HERO: A prophecy!
Doom approaches should this video be sponsored by Skillshare?
In the grim darkness of the far present of fiction writing, there is only cliches.
And a whole lot of grit.
Modern audiences demand gritty stories.
I mean they must given how many tickets the Dark Knight sold.
Therefor all writers should become well versed in writing in a dark tone, or Grimdark as
it is commonly called on the internet.
Grimdark is great to write because all a writer has to do is write normally and just make
everything dark, like plastering the color black over everything.
Don’t worry, you’ll know if you miss a spot.
Speaking of which, this soothing gray background?
GONE!
I killed it!
You should feel bad.
It’s all black now, eternal darkness forever!
What’s this?
Whimsical music!
That’s gone too.
Another victim of Grimdark.
Happy, smiley avatar that references a grossly out of date meme?
Annihilated!
This is Grimdark!
It’s frowns and brooding from here on out.
Be thankful I can’t do the gravely voice or I would have killed that too!
All of the things you like about Terrible Writing Advice?
All dead!
Forever!
My sarcasm will most definitely not be coming back!
Just like this kitten!
Isn’t this kitten cute?
You should get attached to this kitten!
Oh no!
It’s dead.
You should feel bad!
Ha!
I tricked you into getting attached to a character before killing them without any warning.
I am sure that trick will keep working forever.
I need to kill some other things.
That’s what audiences like now!
Lots of dead characters!
I wannabe like George double R Martin.
I am sure his success is entirely based on how he kills his characters rather than his
stellar characterization.
Characterization in Grimdark stories should be as bleak as everything else.
Our ‘hero’ should be completely amoral.
Wait.
I meant morally ambiguous.
Eh.
Same thing right?
Exploring themes of moral ambiguity works great when our protagonist makes everyone’s
lives objectively worse and behaves like 13 year old sociopath on a power trip.
The protagonist should lack any kind of redeeming quality.
Like having our ‘hero’ slaughter innocents because of his character flaws.
That will be shocking after the 4000th time.
Even though our hero does as much if not more damage than the villain, the writer will still
make the story demand you root for him even as he slaughters orphans along with the couples
who were about to adopt them.
Why have positive traits to stand in contrast with the setting and tone when our protagonist
can have the worst aspects of both power fantasy and the anti hero.
Why does our protagonist behave so horribly?
Because he’s morally ambiguous.
See.
He’s deep and complex.
I am sure the audience will buy that!
If not, then… uh oh.
I need kill off another character to distract everyone.
Here is a puppy!
Isn’t the puppy adorable.
You should get attached to this puppy.
Oh no!
It’s dead.
You should feel bad.
Now that our ‘hero’ is brooding after his latest warcrime, we should also darken
the villain.
Normally here at Terrible Writing Advice, I advocate all villains be one dimensional
cardboard cutouts with zero backstory, motive, or explanation as to why they commit their
loathsome acts.
For Grimdark, we will need to deviate from this a bit.
Our villains should have a nuanced and believable backstory with characterization that really
allows the audience to connect and understand them in a fundamental way.
The writer should then be shocked and frustrated at the audience's connection with the villain
so to compensate, the writer should make the villain commit atrocities so horrible that
even an episode of Terrible Writing Advice can’t make funny.
Some might worry that this sudden shift will irritate audiences and break their willing
suspense of disbelief to see a previously established sympathetic character suddenly
decide that infants make for a great sandwich spread.
We’ll that’s their problem!
This is Grimdark!
No one should be happy!
Now what about secondary characters?
In Grimdark, there are two types of secondary characters.
The first is people so reprehensible and amoral that the audience is left wondering why they
haven’t been burned at the stake, much less arrived at a position of power and authority.
They exist solely to be murdered by the hero.
The second kind is people so innocent, pure, and naive that the feel completely out of
place in such a dark story.
They exist solely to be murdered by the author.
All nice characters are killed without exception in a Grimdark story.
Kind of like everyone else really.
Just kill everyone to be safe.
That’s dark.
Make a few suffer a fate worse than death for good measure like they must suffer in
agony forever, they never die of old age, but keep aging, or they have to read this
book more than once.
Oh wait.
I forgot something.
Can’t kill off all of my characters just yet.
First I have add something essential to any Grimdark story.
Our Grimdark story needs a lot of elements; death, destruction, fates worse than death,
a complete lack of self awareness, a brooding, oppressive tone, and most of all, A LOVE TRIANGLE!
Yes.
Even in the eternal darkness of a Grimdark story, there needs to be a romantic subplot
shoved in there somewhere.
Who wins the love triangle?
It doesn’t matter because everyone dies tragically anyway.
With our characters all set, to die, the writer is free to develop a Grimdark setting.
Human societies are built upon mutual cooperation and complex social systems.
Grimdark societies are built upon mutual exploitation and social systems that don’t function at
all.
Is it a science fiction setting?
Then it’s a horrible unsustainable dystopia.
Is it urban fantasy?
Supernatural monsters will munch on normal humans like popcorn but still remain hidden
somehow.
Or have all of our superheros become monsters.
That’s what we loved about comics right?
To see our beloved heroes who brought joy to our childhoods turning to bloodthirsty
psychopaths because… comic book logic.
Fantasy is great for Grimdark because any criticism lobbed at the setting can be dismissed
by saying it’s ‘historically accurate’.
Sources?
Umm...
I watched it in a movie once!
A Grimdark setting should present life as so awful that the reader seriously wonders
how people even get up in the morning or wonder why absolutely no one has thought of a way
to improve conditions.
Why don’t people band together and try to fix things?
Because Grimdark!
Why hasn’t an external, better system supplanted the current, barely functioning one?
Because Grimdark!
How does such a woefully inefficient system manage the logistical nightmare of endless
total war?
Because I just murdered baby seal!
That’s why!
You should feel bad!
Don’t forget to fill the setting with factions as awful as the characters.
No need to consider or discuss exactly how these factions rose to power in the first
place or how they maintain their hold on a society despite having an approval rating
that slips into the negative.
Nor should any of the factions make even token efforts to improve things.
They should all be brutally repressive regimes founded on fear and terror that have inexplicably
stayed in power for centuries.
Just base them on the Nazis like in the Evil Empire video.
I hear those guys had a long shelf life.
Tying in each faction’s ideology with the theme of the setting or showing how each faction
gradually descended into its current state just isn’t bleak enough for Grimdark because
it could accidentally give the audience hope that the story might get good.
Best to crush that hope early.
Just like this… um… crap.
I’m running out of cute animals to kill and I think the audience might be starting
to see through that trick.
Don’t forget to darken the other parts of the setting.
Everything powered by Cotrivium?
It’s made out of ground up widows.
Macguffin everyone is fighting over?
Turns out it is actually powered by pure evil.
Magic?
That’s energy harnessed from the souls of the damned.
Hyperspace?
You have to travel through Cuthulu’s back lawn.
Crude oil?
That’s made from ancient dead creatures.
Don’t forget to add a dash of cosmic horror.
The universe itself is out to get the characters just as the writer is out to get the audience.
Remember that Grimdark is all about wearing down the audience by killing off characters
and making things so hopeless and jaded that they just don’t care anymore.
Drowning everything in inky darkness is the best way to handle Grimdark.
Never should an author use contrast or humor to take the edge off.
Just keep lumping on more and more endless blackness until the whole thing becomes a
twisted parody of itself and one huge joke.
Then when everyone is making fun of your setting just double down and keep going into that
dark void.
And if a writer gazes long into the Grimdark, Grimdark also gazes into you.
And then it tries to sell its merch.
HERO: We will never let you have this video’s sponsor, Dark Lord!
DARK LORD: Yes.
Yes.
Blah blah heroic defiance blah.
I am in a hurry.
JP keeps bugging me about the length of these ‘character skits’ as he calls them.
I don’t know what he’s on about.
I am the Dark Lord!
I am the epitome of conciseness, the very form of succinctness.
I never ramble.
I move with terrible and evil purpose in all that I do.
I do not repeat myself nor do I fall into repetition.
I am always to the point!
Um… what was I doing again?
HERO: You were about to steal this video’s sponsor, skillshare and inadvertently set
into motion an ancient prophecy that will doom the entire Terrible Writing Advice cinematic
universe.
DARK LORD: I don’t know what a cinematic universe is but it sounds like it will make
a lot of money.
Unless you’re DC.
HERO: No!
How did you get so powerful?
Dark Lord: Money.
HERO: Oh.
Dark Lord: Speaking of which, now at long last I finally possess Skillshare.
By tapping into the ley line network called the internet, I can access this vast store
of collected knowledge.
They have 20,000 classes in writing, design, business, technology, and more.
HERO: Yeah, but you are forbidden.
Dark Lord: Foolish mortal.
I need but a simple spell called a Premium Membership?
Huh.
That’s an odd name for a magic ritual.
Regardless, with this Premium membership, you can have access to unlimited high quality
classes and gain ancient knowledge and power.
Behold!
First I shall absorb Susan Palmquist’s class on Writing Point of View.
Now I can jump into any character’s head!
Now I shall take a class on the Unity Game Engine.
Surely that will allow me to construct an engine that can unify the world under my iron
fist.
HERO: NO!
Dark Lord: Yes!
Soon I will send my forces skl.sh/twa4 or through the magic portal link in the description
below.
They shall gain 2 months of Skillshare for free.
And maybe finally they will learn something useful rather than lazing about the dungeon
all day long.
HERO: Why do you keep explaining all this?
DARK LORD: What?
Are you not supposed to do that?
That’s what they said to do in villain school.
Now cease your stalling.
Nothing you can do will stop me now!
IMPERIAL TROOPERS: Hut hut hut hut IMPERIAL TROOPER: For the empire!
IMPERIAL TROOPERS: Hut hut hut hut DARK LORD: Son of a