Writing the Dark Chapters

[Eldoria]

Writing the Dark Chapters​

1. Have you ever written an arc that contained extremely dark and emotionally devastating chapters?
2. How long did it take you to mentally prepare to write those dark chapters?
3. How did you write the dark chapters?
4. How did you overcome the mental pressure of writing these darkest chapters?

Imagine your storyline reaching its darkest point, requiring you to write a heavy, dark, or even traumatic theme. For example, the genocide (Rumbling), the apocalypse (The Day After Tomorrow), or perhaps the tragic death of a key character in the story (death of Hiken no Ace)—all of these events are certainly very mentally taxing to write.

It's not uncommon for writers to cry while writing these dark scenes because they feel the emotional burden of their characters, which often resonates with real-world history.

 

[Hoshino]

I only write dark things, the only thing I force myself to do is write a bit upbeat stuff-nya

 

[rainchip]

Whenever I have to touch on darker, more personal subjects, I usually take what I’d call the Dennis-from-It’s-Always-Sunny approach. It’s all about the implications. I’m not comfortable writing those scenes in vivid detail (which is ironic, since I have no problem describing zombie gore). But when it comes to things like assault, trauma, or torture. If it doesn’t directly serve the plot or a character’s development/backstory. I leave it alone.

There's plenty of grimdark, edgier-than-thou stories out there. In mine, I have a few planned moments where I’ll hint that something deeply messed up is happening, but I’ll never outright depict the abuse. Readers can put two and two together. Often, I think that restraint makes the moment hit harder. At the end of the day, I just try to strike a balance.

 

[DireBadger]

emotionally dark, literally dark, dark concepts, or dark precepts??

The term 'dark' is so broad. I have written a book where the very first chapter involves billions of sentient beings getting murdered and all of their 'spirit ancestors' being destroyed with them. But calling it dark is kind of up to interpretation.

And writing 'dark' is no emotional pressure whatsoever. It's just a storyline. People who throw 'themselves' into their fiction don't write any better, they just wind up volunteering for plastic silverware and padded walls.

 

[LeilaniOtter]

Writing the Dark Chapters​

1. Have you ever written an arc that contained extremely dark and emotionally devastating chapters?
2. How long did it take you to mentally prepare to write those dark chapters?
3. How did you write the dark chapters?
4. How did you overcome the mental pressure of writing these darkest chapters?

1.) Too often. Characters have to die sometimes, and quite horribly or unexpectedly. *^^*
2.) In some cases a few hours, in others, several days. When dealing with the death of a character, I want to make sure I know how it affects the other characters too, and the aftermath.
3.) Depended on the character. if it was one I really wanted to see go away, I would be raring to go and doing it quickly. If a loving character who would be greatly missed, I treated it with more care, almost like it was an actual death and I was letting them go.
4.) For one particular book, I actually called up my best friend, crying, "I killed Merrick!" and then SHE started crying, and then we both reminisced for an hour over the importance of Merrick in the book and his death. And actually talking about it, gave me more ideas for the story. *^^*

 

[DireBadger]

Like Leilani says. it's hard to make a decent hero if they don't have a decent monster to fight. (Paraphrased VERY loosely)

 

[JayDirex]

There's plenty of grimdark, edgier-than-thou stories out there

PREACH BRUV!! So many edge-lords post up here, it can be much. But we all write what we write to keep the story going

 

[Corty]

1. Have you ever written an arc that contained extremely dark and emotionally devastating chapters?

Yes.

1. How long did it take you to mentally prepare to write those dark chapters?

None. They were either planned to be part of the story or made sense otherwise; why bother?

1. How did you write the dark chapters?

I don't get it. Like any other, it was part of the story.

1. How did you overcome the mental pressure of writing these darkest chapter

By growing up knowing how to dissociate between reality and fiction.

 

[Alucard21]

Writing the Dark Chapters​

1. Have you ever written an arc that contained extremely dark and emotionally devastating chapters?
2. How long did it take you to mentally prepare to write those dark chapters?
3. How did you write the dark chapters?
4. How did you overcome the mental pressure of writing these darkest chapters?

Imagine your storyline reaching its darkest point, requiring you to write a heavy, dark, or even traumatic theme. For example, the genocide (Rumbling), the apocalypse (The Day After Tomorrow), or perhaps the tragic death of a key character in the story (death of Hiken no Ace)—all of these events are certainly very mentally taxing to write.

It's not uncommon for writers to cry while writing these dark scenes because they feel the emotional burden of their characters, which often resonates with real-world history.

1. Yes. My story is filled with rather dark imagery and many characters who commit heinous acts, including the MC.
2. No time at all.
3. I write them the same as any other chapter.
4. At best, I felt mildly disturbed when writing it, but once finished I quickly moved on without any mental pressure.

 

[laccoff_mawning]

No.

 

[LilythGeist]

The third "book" of my story has my MC drugged and kidnapped by a gang of human traffickers ran by a psychopathic serial rapist. He has her gang raped in order to break her and make her compliant.

The whole segment took no mental prep on my end and took me like three days to write?

*shrugs and sips tea*

 

[DaelyxLenAuphydas]

I generally have the policy that I can't hold back with what I'm writing, although within certain limitations that make it much less explicit than most other peoples work. I won't write anything which would make it impossible for the main characters to end a story in a better place than they started it (I don't like tragedies), and I don't write actual explicit fucking. Within those bounds though I'll pretty much go anywhere.

It is quite mentally taxing and I do have to be in the right mindspace to do it. Sometimes I'll skip over it for a long while until I'm ready. When I am ready though, those scenes aren't too hard to write, drama tends to come more naturally to me than fluff and it flows fairly easily. Plus, I have plenty of inspiration to draw from.

I generally have to work against my instincts to really cut loose. But my view is that if I hold back it will just come across as melodramatic, I need to fully explore the consequences and mentality of what happens for the reader to understand why its important or matters. Thats my general perspective. I know some people would view that as soft or weak since it's likely that a lot of what I consider difficult to write would be nothing to them. But for me, I'm very sensitive to a lot of topics, and a lot of the things I write are things I would never be able to read; I can only cope with it in my own writing because I already know what the point is and what it's leading up to. Basically, I can trust myself, where I can't trust other authors.

 

[Allie_Mersel]

If I write something dark, it is not because I prepared for it. That's what my characters are made of. I just feel what they feel and sometimes cry along with them or resent myself for making up such a horrible thing. Then move on and a week latet say that... hmm... it is not even that dark. Let's go deeper.

 

[Paul__Michaels]

I thought writing dark chapters was having the same color font as the background ?

 

[RightThereInTheTitle]

Different types of dark stuff are easier and harder to write, just like they're easier or harder to read. A few examples:

• Voldemort does more evil stuff than Dolores Umbridge, but most readers have a visceral reaction to Umbridge while having a much less emotional reaction to Voldemort. This is easy to understand: I've never met a Voldemort in real life, but I've known plenty of Doloreses Umbridge. (That's the correct pluralization - it's like "Attorneys General" or "Whoppers Junior" or "Spidersman".)
  
  
• This is relevant to other types of darkness. I have scenes in my story where a character is trying to convince her friends that something bad is happening and no one believes her; this is not unpleasant for me to write because I've never had that happen to me, but some readers might drop off at that chapter because it reminds them of painful memories.
  
  
• On the other hand, someone being betrayed by a friend is more emotional for me to write - much more so than a scene in which someone is brutally killed. (I've had to deal with betrayal, but I've never lived in a war zone.)

My own story has a lot of darkness, but I dislike grimdark things as a matter of preference (i.e. I don't think they're bad, they're just not to my taste). Thus, my main approach to writing darkness is to treat it like a high-cacao chocolate bar (the best kind!) in which the bitterness makes the sweetness more enjoyable.

This is basically the answer to all 4 of your specific questions: I try to interleave interesting, engaging, and even sometimes "fun" beats in with the darkness, and my preparation and writing process is mostly about "how do I make this really 'pop' so that the reader is deeply engaged rather than turned away?" That makes it easier (for many people) to read, and (for me) easier to write.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Frequently.
Chapters 17 through 21 on Strange Awakening.
The death of "Uncle Mike" in Between Worlds
Those were the most recent.
But I've had some very dark stories that were never shared or were lost in a hard drive crash (including one I kept having to step away from for a few days as it got TOO dark).

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

Honestly it is something I want to work on more, though due to the nature of my two main works, it doesn't come up often.

I did brutally maim one of my MC's LI due to him not checking his systems quest in one of them, though she will completely recover soon. But that was only 500-600 words at most and it ate at me to write it. That MC also has a horrible moment in his past where he had to mercy kill a child, and I described part of that moment as a nightmare to illustrate his PTSD symptoms and provide context for his over aggressive tendency's at times. That was only over a few paragraphs, and is nightmare fuel imo.

In my other work I 'Killed' my MC in an horror movie like attack, (but as he hops around worlds, he doesn't die, just returns back to the gods. He didn't know that at the time though.) I think I gave it a decent vibe but it wasn't more than 1200 words...

My third project will probably end up with more opportunities for dark moments, and I hope to capitalize on them, but that is going to be slow because I want to finish one of the other two first before spending a lot of time on my OG project.

 

[PierreAmet]

Writing the Dark Chapters​

1. Have you ever written an arc that contained extremely dark and emotionally devastating chapters?
2. How long did it take you to mentally prepare to write those dark chapters?
3. How did you write the dark chapters?
4. How did you overcome the mental pressure of writing these darkest chapters?

Imagine your storyline reaching its darkest point, requiring you to write a heavy, dark, or even traumatic theme. For example, the genocide (Rumbling), the apocalypse (The Day After Tomorrow), or perhaps the tragic death of a key character in the story (death of Hiken no Ace)—all of these events are certainly very mentally taxing to write.

It's not uncommon for writers to cry while writing these dark scenes because they feel the emotional burden of their characters, which often resonates with real-world history.

Oh yeah! The 7 chapter of my book intitle Neither True Hero Nor Last Boss I Will Be A Villain.

I was all suddent.
Immerse In my writing as I poured out my inspiration.

It wasn't supposes to have happened.
After all, I hadn't planned something of this type.
Even though everything was already set up.

Still fate played on me.
It genre completely diverted.

Then_

I was cheated, not this kind of cheap cheat one could received from his partner. But something that could be traumitising.

Yeah it was traumatusing. And to think it could leave visible traces on me.
Damn my heart hurts. The pain was so horrible. It felt like I was being pierced by many invisible arrows.

But to think I will be cheated upon by my own Ideas - no was it my hand.

And that is how I wrote the first horror scene in a novel. A novel not destine to be

My novel.

 

[DireBadger]

When I kill a side character, the hard part is making sure the reader cares about them first, rather than just making them a redshirt. It's actually a lot easier making them a heroic type than just someone that is there. I prefer making their death meaningful, though.

 

[V8485]

Writing the Dark Chapters​

1. Have you ever written an arc that contained extremely dark and emotionally devastating chapters?
2. How long did it take you to mentally prepare to write those dark chapters?
3. How did you write the dark chapters?
4. How did you overcome the mental pressure of writing these darkest chapters?

Imagine your storyline reaching its darkest point, requiring you to write a heavy, dark, or even traumatic theme. For example, the genocide (Rumbling), the apocalypse (The Day After Tomorrow), or perhaps the tragic death of a key character in the story (death of Hiken no Ace)—all of these events are certainly very mentally taxing to write.

It's not uncommon for writers to cry while writing these dark scenes because they feel the emotional burden of their characters, which often resonates with real-world history.

I once wrote my man guy seeing a women kill herself. My sound a bit odd but I had funny writting it.