What does "dark" mean?

[AG31]

Are there any genres or tropes that are intrinsically dark? Can dark be applied to any genre or trope? What does "dark" mean?

 

[Callum_M]

I do think some genres are dark by nature, but what makes them dark can vary, be on a spectrum. Horror comes to mind first for me then comedy. I often feel these two genres have more in common than any others.

Overall, I think dark is more a reflection of a time period and a culture than is a set definition. Dark for one is timid for another. Some dark comedies or horrors don’t always hold up over time, whereas others feel timeless.

For me, dark is, pushing situation past a normal comfort zone. Not disrespecting it, but also not treating it as somber or fragile. Dark humor, for example, can help some people cope with tragedy, while others feel it crosses a line. But then a dark horror goes to a more unnerving place even the reader wasn’t expecting.

 

[SmilingLez]

Are there any genres or tropes that are intrinsically dark? Can dark be applied to any genre or trope? What does "dark" mean?

Poetry especially free verse can be quite dark in the sense that it makes you recoil

This was a minimalistic free verse that I wrote after meeting, a special person, a dark triad.

Psychopath.
I have no heart.
You are a toy.
I feel nothing.

Machiavellian.
I play your head.
I use your trust.
I wreck your life.

Malignant Narcissist.
I am the only real one.
You are a waste.
I break you for fun.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

Are there any genres or tropes that are intrinsically dark? Can dark be applied to any genre or trope? What does "dark" mean?

Like anything, "dark" is probably up to the beholder.

I'm normally a HEA writer, but I - in my opinion - wrote a dark romance for the Halloween contest. It's a romance, so there's love...sure. But how the couple get's to the HEA is what's dark. The sacrifice the MC must make to get his HEA is ominous.

It's a short story at 4k, but eh, it's published and people are liking it.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Darkness is such a subjective thing. I'm sure there are tropes and genres that are inherently dark, but I'd put the focus less on anything inherent within in, and more focus on the execution and feel. It has a wide range of intensity and takes many forms. The dark can be scary and unsettling, or it can be painful and sorrowful. How it's mixed into a story is what defines the intensity. You can have pure darkness and force the reader to sit with that discomfort, or you can cut it with humor, or moments of joy, to allow some breathing room, because for a lot of people, darkness is suffocative and heavy.

Themes of trauma and loss of agency tend to have the greatest darkness associated with them. Trauma is a darkness most of us are well-acquainted with, whether that's the loss of a loved one, personal injury, real or imagined. It casts a pall over that which it touches, it bites and grips and pulls on a reader. Same with loss of agency, one of people's greatest fears. In essence, what makes something dark is the degree to which it casts a shadow over the lightness in a story. Melancholy, pain, embarrassment, they take what might otherwise be a fun, pleasant story and dim the joy, not necessarily for the reader, because there are people, like me, who revel in the darkness of a story, but for the characters. It's that moment at a party where everyone's having fun, and you're brought back to remembering the last party you went to, the last time you saw your best friend before their death, or they cut you out of their life.

Darkness is known to pretty much anybody who is reading your story. It helps give a bit of truth to what you're portraying, and can allow people to empathize with your characters because your reader has experienced that pain. It's what makes it such an effective tool for connection.

 

[txblush]

Like anything, "dark" is probably up to the beholder.

I'm normally a HEA writer, but I - in my opinion - wrote a dark romance for the Halloween contest. It's a romance, so there's love...sure. But how the couple get's to the HEA is what's dark. The sacrifice the MC must make to get his HEA is ominous.

It's a short story at 4k, but eh, it's published and people are liking it.

It's your newest one, right? Read it and rated it 5 s.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

It's your newest one, right?

Yep!

 

[txblush]

Yep!

scroll I edited my post.

BTW You had me worried there for a minute towards the end.

 

[SimonDoom]

It can mean many things, but I think of it as twisted, macabre, or relating to the dark side of our nature. The id, or in Jungian terms the shadow side. The dionysian side of our nature. We are uncomfortable acknowledging that we even have that side of our nature, but that's part of what makes it erotically pleasurable. Many of my stories are dark, in this sense.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

scroll I edited my post.

BTW You had me worried there for a minute towards the end.

Thanks for the read and the rating.

And yes...worried is the reaction I was looking for.

 

[txblush]

Thanks for the read and the rating.

And yes...worried is the reaction I was looking for.

You're welcome.

Any plans to write another story with Delilah?

 

[Emma_O]

I asked Google's AI:

Dark comedy: also known as black comedy, is a style of humor that makes light of serious, taboo, painful, or morbid subjects that are generally considered difficult or uncomfortable to discuss. It finds amusement in things like death, tragedy, illness, crime, and war, using irony, satire, and absurdity to process harsh realities.

Dark drama: is a subgenre of drama in film, television, and literature characterized by bleak themes, psychological tension, and deeply flawed or morally ambiguous characters. Unlike standard dramas that focus on emotional conflict with the hope of resolution, dark dramas explore the grittier, unsettling aspects of human nature and society, often offering little to no comforting closure.

Dark literature: is an umbrella term for fiction that explores the bleakest, most unsettling aspects of the human condition, morality, and existence. Rather than offering comforting resolutions, these works deliberately lean into themes of psychological trauma, moral ambiguity, obsession, decay, and the macabre.

Dark pornography: (or dark erotica) is a genre of adult media characterized by taboo, transgressive, psychologically complex, or extreme themes. Unlike mainstream adult content that focuses primarily on conventional pleasure and romance, dark erotica explores the psychological fringes of desire, power dynamics, and societal taboos.

 

[ClintonBrooks]

You're welcome.

Any plans to write another story with Delilah?

She's in my maybe list. I like her.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Are there any genres or tropes that are intrinsically dark? Can dark be applied to any genre or trope? What does "dark" mean?

What does 'Dark' mean????
Somebody switched the lights off.

 

[txblush]

She's in my maybe list. I like her.

Maybe list works for me because I liked her too!

 

[gloomyMoron]

If I was a much younger man, I'd probably quip something banal like, "Darkness is what's in my heart." But darkness, to me, is a mood — a vibe. Some of the darkest things in life aren't done by shine of moonlight but out under the blazing sun. And rarely are they done by the "truly evil". Dark, truly dark, media explores those unpleasant dichotomies and grim realities in a safe way.

 

[Cagivagurl]

Darkness, it can be like a weight, like guilt, orloss. It sits heavily upon you, crushing you. Darkness does not have to mean lack of light.

 

[gloomyMoron]

Darkness, it can be like a weight, like guilt, orloss. It sits heavily upon you, crushing you. Darkness does not have to mean lack of light.

Like a weight upon your shoulders or a noose around your neck.

 

[anthrodisiac]

Dark, truly dark, media explores those unpleasant dichotomies and grim realities in a safe way.

These are way more fun that "big spooky pure evil thing" for sure. The darkest stories are the one where you get a normal person doing atrocious acts, and you can see how they got there, and it's unsettling because, if you were honest with yourself, you realize that could've been you. Atrocity sits within is a hell of a lot more unnerving than almost anything else.

 

[gloomyMoron]

These are way more fun that "big spooky pure evil thing" for sure. The darkest stories are the one where you get a normal person doing atrocious acts, and you can see how they got there, and it's unsettling because, if you were honest with yourself, you realize that could've been you. Atrocity sits within is a hell of a lot more unnerving than almost anything else.

I don't know that I'll ever actually write it, but that's basically the idea behind the Space Opera Sci-Fi trilogy(-ish)/universe that's lived in my head for quite a while. It's been up there for, like, 25 years. I basically want to subvert "The Hero's Journey" and utilize the Monomyth structures to tell a story of "The Villain's Fall". Starts out like the Hero's Journey, but at some point strays. After all, every villain is the hero of their own story. (Well, good ones anyway.)

 

[anthrodisiac]

I don't know that I'll ever actually write it, but that's basically the idea behind the Space Opera Sci-Fi trilogy(-ish)/universe that's lived in my head for quite a while. It's been up there for, like, 25 years. I basically want to subvert "The Hero's Journey" and utilize the Monomyth structures to tell a story of "The Villain's Fall". Starts out like the Hero's Journey, but at some point strays. After all, every villain is the hero of their own story. (Well, good ones anyway.)

That sounds really interesting! I like the basic premise behind it.

 

[Bazzle]

Are there any genres or tropes that are intrinsically dark? Can dark be applied to any genre or trope? What does "dark" mean?

For me dark is the side of the smoking fetish which moves away from art of the smoke or just a little addiction. It means the slide to death and the real downsides of addiction.

For example this story was 'commissioned' by someone on the darkside sub on Reddit

https://www.literotica.com/s/sliding-down-the-bank

To 99.9999% of the population its not erotic. But to the fans of the dark side it is.

I have written a few dark side stories

https://www.literotica.com/s/the-fat-drunk-chain-smoker this one is actually based on a long interview with someone. I have absolutely no idea if that someone was telling *me* a story or not.

But personally l think my darkest story is https://www.literotica.com/s/never-kiss-your-mark because the whole premise is about the hitman falling in love with the target and whether they can complete the task. To me that is dark...

 

[anthrodisiac]

I think my darkest story is not the one where I torture a guy — that's fear demons doing their thing, it's cut with humor, and he's fine at the end. My darkest story is The Valentine Debt, which is on its surface a rom-com, but with a society built on the suffering and horrific abuse of demons at the whims of humans, and even the "Don't Abuse Demons" people don't actually see them as sentient, more like animals, basically PETA. But demons are sentient, it's just that the summoning spell forces them to be utter subservient and sycophantic (why yes, they are basically AI if AI were creatures from another plane shackled to the whims of man), so a good chunk of summoners use them in ways that would be abhorrent if they were people — slave labor, sadism, mutilation, taking parts, and the demons are all like "Thank you, master, for hacking my limbs offs." Nobody realizes, or wants to think too hard about it, that the demons are sentient creatures as smart as humans. Even the MC, who in his mind is quite nice to his demon, uses her for sex even though she has no say in it.

It's horrific, how easily people just accept this super-convenient tool, and even the nicest, most mild-mannered of them still abuse them, because that's just the done thing. The demons in the story are actually kinder, more merciful, empathetic creatures than the humans, though it's not explicitly touched on. She gets that same power over him, and instead of forcing him to do horrific things, she has him take her on cute dates. Imagine flipping that with a human, and wouldn't most people think it was not only okay, but perfectly justified if she were to hurt him, exact brutal revenge? Says a lot about humans, doesn't it?

 

[StillStunned]

Are there any genres or tropes that are intrinsically dark? Can dark be applied to any genre or trope? What does "dark" mean?

I think "dark" can mean many different things in many different situations. Mostly, though, it involves going outside comfortable boundaries of society. So dark humour has you thinking "Oh, this is really not politically correct but it's funny!" Dark erotica takes you beyond conventional situations of love, lust and comfort, and into dangerous ones involving fear, horror and coercion. Dark fantasy and sci-fi explore the nastier side that people are capable of, either individually or as a group or society.

I also agree with what @anthrodisiac says above (no surprise there), that a lot of it has to do with mood. To tap into a dark theme, you have to make the writing dark. The reader has to buy into it and be willing to go on that journey. If you have a cosy detective story about a serial killer, it won't be as dark as a dystopian tale of someone trying to get home before the nanoswarms come out at night to consume every human they meet - even if the protagonist never actually encounters the swarms, and even if the serial killer leaves severed heads on people's doorsteps.

Common themes might be fear, uncertainty, guilt, lust, oppression, loss of control, hopelessness. If the story's mood is dominated by any of those, I'd call it pretty dark.

I have several stories I'd call "dark". The City of Scum is about awful people doing awful things, but The Only Flower On Rose Street is maybe the darkest. Not A Soul is dark from start to finish, with the eeriness of a seemingly abandoned space station and then naked zombies and other mysterious happenings. Love at First Sight is at first a love letter, but it quickly turns out to be "disturbing as fuck", as the commenters say, with a creepy, obsessive stalker and the ambiguity of whether the neighbour knows.

There are others with some degree of darkness while not quite going all the way. Even my Scarlet Pimpernel fan fic The Scourge of Sainte Barbara, like the original novel by Baroness Orczy, is more Gothic horror than an adventure story, and my sword & sorcery stories tend to veer into grimdark territory.

I like writing darker stories. But strangely, I don't really enjoy reading them much.

 

[Ianus4]

Unfortunately, in many cases, this is a euphemistic term used to describe abusive relationships in which one partner exhibits psychopathic traits.