Dark Fantasy – or Just Dark Enough

For me, every hour could be Halloween. My mind never goes far from what makes the stories I love work, and for me the ultimate sweet spot of genre is a kind of dark fantasy adventure. I’ll live and die for other styles too, maybe fired up into straight action or epic fantasy, or dimmed into true horror… but there’s nothing like that shading where we know just how sinister the villain’s essence is and the hero’s just able to turn some of that against him.

A lot of it’s that horror-tinged threat, of course. Give me a villain who leaves no doubt where he’s going to hit you in, and has something original about just how he does it. (Or something classic, done well. We still bring out the Sleepy Hollow Headless Horseman with his good old sword for your neck, and there’s not much that’s cooler.)

Call it a contrast from how easy killing is with a gun in mainstream stories or in real life—all too damnably easy. A story ought to make the most of its specific danger and the suspense around it. A story that embraces how clearly, eerily dangerous the enemy is is better yet. And maybe best of all is when the story can take its time in the plot and in the attacks themselves to let us worry. Give me a mist with ghosts slowly taking shape, or that one perfect moment when a witch proves she doesn’t need fireballs when her victim’s already standing in a spooky thicket that her power can tighten around him.

–And yes, I’ll take witches over ghosts. I blogged about this a few years ago (No Creatures Needed); monsters work, but there’s something about keeping to a character that’s still human that seems more truthful, more flexible. Besides, look at the legions of fey and partly-fallen angels that fill modern fantasy. Their names are as flashy as their powers, but under that the way they lie and seduce and redeem themselves is so human, I’d say storytelling’s embraced that rule in everything but name.

 

Or put it another way, especially for the hero: Superman or Batman?

That word “hero” is all over fiction, and it deserves to be in one form or another. But which is more appealing: a hero who’s usually untouchable and only fighting to make the world as safe as he is? Or one who’s mortal and already been hurt, and he’s able to take that same pain to the enemy with all of their own tricks? A man who seems like he barely knows what the wrong choice is, or one who always could be on the edge of losing control? (But never does, of course.)

I’d say that once we position a story around who lives and dies, a bit of the “dark” in our heroes is simple honesty. Some idealized cop (or knight, father, priest, or all the rest) might be held up to us as tireless examples of restraint, but we know whoever has to deal with this much danger will have issues. He’ll face the same pressure as his enemy, just struggling to handle it better, and he’ll either use some of their own weapons or work out exactly how to counter them. There’ll be edginess on both sides.

So, that pressure in something I try to keep in mind when I write. The title of Shadowed means not only Paul’s enhanced-sense surveillance but how he’s haunted by the blind spots in his memory. In The High Road I’m trying to give Mark and Angie that sense that even flying can’t get them away from their enemies… and every time a certain owl dives in, or even Rafe with his simple gun finds the worst possible moment to strike…

I wonder, can that mist ever be thick enough?

 

In two weeks I’ll have more about this marvelous Halloween season: Dark Fantasy and Darker Horror – Common Webs.

 

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