How cynical is my writing?

• The protagonists are either extremely dark Type IV or Type V anti-heroes, if not downright bad guys. The people they fight are often worse, or possibly even morally superior to the protagonists themselves.
• The worlds they inhabit are ''not'' very pleasant. At worst, EVERYBODY is shallow, narcissistic, psychopathic, perverted, violent or a combination of them all. If there are any "good" characters, they usually turn out to be hopelessly naive or backstabbing bastards.
  • To elaborate further: Record unemployment. Massive crime rates. The police is either incompetent, corrupt, or committing crimes themselves. The adoption industry exists solely as a means of sadistic child molesters and porn kings to get their hands on their next "sweetheart" or "star attraction". Yes, possessing child pornography (as well as snuff films) is legal, and the shit is sold at your local video stores. Educational stage parents take bets on their kids, and profit off their successes, only to have them whacked brutally more or less for the hell of it or because they've become liability to their plans. Recreational drug use, promiscuous sex, and ultraviolence are the vices of our heroes and villains, who are mostly apathetic about it. I could go on about how much my worlds suck.
• The endings are either extremely bittersweet, full-fledged downers or just plain bizarre. Expect plenty of characters to get killed off in anticlimactic ways.
• Lots and lots of eighties music. And bad weather.

edited 6th Nov '11 3:45:09 PM by ConnorBible

It sounds pretty cynical, but is there an in-story reason your world is like that?

I guess sorta generically cynical? Maybe? Why does this matter to you?

Read my stories!

I'm starting to think its too dark. There's got to be a reason for why readers should care about what's going on instead of tossing the book aside and saying "What a piece of sleaze."

It certainly sounds cynical. If you like it or you're trying to make a point by it then I don't see something especially wrong with it (though I personally dislike overly cynical works) but if it's just a matter of thinking "True Art Is Grim Dark" then shine a light on that thing right now. The same if it's a personal style. Everyone should have experience writing stuff they don't normally write. Write something nice and fluffy for practice, or at the very least Earn Your Happy Ending.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

If you're starting to think it's getting to be too dark, ask yourself why. Why is the adoption system the way it is? Why can't decent people exist? Why is the weather so terrible?

If you feel an answer isn't good enough to keep a certain component, take it out.

This. I frankly wouldn't read it no matter what your reasons are for writing that way, but if you have some, then it's not as much of a problem as it would be if you just make GRIMDARK works for the heck of it (or, heaven help you, because you think it makes them good).

definitly interesting... add a little grey and grey morality, dead baby comedy, and other things, and you have what is normally considered "good" grimdark writing... but post some of your work, and do you have any reasons in-story for why your worlds are like that?

selling property in hell, lake-of-lava front timeshare with hitler or cheap 5th ring, only 250000 souls

Sounds a lot like Terrible Things Happen to Akane.

Except the part about the eighties music. I should try to find a way to add eighties music.

Teens dress as Batman to catch pedophiles; cops not impressed

See, there's nothing wrong with being dark, really.

It's being unrealistically dark.

For example, the concept of a completely irredeemable Crapsack World is absurd. That doesn't mean there can't be a Crapsack World, so much as it means that there should be a reasonable chance to change that world, and the people in it should be people, not card-carrying cardboard cutouts of villainy monsters.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is the enemy, here. Keep it realistic and vaguely hopeful despite all the shit, and you're good.

That...

Or make it absurdly funny, a la Happy Tree Friends.

I am now known as Flyboy.

What about Se7en?

I mean, yeah, it has Morgan Freeman, but even he admits he can't change anything.

edited 6th Nov '11 8:31:01 PM by Dragonzordasaurus

Teens dress as Batman to catch pedophiles; cops not impressed

There is a distinct difference between a fatalistic story and an utterly lightless one.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I think I'm one of the very few people in the world who hated Se7en. It was probably that horrible Sloth scene and the whole "The world is bad" ending.

I really hate cynicism. Most cynical people tend to focus too much in the bad aspects of the world (and don't seem to realize that every bad thing require a lack of a previously existing good thing, meaning it's imposible for evil to exist independently) and also ignore how much humanity has improved in thousands of years. It pisses me off because I'm part of a minority that isn't cynical.

I also can't stand people that make generalizations based on the actions of a few people. I mean, because someone did something horrible, another person says Humans Are Bastards, as if everybody is in the same level. This is ridiculous and, sadly, far too common.

edited 8th Nov '11 1:53:46 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

There are some comments I read, who dare say "My faith in humanity has just dropped (to zero)" etc. etc., and I think.. to put it as softly as I can, it's total fucking bullshit to make these generalising comments about an entire species - on the actions of an individual. Because you've witnessed how dark it can go, you imagine the light doesn't exist anymore? Get real.

I thought that it was more An Aesop about how getting too personally involved where you shouldn't has terrible consequences, but I guess that's just me.

Also, isn't that painting in seriously broad strokes? Depending upon how one defines "cynicism," a work heavy with it can easily be of a reformational or even, ultimately, positive tone.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

No, you're probably right. The overall cynical tone just doesn't work well for me.

You know The Prestige? it's a good movie, but there's a small speech in the end about how things are miserable and simple in reality and people like being fooled. This kind of thing just ruins a movie for me. I think I'm very unique in this aspect. This is existence. It's all that we have and it's so much more than we can imagine. Oversimplifying it and trying to make me believe that things ultimately suck is a major Berserk Button for me.

edited 8th Nov '11 12:18:47 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Answering the OP: yeah, it's very cynical. What's the point in this? Is there anything ''good' at stake? Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is not a very nice thing, and it seems very difficult to care for anyone or anything in this world you've created.

edited 8th Nov '11 1:20:30 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Trust me, you aren't, though I don't get as worked up about it as you seem to.

Yeah, that's what I meant, more or less. Acting like that and insulting life and existence is practically the equivalent of a blasphemy to me.

edited 9th Nov '11 7:41:28 AM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

The problem, I think, lies less with the idea that life sucks than with the way that most people go about portraying it. For example, buying into the fallacy that "people are horrible" is the same as "the world is horrible". While many people who believe one tend to believe the other, they do not, by definition, go hand in hand, as demonstrated by many sects of Buddhism, Gnosticism, and so forth.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Except both are wrong. Most people aren't horrible, and the majority of things in existence aren't, either. It's just that the bad ones tend to stand out a lot. One thing remains true, though: most people are stupid (but that doesn't mean they are devoid of qualities).

edited 9th Nov '11 2:11:02 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

You should probably preface these statements of opinion with, "I think that..." so as to avoid a certain degree of shrillness that you may not intend.

Note that the possible terseness of my tone comes less from that I disagree with the sentiment *

than that I am a bit perturbed by your statement of opinion as provable fact, which it really is not.

edited 9th Nov '11 4:23:14 PM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Which statement? I made more than one. I'll try to explain my convictions, then.

Everything that you can call "evil" is only evil because there is a contrast between it and a certain condition you would consider satisfactory. That means that suffering is only possible when there is a perspective of satisfaction of some kind that is not met. This is not just my opinion, anyone can conclude that if they think about it.

Death, devastation, hunger, disease, etc., all indicate one thing: lack of life. If these things are mostly considered evil, than that means that most people (unconsciously) see living as a good thing or at least better than being dead. If they truly don't think that life is a good thing, then death, devastation and killings can't be bad things either. Also, I should mention that there is more life than death, since, you know, things need to be alive to die, and there are alive things nowadays.

Likewise, it's impossible to consider something ugly if you don't have a model for beauty in your mind. Also, the better defined your models are, the more perfectionist you become and the more dissatisfactory things whose characteristics are lacking or excessive in comparison to the model will seem.

The same logic applies for every "bad" thing. My point is: it's logically impossible for everything to be horrible, because horrible things require good things.

Even if someone says "I hate everything", that can't be true. It's just a retarded and meaningless thing some people say when they are furious or very sad.

With people, it's a lot more complex, but something similar applies: if one can see that actions made by other people are horrible, it means that his/her moral standards are at least higher that that of the people they are judging (even if they are committing the horrible feats themselves, they can recognize them as evil). If you can say Humans Are Bastards, that means you have a perspective of what a good species would be like. Just like fiction, you can't get that perspective out of nowhere.

edited 9th Nov '11 6:43:06 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Well, I would have to say that of course people have a model for beauty/kindness etc., but a cynic just thinks that, most of the time, people are not motivated into following that model, preferring instead to benefit themselves at the cost of others. Not everyone who happens to be cynical is depressed or jaded because of that; some people embrace that fact wholeheartedly, while others learn to cherish the people around them who don't fall in line with their cynical worldview.