Dark and gritty, this certainly seems to be the prevalent theme in Hollywood. Ever since Batman Begins created a darker, more realistic version of the capped crusader, every other movie seems to want to create darker, grittier stories. This type of story telling didn't just infect movies.

Comic books have entire ages as they switched from the silly shenanigans of the 50s and 60s into the grittier, darker, bloodier and more complex stories of the modern era. And of course, I wouldn't be talking about it if this trend didn't hit books too. Every genre seems to have their own version of an awakening towards darker themes. The Fantasy genre started out with Tolkien... but is currently having a run through Game of Thrones. Just look at the progression of Harry Potter books from the innocent 'destroy evil with love' of the first book to loosing half the characters in the final book to see this dark swing.

And it's not always easy to say when a story is darker. What seemed dark when you first saw it comes off cartoonish and juvenile over the years. The Matrix once seemed dark and moody, but now it seems almost juvenile. You typically know darkness when you see it, but if you were ever asked to change a story to make it darker, or describe the elements of a story that made that story dark, you might struggle.

We've all seen stories that come off dark. However, we've also all seen stories that were supposed to be dark, but turned out to not really meet the quota. Oh, they tried to do the things dark movies do. They set the atmosphere, the color scheme, the emo dialogue, but something along the lines was lost, and instead of getting the dark story they wanted, they end up with something silly and childish. Instead of making the next 'Nightmare before Christmas', they end up making 'Monkeybones'.

There are a few trends I've noticed when I see these failures to be dark. For example, people often relate darkness to a few key things. How bad the characters act, for example. They'll create characters that are completely unlikable douchbags, because it's dark! A complete and utter lack of humor would be another common pitfall. If you're being dark, you obviously can't be funny. Increasing the kill count yet another go to making a movie darker and grittier. Murder is dark, right? Well, if murder is dark, rape is double dark!

As the logic seems to go, make a bunch of arseholes, have them rape and murder each other, give it not a single ounce of humor, and boom, you have to have a story that's dark, right?

Let's target the weakest link here first. If you can't have humor in something dark, what the heck is dark humor? Oh... so I guess there is a kind of humor that can work in a dark story, as long as that humor is a dark humor. But what is a dark humor?

I'm sure you could write an entire English doctoral dissertation on what is dark humor, and I don't think any long running conversation is going to benefit you here. I'm simply going to leave the dissection of dark humor for a time. Instead, I'd rather talk about what it takes to make a story dark, as opposed to darkly humorous. In that respect, I will point out that most of the examples I presented above were not the ways to achieve darkness. If you want to write a dark story, it isn't enough to simply make 'dark' things happen in it.

So, it isn't the murder, the 'what', that makes a story dark. So, instead, it's how that murder takes place, and why it's taking place. How is pretty simple to grasp. It would usually be in a harder to stomach way. If it was easy, it wouldn't be dark. As to the why, I think any dark story is always going to have a psychological component to it, which may be simplifying things a bit.

However, let's keep simplifying things for a moment. It's not enough for someone to be raped. They need to be disturbed by it. Afterwards, the rape victim needs to change as a result of the rape. The murderer needs to be perturbed by their murder, or the friends of the murdered need to be affected by it. Simply put, and I've pointed this out previously, the how and why are a means of showing the consequences for your actions.

If someone is murdered, it should affect the plot, story, and progression. The more you show consequences, the darker a story feels. There is a reason "dark", "gritty", and "realistic" are all used hand in hand when used to describe most darker stories. Some pretty ridiculous stories have been accused of being more 'realistic' even though their pseudo-science and over-the-top actions are just as ridiculous as any other.

Not to pick on Batman, but Batman Begins is lauded for being more realistic, yet we still having a guy dressed in rubber driving a car over rooftops. However, this batman copes with his insecurities and the idea of what it means to be a hero. However, in Dark Knight he eventually becomes ostracized by the public. By The Dark Knight Returns, he's a broken man who needs a cane when he's not using advanced robotics. Except for the truly abstract oddities of the world, the grittiest and darkest stories and tales all show consequences to their actions.

Just look at the Brothers Grimm. The "Disneyfied" tales we know today are rarely considered dark. However, the original tales by the Grimms are considered much darker. What is the main difference? True, they are a little gorier, but the main difference is the MC usually faces the consequence of their actions. The often brutal endings are the result of what happened, and when things are done, the status quo isn't maintained.

You may also notice that a lot of stories considered dark are the same kind of stories that lack plot armor. This is because they both have the same trigger. That is, if you want a story that feels dark, or a story that lacks plot armor, you're going to want characters and plot that change.

Maintaining the status quo is something that is always going to lighten a mood. If people don't think there are consequences, they struggle to get invested. Part of the trend of "darker" stories coincides with the trend of "season long arcs". In the 90s and prior, shows were 'episodic'. Monster of the week was the common phrase for many of these shows. Since the heroes always made it, and the stories were always designed so nothing major changed, you felt no weight to the actions.

Then we started doing shows fulfilling a seasonal arc. Characters could die off. Instead of a set group we see every week, things change. American Horror Story, one of the more popular 'dark horrors' kills off almost all of the characters by the end of the season. True, they get recast in the next season, but the point isn't that the actor stays, but that the characters and the story aren't set in stone.

The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad... what did all of these 'darker' shows have? A revolving cast of characters, long lasting consequences, and events that actually effect, matter, and changed the protagonists. If in Breaking Bad, if Walter White was the same character in the final story as he was in the first episode, we'd hardly be impressed. Imagine how American Horror Story would work if they had to keep the same environment and the same actors, season after season after season. It's probably just be called American Story at that point. It's dark, because we know at any point a character could die, and when they die, the story is going to change as a result. (As opposed to the kind of show that just swaps the main characters with a guy who acts similarly and then continue to do the same crap, cough, X-files, Stargate SG-1 cough)

Naturally, murder is the go to example when talking about making something dark, but I think creating something dark doesn't really have to involve death. It just involves consequence. People exist, and when someone is subjected to a negative stimulus, they need to not just react, but be changed by that stimulus. In most dark stories, that's exactly what these characters are doing. They're reacting. They're changing. Their environment controls them.

And while this may be oversimplifying things to the nmpth degree, I think that's what makes something truly dark or not. In a dark story, the environment controls the characters. The characters live in a world that they can't control, and they only can react, respond, and survive. They'll be pushed, they'll run, maybe they'll die... but in the end, they are at the mercy of their world.

As soon as you start giving power to the characters, you start losing the darkness. The stronger and more in control of their environment a character becomes, the more lighthearted the story becomes.

Or... maybe not. As I said, darkness is a hard thing to pin down. If you take anything away anything from this, simply note that adding a murder, a psycho, or dark moody hallways isn't going to make your story dark. If you want a dark story, you going to need to do a bit more. The 'what' isn't quite as important as the 'why' and the 'how'. Yeah, we'll leave it at that.