Every time I try to write, the story gets too dark

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by KatieK, Oct 9, 2014.

  1. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Well, you know the old saying: Writing a tragedy is easier than writing a comedy.

    Comedy is hard, writing heartwarming moments is hard. If not done well, it comes off as flat and/or nauseating.
     
  2. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

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    In the trammels of grief, it's poetry writing for me. When I've gotten through it farther and have more perspective on it, that's when I can sublimate the sadness into prose.

    The one thing to remember about grief is that generally it means that what you lost was a good thing. Or, if grief is mingled with guilt (as often it is), there was a potential for good "if only I had." If you want to write as a distraction, perhaps you can take the good things about the person you lost and use them in a character you invent. If it begins to remind you too acutely of him or her, stop, have a good cry, then come back to the writing when you're more settled. Gradually the remembrance of the good will predominate and the acute pain of loss will fade.

    In my own experience with loss, I've found it's easy to convince myself that if I'm not in a constant agony of grief over the loved one, why then, "I must not have loved him/her all that much and I'm a Terrible Person!!!" I wonder if a grieving writer might feel they had to make their work as dark as possible to keep the pain going and therefore "prove" how much the departed one meant to them. Not crawling inside your psyche and saying that's you, @KatieK, but I think it could happen.

    The other thing I've found helpful, when I'm doing something that my intellect tells me is destructive, is to ask myself, "What am I getting out of this?" Because whatever human beings do, they do it because it will bring them some sort of reward-- even if the reward is being able to say, "See, I told you this world is a terrible, awful, futile place!" So figure out what reward you're getting out of writing dark, harrowing fiction. Maybe there's a more positive way to get it? Or maybe there are better rewards in life you could choose to go after right now, even in your grief. But if it's essentially a positive goal and writing like that is the best way to get to it, plunge into it, swim through, and have faith that you'll come up into light in the end.
     
  3. Fippmeister

    Fippmeister New Member

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    Join the dark side. =)
    My opinion (as someone who writes dark stories) would be to follow the story as far as you can, but try to add the light side whenever you can. The juxtaposition of light inside the dark might be more effective than trying to make it light all the way.
    Look at anything nice and fluffy in the story. Try to include the positive outcome of some dark things done in the story. Crowbar it in if you have to and make one of the characters become maniacally cheerful and optimistic in order to cope with the situation.
     
  4. jccfuture

    jccfuture New Member

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    Hi Katie,
    I agree with Catrin that maybe poetry might be a way of breaking the unhappy pattern you find yourself in with your writing. Things seem like they are really tough for you right now so maybe a focus on small moments of joy or beauty, or even upsetting things might help you to break down the wall of bad stuff that you are dealing with. Maybe just reading some poetry will help, finding out about a form that you don't know much about (assuming you don't, apologies if you do) in itself can be distracting and positive.
     
  5. ChaosReigns

    ChaosReigns Ov The Left Hand Path Contributor

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    Hi, hope things are going ok for you.

    keep writing, even if it gets dark, trust me, i used to write a lot of happier stuff before i started having problems, then writing the darker materiel helped me get it out of my system and made me feel a lot better during those situations.
    keep going, it will help, trust me.

    you are welcome to pm me if you ever want to talk.
     
  6. Stephen Paden

    Stephen Paden Member

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    This is the best time to write. Who cares who it depresses? If nothing else, let this be therapeutic! I guarantee you that if you just let yourself write whatever it is that is coming out, you will start to feel better, and you will have an honest story. Write what you know. If what you know right now is darkness, then paint the pages black!
     
  7. Void

    Void Senior Member

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    I had experiences somewhat like this. The book I'm currently working on needed somewhat of a rewrite of certain sections because the protagonist originally developed severe PTSD from various near death experiences, insomnia, nightmares, nyctophobia, existential depression from a nihilistic philosophical position forced onto him later, sent to a psychiatrist, became heavily addicted to drugs for self medicating purposes and even contemplated suicide from the withdrawals ... until I realized that it made the character seem way too pathetic and unlikable from all his moping around and it made the book way too depressing (it was always supposed to be pretty dark, but not just oppressive sorrow from page to page).

    I would say the best thing to do would be to plan ahead, the PTSD was easy to tone down since it was never anything more than implied by the time i decided to discard it. The psychiatrist session I just cut completely and re-purposed several elements and themes into later conversations, the addiction and suicidal thoughts hadn't actually occurred yet so they were easy to ignore.
    So that is a good solution, just plan ahead and identify problem areas that seem darker than you would like so you can tone them down or removed them before they have any structural significance.
     

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