: Make the world bigger than the conflict The real world is really dark. There are wars with millions of people dying. There's corruption and unfair imprisonment. And plenty of mostly-decent

@LarsenBagley300

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Make the world bigger than the conflict

The real world is really dark. There are wars with millions of people dying. There's corruption and unfair imprisonment. And plenty of mostly-decent people misunderstand and hate each other for mostly petty reasons.

And there are happy children, and places where there isn't deadly violence or starvation.

icanfathom observed that it is an attempt to ramp up conflict which usually drives an ever-darkening tone in a story. This is absolutely correct. I would add that a bleak grittiness is often intended as a stand-in for realism. But Monica Cellio's puppy-sitting is not less realistic than murder or betrayal. (Bonus points because involuntarily tending a potentially cast-off puppy shows incidental, "petty" compassion, breaking the monotony of dark problems and motives.)

The real distinction between gritty, harrowing, increasingly dark stories and those which maintain balance is exactly that - balance.

Even in war, there are places that the war doesn't reach because it is far away. But also, even in war there are places near at hand where people eke out some semblance of life and hope, because hope is something humans MAKE.

If the bombs stop falling for even one day, children will come out to play in the rubble

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