Can we split hairs? The differences between dark fantasy and grimdark

You don't define the differences, at all. As an author, there is no meaningful distinction between the two. One can be a part of the other, or the other a part of the one, depending on what term a reader likes to use.

Splitting hairs about genre boundaries misunderstands how genre terms bleed, always, into each other, and never have a clean boundary line. The difference between them is whatever helps you sell your book to readers. (Editors, generally, will not care as long as you're in the wheelhouse of what they buy. They're generally going to be the ones, with their marketing team, to pigeonhole the specific categorical moment your work will carry into the marketplace. Once it lands, all bets are off and readers will push things around as they see fit.)

I think grimdark is a smaller subset in that it is not supposed to be "modern". Whereas dark fantasy can take place in any time period.

Pick the available category that is selling better at your book's launch, and good luck.

blackcat777 said:

I saw this as an aside in another thread, it's something that's been on my mind lately, and I've consumed a mountain of differing opinions.

How do you define the differences between dark fantasy and grimdark? My mind wanders in circles when I start splitting hairs over the use of certain components, like nihilism, horror, profanity, black humor, gore, antiheroes, a general sense of hopelessness. And what are the dealbreakers, like the inclusion of hope?

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My impression is that grimdark is a subset of dark fantasy. The lines blur, the definitions overlap, and subjectivity renders the whole question too fuzzy for hairsplitting. I'm not sure any one book will have every aspect without deviation, and your work sounds like its at least in the ballpark.

Once you've finished your story / manuscript, find a genre savvy beta reader, and ask if they think it fits the aesthetic of grimdark or not. Providing they have familiarity with the genre, outside eyes often see our work with a little more clarity.

In my mind, grimdark deals with horror.

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There's only a gnat's whisker between them and it's all just marketing anyway, but I'd say generally dark fantasy leans more towards monster/occult/supernatural horror tropes, whereas grimdark is more about how horrible people are.

I'll also just add that both Dark Fantasy and Grimdark are subgenres and at the querying stage you can leave it at "Fantasy with dark themes/tones". Your agent can help you figure out exactly how they want to pitch it. (Which might differ from editor to editor. The same project can be pitched multiple ways even without changing the MS.)

Hmmmm..... Good question.


I always thought of dark fantasy as fantasy that dealt with tropes or themes more commonly seen in horror--creatures like vampires, possession etc., handled in a more "scary' way, maybe, than in UF or paranormal romance. And maybe the tone is more gothic or literary (though there's gothic fantasy as a category too).

I think of Grimdark as being an offshoot of more "traditional" fantasy set in secondary, often medieval or renaissance like worlds, but deconstructing the usual uplifting or optimistic "knights in shining armor" tropes to have a more cynical (some would say "realistic," but that is arguable) take on things with a very high body count. Or as one article I read once said, "knights who say the f word a lot."

The protagonists in grimdark tend to become deeply flawed. It can be vaguely satirical (like Abercrombie's First Law books) or more serious in tone, with a character arc that plunges the protagonist on a very evil path (like Lawrence's Prince of Thorns). Most characters suffer horribly, but the characters who are "good" or closest to it tend to suffer the most, and are often more likely to die or to suffer in ways that their goodness and optimism don't survive.

But the differences are hard to pin down, and I see the terms being used interchangeably or in overlapping ways. Maybe the best way to parse the difference is to google "top grimdark novels/authors" and "top dark fantasy novels/authors." There will be some overlap, but there will be people who are only on one of the two lists.

I think you may also have to be male (and I'm only half kidding here, as female authors, even those who write pretty dark, cynical stuff, like Anne Bishop and Kameron Hurley, never make the lists) to be considered a Grimdark writer. Some of the people referred to as Dark Fantasy writers (like Gertrude Barrows Bennett) are women.

I think "Grimdark" is more recent as well (originating as a term in the Warhammer games) while the term "dark fantasy" has been in use far longer. There are older fantasy novels (like the Elric series, Leiber's stuff, Karl Edward Wagner's books, and Gertrude Barrows Bennet and Melanie Rawn's work) that deconstruct or satirize familiar fantasy tropes and follow a "fallen" or less virtuous arc with their protagonists, but they don't tend to be categorized with Grimdark.

Thinking on it, maybe the main thing between Grimdark and traditional dark (also satirical) fantasy is the degree of graphicness or explicitness. There are torture scenes in the Elric books, for instance, and characters have been having sex in sword and sorcery style fantasy for forever, but the scenes in the First Law series are much more graphic. Also, there's more profanity in modern grimdark, and the voice tends to be more modern or contemporary in tone.

This sounds like I'm ripping on Grimdark, but actually I do like some of the books that are labeled as such. I liked the first three ASoIaF books, and I loved some of Abercrombie's books. But I never understood why people often imply that they invented fantasy with a cynical or satirical or deconstructive take on traditional tropes.

Part of the difficulty in classification is the degree of subjectivity.

Very few grimdark or dark fantasy books I've encountered were particularly dark IMO.

Not the best example but I'm using it because it won't step on writerly toes. Warhammer 40k is touted as classic grimdark and it's really not very grim, or very dark. There's no gravitas to how those elements are handled and the "grim" is borderline cheesy.

But I never understood why people often imply that they invented fantasy with a cynical or satirical or deconstructive take on traditional tropes.

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I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they've not read widely enough. That almost always seems to be the case when you encounter people who tell you proudly that they've reinvented the wheel as far as writing goes.

Who Fears Death is not considered to be dark fantasy or grimdark. It's more literary. But it's far and away one of the darkest spec fiction/lit fantasy novels I've read in recent times.

The book incorporates aspects which are very real and relevant in modern time, like weaponised rape and fem circumcision in a futuristic post apoc Africa. The gravity with which it's treated lends the grim element, and the darkness, for me, comes in the the ending (S P O I L E R S -->) which relies on magic as the solution. By which I mean, the author is essentially writing a story of hopelessness, one in which women in a future version of our earth can only overcome oppression through supernatural abilities. In other words, there is no solution, because we don't have magic, and the take away from the novel for me is that things will never get better, at least in our world.

Harlequin said:

Who Fears Death is not considered to be dark fantasy or grimdark. It's more literary. But it's far and away one of the darkest spec fiction/lit fantasy novels I've read in recent times.

The book incorporates aspects which are very real and relevant in modern time, like weaponised rape and fem circumcision in a futuristic post apoc Africa. The gravity with which it's treated lends the grim element, and the darkness, for me, comes in the the ending (S P O I L E R S -->) which relies on magic as the solution. By which I mean, the author is essentially writing a story of hopelessness, one in which women in a future version of our earth can only overcome oppression through supernatural abilities. In other words, there is no solution, because we don't have magic, and the take away from the novel for me is that things will never get better, at least in our world.

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I know what you mean. I love Okorafor's work, but that one I haven't even been able to pick up (after reading the back cover copy). I knew it would make me feel too bad and hopeless about being female. I get enough of that from reading/watching/listening to the news

It's not a question of harm, more highlighting that the category is probably highly subjective, moreso than some subgenres. One person's grimdark is another's daily grind and so forth.

Roxxsmom said:

I think you may also have to be male (and I'm only half kidding here, as female authors, even those who write pretty dark, cynical stuff, like Anne Bishop and Kameron Hurley, never make the lists) to be considered a Grimdark writer. Some of the people referred to as Dark Fantasy writers (like Gertrude Barrows Bennett) are women.

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Anna Spark Smith explicitly defines herself as grimdark. Added her to that list. Tryin'ta think of more, does CS Friedman count? I have not read Anna Stephens yet, but she'd probably be comfortable in that camp. Same goes for RJ Barker. Actually, there looks to be a new class of female grimdark authors coming down the pipeline, and so far it's been pretty exciting. It's been interesting to watch the way a lot of these grim'n'gritty authors confront gender in their works, like me they seem universally love clenched-jaw hypermasculinity and macho violence, but at some point discovered it doesn't have to be all about dudes. I've gotten a lot of teens into Abercrombie's Shattered Sea trilogy, and what pleases me is how they always say 'Yeah dude, I liked the first book, but the second one where Thorn shows up was awesome!'.

-I can understand why women don't make it to the list of grimdark authors. Realistic violence is a key component, and I've yet to read a violent scene written by a female author that was convincing. Having nasty, brutal characters of whatever gender isn't enough - you MUST be able to portray the mechanics and the tools of violence in a way that is authentic.

van Adel said:

I can understand why women don't make it to the list of grimdark authors. Realistic violence is a key component, and I've yet to read a violent scene written by a female author that was convincing. Having nasty, brutal characters of whatever gender isn't enough - you MUST be able to portray the mechanics and the tools of violence in a way that is authentic.

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Then you don't read widely enough.

Also... What the fuck.

Harlequin said:

Then you don't read widely enough.

Also... What the fuck.

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My response exactly.

Wow. Just wow. I don't know what has my jaw hanging more--the assertion that women don't understand the mechanics of violence (as if they are never victims, observers or perpetrators of it) or that an explicit description of the mechanics and tools of violence is a must (and something all those male grimdark authors are actually experienced/experts in), or that most readers of grimdark are actually people who are qualified to assess whether or not a given violent scene is accurate to begin with.

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I can see I've touched a nerve here. I'm not trying to be deliberately controversial or ignite a gender war, and for the record I think there are also plenty of male authors out there who don't/can't handle explicit violence in a way that is realistic. Name a female author who writes authentic combat scenes like Joe Abercrombie or Mark Lawrence, though. Most have a tendency to describe around the violence, to focus on reactions to it. Thoughts and feelings are a necessary part of every story, but when they play second fiddle to violence it just ain't grimdark.

Violence without emotional context of any kind is exactly what makes warhammer 40k dull, cheesy, and pulpy.

My (main) problem with your argument is that you're universalising a subjective preference based on a narrow range of authors.

I'm not going to name another author, male or female, who "matches up" to Abercrombie because I find his writing very boring and (ironically enough) inauthentic, so it would be a pointless exercise.

I don't personally like dry mechanical choreographist fiction. But neither would I ever say, men can't write authentic emotions, because that's a logical fallacy and I intensely dislike bad logic.

Whoops. Guess I better tell my editor he was wrong when he said I could write action and violence.

ETA: Violence is easy, btw. Violence that horrifies requires emotional investment.

While not specifically the type of book that's being discussed in this thread, if you need an education in whether women can write violence, I'd direct you to Toni Morrison's Beloved. I would just read more in general. Like a lot more.