Dark fiction is a rather popular sub-genre with all its mystery and intrigue and general eeriness. Dark fiction stories pride themselves on these qualities. If you are a new writer, perhaps you’re looking for some tips on how to create your own piece of dark fiction. Here are a few ways to get started:
- Try setting your story at night. This will ensure that you have plenty of darkness to work with. You are allowed to make use of moonlight and starlight, though. After all, your readers need to be able to see what’s happening. For bonus points, make ultimate use of the darkness by having your characters go outside. If they cannot go outside, they should at least look out windows and doors every now and then. Otherwise, what’s the point of all that darkness?
- A power outage can also be very useful for writing dark fiction. As long as it’s at night. Or inside a building with no windows. Otherwise, it’s not really dark, now is it? If you do choose to go with a power outage, make sure your characters have adequate candles and flashlights, because, as mentioned in the first tip, your readers want to know what’s happening. They don’t want to spend their time reading a book where people just stumble around in the dark with their arms stretched out in front of them wondering who turned out the lights.
- Make use of items that can help create darkness, such as really thick curtains and burned out light bulbs. This will help you keep that dark fiction vibe going should you find your story suddenly taking place during a sunny day. Stories sometimes do that.
- Don’t keep your dark fiction story completely in the dark. I mean that literally, of course. If a story contains nothing but darkness from beginning to end, then your readers will get used to it, and the darkness will lose its effect. Balance out your story with some light scenes.
- Old mansions and creepy forests are some of the best settings for the dark, especially since these places can sometimes be sketchy even in the daylight. Adding that extra layer of darkness will remove a level of certainty from your characters and get the point across to your readers: this is dark fiction. How many hungry animals are lurking down the path? How many ghosts are waiting in the room ahead? If there’s light, the answer is zero. If it’s dark, the answer is definitely higher.
And there you have it. If you follow these tips, your story will be quite dark indeed. Just remember that these are guidelines, not rules. If you don’t want to follow them, don’t. It’s your story after all. I’ve just provided these to help other writers nail that dark fiction-
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And anyways, you can’t deny the fact that these tips are quite useful.