What is The Difference Between Tragedy and Grimdark?

Labels are important, both for readers as well as for writers. How you classify a story helps libraries and bookstores sort which shelf it goes onto, and it can act as a big, red sign for readers who have a taste for particular fiction. Sometimes those labels can be helpful, like when a sub-genre emerges and grows into its own distinct category. Sometimes these labels can be used to pour shame onto books though, labeling them as surely as a big, scarlet A.

One of those labels is Grimdark, and it is still a battleground for readers and writers alike.

In the gutters of the genre ghettos there can be only one heir to the fantasy throne.

What Is Grimdark?

Before we get too far into the conversation we should all be on the same page. The phrase Grimdark, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, began with the quote, "In the grim darkness of the future, there is only war," which comes from the Warhammer 40,000 game. For those not familiar with the game it features a bleak, dystopian future where all races and species are locked in bloody, eternal conflict across the stars, and the millions of bodies and oceans of blood are justified by nothing so much as a need to feed the war machine.

The label has expanded beyond the war game and its brethren though; today it refers mostly to speculative fiction (a broad term encompassing sci-fi and fantasy alike) where there is A) a grim and dark tone (natch), B) a sense of realism, and C) the agency of the characters involved in the story.

For example, say you were writing a fantasy story. Let's say that this story depicted a world where deaths are visceral, and the politics behind wars are realistic. Kings are not noble, divine rulers but rather spoiled children or iron-fisted tyrants who took the throne by the sword and keep it the same way. The heroes of your story have flaws, and there is no guarantee that their actions are noble or good. There is, in fact, no guarantee that the protagonists will succeed (or even survive), or that in succeeding they will enact any real change.

Does this sound familiar?

Brace yourself... Martin is coming.

George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire has become the standard-bearer for grimdark fantasy. It is, in its way, an anti-Tolkien where the world is full of human complexities, evil is present in the hearts of men rather than in some outside force that must be defeated, and where vicious killers and tortured souls can exist in the same character.

Grimdark has its detractors though. People who claim that this kind of fiction glorifies brutality, and that in its pursuit of "realism" it's simply creating soulless pornography. Where is the hero's journey? Where are the morality tales where knights in gleaming armor fight against the evils that plague humanity in the form of dragons, demons, and evil wizards? Lastly, and the most often asked question, who the hell gets catharsis out of this?

I have an answer to that last one, actually. Humans, and they have since the dawn of Western civilization.

Tragedy's Rockstar Child

The Grimdark sub-genre is seen by many as an unnecessary attempt at edginess. It's fantasy in a black leather jacket with bad boy shades, out to make you think he's going to change before he fucks your girlfriend, blows smoke in your face, and roars out onto that highway to hell with flames shooting from his tail pipe.

The catharsis in watching terrible things happen, and in seeing characters try to fight against overwhelming forces, goes back a long, long way though. According to the Wiki gods it goes back to about the 6th century BCE.

A couple thousand years before this fellow, if you're counting.

Greek tragedy is, in its basest form, watching fundamentally flawed characters struggle against things too big for them to beat. Oedipus fights against fate, and his quest for truth opens his eyes before he shuts them forever. Antigone doesn't fare much better, struggling against generations of tragedy before smashing against the rocks of her own. Watching a world where one wrong decision, or one perilous action can wreck bloody ruin on everything you held dear has been the preferred entertainment of people for more than a millennium.

Grimdark is just the latest child of this human desire to watch everything fall apart.

When Everything Ends in Blood and Tears

There will always be people who prefer happy endings and black-and-white stories, just as there were people in Ancient Greece who preferred comedy to tragedy. Some people like to pick up whichever mask most suits them that day, satisfying the need they have at the time. Some people, readers and writers alike, just can't get enough of that sensation of meeting a character just as flawed and lost as they themselves are, reading through that character's choices and adventures, and riding that roller-coaster all the way down until their Icarus smashes to paste on the rocks below.

Speaking of which...

To answer the question I posed in the title of this blog post, Grimdark and tragedy are related. Dark overtones and dystopian horrors are certainly right at home under tragedy's big tent, but not all tragedy is Grimdark. Some tragedy sneaks up on you, getting its fingers under your skin and gently caressing your heartstrings before it uses them as an instrument to play you a sad song. Sometimes it looks like everything's going to be all right, and you let yourself hope, before the sad mask brings down the curtain on another broken ending.

If you're a fan of tragedy, but you can only take Grimdark in small doses, check out my latest book New Avalon: Love and Loss in The City of Steam. Take a tour of a place where the brilliant light of science casts shadows dark enough to get lost in, and where down every alley there's a new story itching to be told. The first two tales, along with the introduction are free to all, so step up and take the $2 tour.

You've got nothing to lose but a few tears... and that's a small price to pay, don't you think?

As always thanks for stopping in, and if you'd like to help support me then stop by The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a patron today! If you want to be sure you catch all of my updates then be sure to follow me on Facebook and Tumblr while you're at it!

Inspiration, Black Magic, and Spite: The Creation of "Little Gods" in The Big Bad II

As I warned people way back in my first post I occasionally take time to talk about what I'm doing with my career. Today is one of those posts, and this is the reason why.

Buy The Big Bad II on Amazon! Seriously, do it.

This book, as you might have guessed, is an anthology edited by John G. Hartness (he hosted a guest post of mine titled Stories Beyond Good and Evil) and Emily Lavin Leverett. The 24 stories inside the collection are all about bad characters doing some truly evil things, and they're the protagonists we follow. My story, "Little Gods" is one of the contributions to the book. As such today I'd like to talk a little bit about that story, about inspiration, and about how some of the best ideas will come at you out of sheer spite.

Inspiration Comes In Many Forms

I do not remember the title, or even the complete plot, of the first modern fantasy book I read. I do remember I was about 10 or 11 years old, I found it in a stack of my grandfather's old dollar store paperbacks, and the cover was a thing of pulp fiction glory. It was the traditional shot of a detective in an overcoat and fedora with his back to the wall and his gat in his hand looking down a dark alley with a beautiful dame pressed up against him, except the alley was full of a black cloud covered in red eyes, and the dame had pale skin and two bright red pinpricks on her neck. As you might guess the story was about a private eye who took a job from a vampire. They questioned trolls, sweated ghouls, and used shapeshifting magic and rune-etched bullets to cut a swath through the dark underbelly of this town.

I was completely and irredeemably hooked.

When people ask me how it feels to write, I just show them this image.

Like any avid reader who discovered a new genre I kept my eyes peeled for more. While a good private detective story would always hit the spot there was just something particularly satisfying about one of those stories that also involved a werewolf, or a vampire, or any of a trove of other beloved monsters. Over the years I realized something though; while there was a lot of modern fantasy on the market there were definite sour notes ringing in my ears.

What were some of the cardinal sins I kept seeing the genre commit over and over again? Well there was using mythical figures as props and place holders instead of turning them into actual characters and parts of your story (Neil Gaiman's American Gods is the opposite of what I'm complaining about). Another big problem for me was seeing stories which had the power progression and magic system of a roleplaying game, which led to main characters starting off as low-powered boots on the ground and ended several books later with them fighting archangels with ancient swords and punching the devil in the face. I wanted to know why so many worlds had huge, global organizations to keep supernatural things a secret when those creatures had consistently kept themselves in the shadows for most of human civilization. I watched as story after story focused on spectacle and coolness factor without providing the sort of atmosphere, hard character choices, and gray areas I'd come to love.

That said, I have a rule when it comes to complaining. Don't criticize unless you're willing to step up and swing for the fences. That's why I decided to create my own modern fantasy world.

Chicago Strange and The Little Gods of The City

My goal in writing "Little Gods" was to craft a short, sharp story that would grab readers by the back of the neck and shove them face first into the demimonde. I wanted to bring readers to a place where the shadows are deeper, the alleys narrower, and the secrets more blasphemous than they're used to. A place where old magic rots in the meat beneath the concrete scabs of the city, and where horrors the uninitiated will never know dance in the darkness.

A place ruled by the Little Gods.

You can hear them if you pray hard, and listen harder.

What are the Little Gods you ask? They are the gods of the city, and the myths of the modern men and women. The Shoot-Up Man, who hands you a needle full of poison and a smile full of promises as you pass him on by. Skid Row Sue, the pretty girl in the tattered dress who wants you to take her home to join the bones in the basement. The Hook Man, who slavers and babbles while he stalks lovers' lane with murder on his mind. They're urban legends whose myths are told and re-told, keeping them vital and powerful.

The Little Gods are not omnipotent though; they can be killed. Their mantles, their crowns, their titles can be passed on to someone else. That's why urban legends take on new names, new faces, and their stories change over the years. There's always a killer lurking on highway two, and before the Hook Man it was Bloody Jacob with his father's straight razor. Before him it was Katey Hatchet the butcher's daughter. Before her it was the Wendigo, and before the Wendigo probably something else.

Our story opens up when someone decides to steal the crown of the Little God of Murder.

Darker Shades of Gray

The tale begins with the Sterile Saint putting word on the street that she wants Richard Blackheart to come find her. The warlock-for-hire comes looking for the Saint, and finds out that she has a plan to rob the Hook Man of his glory. All she needs is muscle, and she's willing to pay his price. There's more to Blackheart than his reputation suggests though, and his client finds out too late that when you buy trouble from the Bad Luck Man you get every penny of what you pay for.

There are a lot of reasons for you to read The Big Bad II in general, and "Little Gods" in particular. It's a story that provides all the darkness you could ask for, and an extra serving of grit for you to swish around in your cheek. It paints a picture of a uniquely bizarre world, and it gives you a snapshot of the kinds of macabre wonders that lurk in out-of-the-way places. Lastly though it strips out good and evil, leaving you in a world where there is only power and those who use it.

Who's the hero? Who's the villain? That's up to you when you get your copy of The Big Bad II.

As always loyal readers, thanks for stopping in and checking out what I have to say. If you'd like to help support me and this blog then stop by The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page and become a patron today! If you're worried you might miss an update then make sure you also follow me on Facebook and Tumblr to stay in the loop.