dark moments, falling action

I read a novella and a short story recently, and I've been thinking about them and about stories and how we tell them, what we tell, etc. The novella was Iona Datt Sharma's Division Bells; super highly recommended. Love develops between two bureaucrats who are working for a minister in the UK's House of Lords. They're working on legislation, and the minutiae of that and of trying to work for good things in real life, within flawed systems, weaves together perfectly with their personal stories. I...