Fantasy comes in many different styles and forms, and there are so many kinds that you can read from out there. The idea of fantasy itself typically refers to a world that is different from our own in some capacity and it almost always involves the idea of a magic system or at least something whimsical. Realistically-speaking, there needs to be something that separates a world in a fantasy story from the world we live in every day. Of course, there are the well-known subgenres like high fantasy, dark fantasy, contemporary fantasy, etc… But there is one subgenre that I think sticks out as a very different kind, and that is grimdark fantasy.
Grimdark is a broad term used to describe a wide variety of fantasy novels and although no two grimdark stories are alike in all things, there are some telltale pieces of grimdark novels that make them, well, grimdark. So, for today’s post I’m going to be breaking down what grimdark fantasy is, as well as if you should write your own grimdark fantasy story!
Check out my article on how to outline a fantasy series!
WHAT IS GRIMDARK FANTASY?
Grimdark itself as a term is popularly associated with the Warhammer series, which if you don’t know what Warhammer is, go ahead and give it a chance. You will find yourself overwhelmed at first, but Warhammer is really cool. Warhammmer’s tagline reads like this: “In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.” So, you can pretty much see where the idea of grimdark as a term comes from.
Anyways, grimdark refers to fantasy stories that combine horror and fantasy elements into one big mashup. One of the things that sets grimdark apart from other fantasy books is the fact that grimdark novels tend to portray very bleak, very violent, very grim, and very gruesome worlds at their center and the element of hope is basically dead.
There isn’t really a set defined boundary for what makes a story grimdark and there have been many attempts at giving it a definition. Still, a lot of people will agree that grimdarks tell fantasy stories by showcasing more realistic portrayals of the sword and shield heroes from traditional fantasy stories. It’s also a sort of “anti-Tolkien” because, well, grimdarks are about hopelessness and darkness while Tolkien believed that fantasy is supposed to inspire and give hope to readers. Two distinct schools of thought on fantasy, clearly.
Characters in grimdarks tend to be either morally gray or teetering on being basically villains themselves, making morally questionable choices and being unafraid to destroy the world around them if need be.
POPULAR GRIMDARK BOOKS
There have been many books released in the past that have been popularly classified as grimdarks. Among those are George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, which is a very dark and gritty story and if you’ve ever at least heard of Game of Thrones, you’ll know that.
Steven Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Mark Lawrence’s The Broken Empire (favorite of mine), and more are all great examples of grimdarks. If you want even more grimdarks to check out, just type in “grimdark books” on any search engine and check out what results you get. There’s A LOT.
The idea of grimdark really just refers a lot to the story at the center being dark, gritty, nihilistic and more. Some people have classified Batman and The Walking Dead as being grimdarks, just in different genres of fiction.
Personally, I find that grimdarks can easily be observed in video games too like Dark Souls and Elden Ring, which are two games that I strongly recommend you play.
SHOULD YOU WRITE GRIMDARK FANTASY?
Grimdarks are a bit difficult to write for some out there because they are very much bleaker stories than others. Some writers just don’t enjoy writing sad or dark books–which is totally understandable!
Grimdark, I would say, is for the writer that loves fantasy but also loves to explore the darker sides of humanity. It’s a great pick for fans of horror too who also enjoy fantasy elements in books.
I also think that grimdark requires a good amount of effort in world building because in order to make a good grimdark story, your dark world needs to be justified. So, if you like world building (which you can get started with by reading some of the articles on my blog), then go for writing grimdark!
So, with this being said… how can one actually write a grimdark story? Here’s all you need to know.
ESSENTIAL GRIMDARK ELEMENTS
THE ANTIHERO/MORALLY GRAY HERO
At the core of any great grimdark is the hero that isn’t really a hero, if we’re being honest. When we hear the word “hero,” we think of this noble knight riding atop a white horse, plowing through a field of really clearly evil villains. So, basically, Tolkien-esque heroes.
Now, the opposite end of the spectrum are heroes that are basically villains at some point, let’s be honest. For instance, Jorg Ancrat from The Broken Empire. That guy is… I have a hard time classifying him as a hero. Technically, we root for him because he’s the main character, but everyone in the story is just so evil to the point where it’s like, yeah Jorg isn’t so bad, all things considered.
I’ve written a guide on my page about how to write a morally gray hero, which you should check out if you need some help with this. The main things you need to know about a character like this is that the morally gray hero and the antihero will ultimately fight for something they perceive as good but use bad means to get to their end goal.
BAD GOVERNMENTS
At the core of any destroyed nation is a government that has toppled it. Like in dystopian novels, a big bad government typically plays a big bad role in why a country has gone to the big bad side. The government tends to serve as the arm of oppression in a country and suppresses any dissent, controlling populations and killing off those that disobey anything they declare truth.
At the core of the government is likely some sort of corruption or something that made it the way it is. This corruption needs to be deep and existent in the government to the point where it could easily spur destructive conflicts.
If you want to learn how to design a government for your fantasy world, I have a guide on that too.
A ROBUST MAGIC SYSTEM
As with all fantasy stories, robust magic systems are very important. Some fantasy stories tend to go further into the magic system than others and some fixate on the magic more than others, but you should have some element of magic in your fantasy story. Personally, I find that if you’re writing a grimdark, chances are your story is going to have a deep world and deep story, so why not include a deep magic system?
Magic systems don’t have to be totally original, by the way. You could easily just use magic systems that are known in real-life. You could also just make up one if you’d like, and if you want to learn how to do that, you can also check out my guide on designing high fantasy magic systems. This works for any fantasy genre though.
For the most part, grimdark, being dark and grim of course, will likely have a dark magic system at its core. The magic may be sinister or used for mostly sinister purposes. It could be used by the main character or the villain or whoever you want, but if it exists, making it dark could help showcase more of the grimdark in your story.
WAR, TERRIBLE WAR
Grimdark fantasy stories, being grimdarks, tend to have war at their center. Look at most of the popular grimdark stories you can find and they mainly include a war of some capacity. The war is an overarching element because war represents some of the worst parts of humanity. With war, there is a guarantee of death and violence, and those two pieces are big in grimdarks.
Writing a war requires a lot of things, of course among them the warring parties, the reasons for going to war, the end-goal of the war and so on and so forth. When writing a war, don’t just write it for the sake of having a war; give real reasons for the existence of the war. The stakes should be high enough to have people dish it out violently, so think hard about this part.
TRAGEDY AND SOME MORE TRAGEDY
Another element that I find quite often in the world of grimdark fantasy books is that there is a lot of tragic pieces present in the world. The main character, being morally gray, likely started their life out in some tragedy or went through something very tragic and traumatic to shape their personality.
The dark tone of grimdark also sets up the story for tragic events to occur because darkness and tragedy go hand-in-hand. You can be creative here and try to figure out how this works in your story, but ultimately, you probably want to think about something tragic happening.
Ultimately, grimdark is a very loose label that doesn’t really have a finite definition. I think when it comes to grimdark, there are some identifiable elements that make a book grimdark, but even some people don’t label popularly labeled grimdark books as grimdarks.
If you decide to embark on writing your own grimdark book, think about the elements I talked about in this article but know that you can really do whatever it is that you want. You can write about anything and everything in your grimdark, but having those identifiable elements helps to market it better as a grimdark.
And before you go, don’t forget to check out my series, The Fallen Age Saga. I’d never really labeled it as grimdark, but I guess there’s A LOT of grimdark present in it. In any case, go check it out to see how I spin some of these ideas into a book. You can buy my books over on Amazon right now!