-
Can Dark Stories Be Uplifting? Part 4
I’ve talked about how dark stories can produce an uplifting feeling in the reader and how darkness and light can be balanced proportionally rather than equally. I want to end this series with my most important argument. Why can some readers leave a dark story feeling good or even hopeful? Why do these stories work?…
-
Can Dark Stories Be Uplifting? Part 3
Last time, I talked about light and darkness in terms of narrative polarity, how a certain type of polarity reversal is the narrative mechanism behind producing an uplifting feeling in the reader, and how polarity reversals impact your story’s plot structure. In this post, we’ll be talking about proportion. To put it simply, I’ll be…
-
Can Dark Stories Be Uplifting? Part 2
In this post, I’ll begin my deep dive into the title question — the conclusions I want to share and my supporting arguments. I hope not only to explain how dark stories can be uplifting, but show how they have more natural potential to be so than you would think.
-
Can Dark Stories Be Uplifting? Part 1
A few weeks ago, I was talking with some writer friends over Discord, and I asked for their feedback on a brand new character and story idea. If you’ve been following the blog for a while, you know that all of my characters start out fairly vague and extreme. The initial concept I gave them…