Shining Light in the Darkness

How Do We Create When Things are Grim?

I first wrote this edited post two years ago, almost to the day. I’m really sad that it pertains even more - and with edits that update it to current events.

Never, I think, has it been so hard to be a creative. The social whiplash is unnerving, publishing is struggling, politics is divisive, and it often feels like the world is about to explode.

BUT our work is important. Really, truly, needed, now more than ever.

You Must Keep Writing

I really believe that the key to human survival is creating. That we who create can bring light to darkness.

As an author who writes for young readers I feel compelled to bring goodness into my stories. But in order to shed that light in dark corners, I have to portray the darkness, too. So, how does an author find balance? How do we write about hopelessness and evil without leaving our readers feeling hopeless and lost?

In this analysis of what it means to read and write dark stories, Vaughn Roycroft says that his attraction to dark material has a limit, and that limit is drawn by whether the story is gratuitous in its treatment of dark behavior, or whether, as he puts it, “We can choose to provoke contemplation. We can choose to seek meaning, and to inspire our readers to seek their own.”

This hits upon a central point in telling tales of darkness. As authors we must help readers seek meaning and understanding, and we should work to portray evil as not inevitable but mutable and subject to our willingness to reach across boundaries.

The old tales of the Brothers Grimm are truly dark, and evil behavior is usually rewarded by severe (often bloody) punishment. Good and evil are clearly distinguished.

While I love those old tales, that strive to teach the benefits of humility and generosity, we live in an age of greater complexity. Both in literature and in life today the roles played by protagonists and antagonists are more fluid. Most readers would identify with the protagonist – the “good” guy – in a tale. But if we portray our antagonists as purely “bad” we miss the opportunity to, as it were, teach the benefits of understanding the other.

Understanding the other is, I believe, the way out of darkness. Shedding light in dark corners is a matter of seeing clearly what we might otherwise wish to ignore or pass off as “bad”.

The Complexity of Heroes and Villains

The more depth and complexity we bring to our characters, the deeper we reach into the emotions of our readers. This is why I believe that character is the heart of storytelling. And that even the worst antagonists must be complex and conflicted, with perhaps the potential to change - even if, as I’ve said before, they cannot be redeemed.

How should this impact our writing? By working hard to create characters with deep emotion, as well as by celebrating differences. But we also need to stretch to express those things that make us as humans fundamentally the same. We must confront the darkness by stepping inside it with open hearts.

And finally, and personally, no matter how dark my stories, I strive to leave my readers with a sense of hope and purpose, to give those readers a lamp to illuminate dark corners.

What about you? Do you read and/or write "dark" stories? How do you shed the light? How can we all keep creating in these times?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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