Where in your opinion does the boundary lie for a ‘dark’ book? How dark can i make a book before it becomes unreadable? And I’m not talking about a horror story, more of a fantasy story with killings and dark secrets hidden inside each character. I’m writing a book and i feel like my story is becoming incredibly dark and evil, i don’t want to go overboard with the ‘darkness’ as i don’t want to turn off readers but i just cant figure out where this ‘overboard’ is… Also the target market in my mind is young adult/early twenties.
If you worry about that, have little pauses in your story, give your characters a little break from all these deaths and all the mysteries, because if you make it too full on then people will get SICK of it
If you don’t want them to get sick of your story, add some funny parts and compare stuff to other stuff because that will keep people reading
The key thing in writing is not to bore readers, and yet not to over do things, if that is what you are asking,when I was reading this other book yesterday, it just bored me to death so I skipped two chapters and then there was this new weirdo guy being introduced and he was telling the main characters all this crap and I was like wtf is this?
So the KEY thing in writing is think in the point of your characters, describe their feelings at all times if your book is all gloomy and murderous then just simply make your characters funny to keep the readers entertained
Hope I helped 😀
There’s no such thing as too dark, especially if you intend for your novel to be a dark one. Fantasy usually has elements of darkness and horror. Think about where you want your novel to be along the spectrum, and think about what elements of it are vital to it. You may find upon reflection that a lot of the stuff that you deem too dark aren’t needed in the story anyway, and just take up excess room.
I don’t think there is any. I think that when it comes to arts, as long as it is well done there is never a ‘too much’. Personally I think that those who are daring and aren’t afraid to do something are often the best writers.
Make it as dark as you want, if the story is interesting the reader will read it for sure. Don’t worry about making it too dark, its your story do whatever you want 🙂
Hope I helped 😀
American Psycho is a pretty mainstream book and you are asking this.