some situational irony that makes readers release air out their noses.

I’ll use a recent example from my story as an example (for context, Wei Yaozu is pointing a knife at Song Qingge in this scene):

“Help me? Why would you help me?” Wei Yaozu spat. “You know about my past, you know I won’t be able to stop you from telling Yao Huizhong or Shixiong, so why would you help me?”





Song Qingge looked into his eyes, which had begun to well up with tears, and sighed internally.





Ah, this kid is really pitiful…





“I already promised to help you change your fate, so I won’t go back on my word. Plus, were both… y’know…” Song Qingge flicked her wrist to create the universal sign for gay.





Unfortunately, Wei Yaozu wasn’t from her universe.





“...Because we both have memories of our past lives?” he said, attempting to finish Song Qingge’s sentence.

 

[BigBadBoi]

So kinda like School-Live

 

[JordanIda]

You'd be in good company if you were to follow the cues of Robert Heinlein's use of the character "Lazarus Long" in Time Enough for Love.

Although, I'd also say that going on your description of your story, you have a formidable task ahead of you and could be attempting to bridge an impossible divide.

Then again, consider the character "Candide" in the eponymously titled novel by Voltaire. That's just about the most horrific and gruesome book I can think of, outside of the Marquis de Sade (Juliette, Justine, 120 Days of Sodom), and yet it's a work of dark comedic genius, to the point where one can't help but laugh at the horror.

 

[SenseiHusky]

I am kind of making a story you are asking about a tragic comedy

 

[Dawnathon]

The simplest answer is that you don't combine the two. When things are dark, keep it firmly in a serious tone and don't try to lighten the mood with gags. They probably won't go over as well as you think (look at YIIK's golden alpaca scene for an infamous example). On the other hand, when nothing's really going on and some character is in funny shenanigans, don't have it secretly be the build up to a depressing moment. That's how you kill an audience's trust and set expectations that the story is just trying to mess with them. They won't appreciate any later comedic scenes and will just think of how this is going to lead to some random bit of grimdark.

Beyond that, there's nothing wrong with having both. It's almost expected unless it's a really isolated story. Because whatever they are, most characters still should act like people at the end of the day, and people get into stupid, silly antics now and then. Even better is when they sometimes acknowledge just how silly things are and laugh it off. Personally, that makes the depressing scenes hit harder because you see a bit of the playfulness and innocence that a character has deep down, only to be a footnote in the person the cruel world shaped them into being.

At least that's my two cents. It's more rules of thumb than strict guidelines, because exceptions always exist.

 

[SenseiHusky]

The simplest answer is that you don't combine the two. When things are dark, keep it firmly in a serious tone and don't try to lighten the mood with gags. They probably won't go over as well as you think (look at YIIK's golden alpaca scene for an infamous example). On the other hand, when nothing's really going on and some character is in funny shenanigans, don't have it secretly be the build up to a depressing moment. That's how you kill an audience's trust and set expectations that the story is just trying to mess with them. They won't appreciate any later comedic scenes and will just think of how this is going to lead to some random bit of grimdark.

Beyond that, there's nothing wrong with having both. It's almost expected unless it's a really isolated story. Because whatever they are, most characters still should act like people at the end of the day, and people get into stupid, silly antics now and then. Even better is when they sometimes acknowledge just how silly things are and laugh it off. Personally, that makes the depressing scenes hit harder because you see a bit of the playfulness and innocence that a character has deep down, only to be a footnote in the person the cruel world shaped them into being.

At least that's my two cents. It's more rules of thumb than strict guidelines, because exceptions always exist.

You can add a wacky charecter preferrably animals doing random stupid things during high tension times

 

[corruption]

Read any Ciaphas Cain book in the Warhammer 4000 setting. They are uplifting and comedic but set in the dystopian future that coined the term Grimdark.
It looks from his perspective, which can be cheerful, even when facing powerful Demons.

Follow that example and look from the perspective of a character who can see the bright side of things and humor in the horror. Maybe as a psychological defense to avoid being crushed by how horrible reality is?

 

[TinaMigarlo]

real life people that work bad jobs. Ambulance drivers, murder scene investigators, etc. They actuallky engage in gallows humor, just like portrayed in popular books and movies. One of the few things that hollyweird and writers, get right.

A real life ambulance driver, related to me. Yeah, we all do that. It helps. The cute story? 911 had to send out a memo to all the ambulance drivers. Guys. Quit using the phrase "negative head to bumper interface" when reporting in, what you find on scene as a first arrival. (ran over by a truck). Murder investigators, forensic techs do it a lot as well.

"What's the bedroom look like?"

"If you got any cherries on your team? Put them on grid, instead of the main scene in there."

"That bad?"

"Abstract impressionism. Whole wall mural. We're trying to decide if it was suicide or murder? You do the math, there."

"Yeah. I got one. Grid detail for them. No sense contaminating the scene."
(meaning: barfing)

Writing a typical "hero" that does heroic shit (violence) that just runs around aura farming and snarking? Isn't realistic. Even those that don't go to pieces of develop bad PTSD... they're still affected. I got to spend time around a real life SWAT sniper. People that *actually* saw/committed/ participated in great violent scenes? Typically don't like to talk much about it. When you hear some jackass at the bar bragging about the combat violence? That's you hearing a story. They think it makes them sound cool to make that shit up and impress everyone.

Real combat veterans, are kind of quiet about it. You have to have something traumatic of your own to share, to get them to speak about stuff like that. The SWAT sniper I spent time around? Everyone knows he killed people. He doesn't get the luxury of just spraying the woods, and some people might have gotten hit. He sees it through his scope, up close and personal. He sees a red mist float in the air behind the head. He knows damn well what he did, and what those consequences are.

This guy was quiet. Very quiet. Very very quiet and very very polite.

He explained. (he's known to not answer his door to the motel room, or if you call out to his tent). The reason? Sound proof headphones, trhe old style like earmuffs that block all else out. He said its classic rock, and anything with a happy ending. Or bittersweet. That's how he gets to sleep. There were other "actual" combat veterans around these gatherings, and they were all pretty much like this. Now when I hit a bar, I can pick out the bullshitters from the guys that were actually "there".

They only talk freely amongst themselves. Only they understand each other. How it is, and how it isn't. How it was, and how it definitely wasn't.

if you show *this* side of all the "heroic" violence? The human side. The gallows humor can provide some measure of comic relief you seek. How clever can you get with the euphemistic banter. Show them in the "slice of life" down time. How they are around normal people, and how they are when talking alone with each other. I derived a humorous scene once, because the combat veterans were back in the real world. Kids in a street gang, were trying to intimidate them as if they were normal Florida tourists. To hanbd over their wallets and traveling money for strong arm robbery. The group of guys just *laughed*, and couldn't quit laughing. They just walked away, and the street kids just were scratching their heads. Its not supposed to work like that.

Also, its called "compartmentalization". The ability to experience horrible things like that at work, and put it away when you're home and around normal people. Most of them, if they can, learn some degree of self control. Because they have a tendency to lash out at people around them, and they mean nothing by it.

Example. "You put the salt shaker back when you're done with it! Its for everyone, not just you! Selfish asshole!"

little easily irritated outbursts. They have to learn to control it. The have to/should learn not to drink too much, too often.

showing the *other* side of being the "comic book hero", might be something you're looking for, to put into your "dark" writing. The more successful ones, tend to wax philosophical about violence and human nature.