Grimdark, Grimlight, and Noblebright

I wanted to take a break from my Q&A with Random House (Blanvalet-Verlag) to discuss something that's been on my mind recently.

Grimdark.

If you're unfamiliar with the Grimdark genre, it's because the word was coined only recently (like in the last 5-10 years). In fact, wikipedia has this quote:

"Grimdark is a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent. The term is inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000: 'In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.'"

So it can get pretty dank up in thar. Most characters are grey (or very dark), and there is very little in the way of definite virtue. Instead, everything is kind of harsh. The world? In decline. The setting? Bleak. The characters? Amoral.

Sometimes those stories are profane, vulgar, and vile (and people love them). Sometimes they aren't any of those things, but there is a pervading sense of nihilism or "grimness" that leaves everything feeling . . . well . . . dark. And when the themes become so dark they take on a life of their own, we begin venturing into horror, which one may argue is right on the border of Grimdark.

But then there is the exact opposite Grimdark: a genre of fiction that people are calling "Noblebright." Returning to Wikipedia...

Another trope proposed to provide a contrast to grimdark is "noblebright", which takes as its premise that not only are there good fights worth fighting, but that they are also winnable and result in a happy ending.

Clear? Sort of. Let's shed even more light on the distinction, though, by turning to the description given on NobleBright.org:

The words grimdark and noblebright arose as technical terms in the gaming world. There’s a certain amount of dispute about the exact definitions there, with a tendency to paint them in black and white terms (such as the slur that noblebright is all about rainbows and unicorns and flawless heroes).

In fiction, by contrast, especially adventure fiction (in which I class things like Westerns and Fantasy) they have come to be used to reflect two different and opposed styles of story. Since there is some dispute about the definitions, it behooves me to offer my own.

GRIMDARK

The notion that the actions of one person can do little to improve this world in decline, that the forces of evil and inertia and temptation will ensure that all of us are doomed. The best we can hope for is a little struggle with morally ambiguous heroes to oppose danger and maybe rescue for a brief time a few others.

NOBLEBRIGHT
The notion that the actions of one person can make a difference, that even if the person is flawed and opposed by strong forces, he can (and wants to) rise to heroic actions that, even if they may cost him his life, improve the lives of others.

So there you have it. The majority of folks would say that Grimdark is, at its heart, nihilistic. Noblebright is, by contrast, hopeful.

Now, I tend to view myself (as an author and as a person) as someone who embraces hope. That should make me a Noblebright author.

And yet, I've had a strong visceral reaction against fantasy novels that portray overly noble characters (people that seem too good to be true). I have a hard time stomaching repeated nobility and often incredible virtue. Why? Because most people AREN'T LIKE THAT. People are vain. People are selfish. People are cruel. Not all of us, but enough that I'm skeptical of anyone's intentions till I get to know them better. I may try to give every person the benefit of the doubt (even those people whom others have written off as being terrible people), but I only do that until I can form a decision for myself.

So does that make me Noblebright or Grimdark? I think neither.

My desire is to tell stories that feel authentic (that resonate with real life, even while being entirely fantastic). That means I tell stories with bad people in them doing bad things. That means there are also good people trying to do good (and trying to remain good).

But not everyone succeeds. Sometimes, good people become bad. Sometimes the bad ones redeem themselves. More often, we're all struggling to do what we perceive to be good. We are all the heroes of our own story and, as such, our actions don't seem evil (to us). So my goal is to tell that story. My goal is to show someone trying to be good . . . and failing.

Because we all fail. None of us is perfect. None of us is the white knight or the superman whose motives are beyond question. Each of us -- every single one of us -- makes mistakes. Sometimes they are bad, and sometimes they are VERY bad. Sometimes we acknowledge our mistakes, and sometimes we don't.

That's probably a grim outlook on life, but I think it's also a true one. It's not void of hope -- it's not "nihilistic" -- but it's realistic. It's authentic.

But "authentic" isn't a subgenre in fantasy (and probably never should be given that we are talking about speculative fiction). So let me propose a different term:

Grimlight.

It's gritty (just like real life), but there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Some characters will pursue that light, no matter the costs. Others will say that cost is too high. And people from BOTH groups can be objectively bad or good. You may see the light, for example, but are you willing to sacrifice others to obtain it? Doesn't that make you a villain? Alternatively, if you have a chance to change the world for the better, but you decide the cost is too great, does that make you a hero?

I think the answer is that we are all heroes and villains. Heroes to ourselves, certainly (well, usually), and villains to our adversaries. It's rare to be considered a hero by your adversaries, right? I'm safe in saying at least that, I think.

Anyway. If I'm going to place myself between those two genres, I usually find myself leaning towards Grimdark because it feels the most honest. And I want to tell an honest story. At the same time, my belief that flawed people can rise to heroic actions would place me in the Noblebright camp. I'm not sure how often that happens, though. Half the time? More? Less? It really depends on the person doing the action and the people objectively judging that action.

And that's all subjective, which is why I feel more comfortable with the term "Grimlight." To better explain that term, though, I'm going to refer to a conversation I had recently on the Grimdark Fiction Facebook group. The context is a debate about what makes readers like or dislike YA fiction. I chimed in with this:

I'm curious about a lot of this since I wrote my first book as a gritty epic fantasy (debatable grimdark), but the protagonist is young, so many people have slid it into the YA genre. That's fine for now I guess, but my protagonist isn't going to be 17 years old forever. And if by Book 3 they are 30 years old and drinking the blood of their enemies from a human skull...is that still YA?

Another member, Jenny Windler Sullivan, responded with this:

I know a lot of people consider a book to be YA based in the age of the protagonist. I think this is a bad way to do things, look at Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns story. The lead is only a child but it is definitely not middle grade. It should be based on story content. And there are definitely books with inappropriate content like sex that get slipped into YA that should be considered new adult or adult as they are really too mature for a 14 yr old (like a court if thorns and roses series by Sarah j maas). So the water is muddied a bit. Maybe due to YA being a quite popular genre right now and wanting to get their hand in the pot.

And I followed up with this insight:

Exactly. Same thing with the Book of the Ancestor series (also by Mark). When the protagonist is young, people make assumptions. 
I think another part of the problem (if it can be considered a problem at all) is that many youth WANT to read more adult novels, and publishers are recognizing that. There are no hard lines in YA that say how many swear words you can have, or how much violence is too much violence, or how much profanity/sex/taboo stuff you can insert before parents are uncomfortable with what their kids are reading (and kids feel like they have to hide it from their parents).
At the same time, there is a great huge swathe of adults who like reading "adult fantasy" but who get uncomfortable when there is an excess of any of the things mentioned above. Now, those adults could go into the YA section, but they usually don't. Instead, they look for authors like Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan. They look for the books that feel 3-dimensional and authentic, but which aren't so dark or profane as to offend themselves or their families. 

I think writing for that particular audience must be very hard, especially when you want to stay authentic to the people and situations in your stories, which may mean allowing your characters to do very bad things (and then describing those bad things). How you choose to describe them (how often and in how much detail) is what determines whether your writing is really dark and gritty Grimdark (the stuff young kids shouldn't be touching) or whether it's Grimdark-lite (Grimdark-light?).

There should be a name for that. Maybe Grimlight. Heh. Yeah, I'm coining that.

In an entirely separate discussion in the same Facebook group, we were discussing the differences between Dark Fantasy and Grimdark (if there really is a difference), and one member, Henry Lopez, said this:

 I think the main point of distinction are the characters (both protagonists and antagonists), In Grimdark stories, I find that they are three dimensional characters that are neither wholly good or evil, while in Dark Fantasy, the characters are "good" dealing with dark and horrific situations. Obviously, this isn't a blanket statement, but I find it to be true for most of what I've read.

Based on Henry's definition, I'm definitely a Grimdark writer. But based on what I've already outlined here, it's not so black-and-white as all that (which is ironic, given all the discussion of greys in Grimdark lit). I don't really write horror either, though there are often horrific elements in my stories.

Ultimately, I still place myself squarely in the epic fantasy subgenre, but a lot of that is rife with what we might call Noblebright fiction . . . and I'm less comfortable with that label.

Grimlight, though? That feels right. In fact, as I search the interwebs for any previous mentions of this term, I'm finding that Barnes and Noble already coined it when discussing The Grey Bastards by Jonathan French (check it out here). Speaking of his book, Sam Reader said:

The Grey Bastards delivers a tonic to fantasy stories of unrelenting cynicism. It refuses to go easy on its heroes, but also recognize that making things hard for them doesn’t mean the book has to be hard on its readers. When it does trade in grimdark tropes, rather than revel in them, it interrogates their presence in the story. It is a story of harsh characters within a harsh realm, but its heroes are trying to do better and be better. And in a world where light and comfort are rare commodities,  that makes all the difference.

Now that sounds like the kind of books I write (and the kind of story I've set out to tell in Master of Sorrows and The Silent Gods series). Is it Grimlight or just optimistic Grimdark? I favor Grimlight myself, but I'm curious to know what y'all think. Please share your comments below.

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