Empathizing the Unreal in Grimdark

When reading a story about magical spells and alien creatures, the one thing you're always aware of is that none of it is real. Fantasy is just that: the unreal in literature. Yet somehow, it's easier to feel the world and the story in fantasy than it often is in stories with real-world settings.

Feeling empathy for a character - even a non-human one - is a universal in fantasy, and while it may be related to the type of person that often enjoys such reading, there's no denying that the genre gives authors certain freedom to mess with the reader's emotions.

The sense of touch is often lost in literature. Authors describe what something looks like, sounds like, tastes like or smells like. That drops you into the setting in a more immersive way. However, it's rare that touch and how someone actually feels is given the same attention. It's mentioned in passing with texture or temperature or pain, but rarely is it presented in a way that allows the reader to truly feel what the character is feeling.

Remember Game of Thrones and the definition of "grimdark?" The author of The First Law Trilogy, Joe Abercrombie, recently did a Reddit AMA ("Ask Me Anything") about his two heavily grimdark series and new young adult novel that deviates from his usual writing. One of the defining characteristics of First Law is the extensive detail he gives about feeling, both physical and emotional.

One Redditor in particular was intrigued by his presentation of a character's pain.

akiaki007: "The First Law trilogy is…one of the few series where I could actually feel my entire body (especially that one when you feel real fear), tightening up when reading through the torture scenes. The nails.... How did you come up with that stuff? Did you read excerpts of what soldiers have gone through?"
JA: "I sometimes felt the epic fantasy I read as a kid was a bit detached, a bit formal, a sense of seeing things from a distance. I wanted to write in a way that felt visceral, involved, uncomfortably close to the action, that put the reader in the skin of the characters. That was really the approach to the violence, the sex, the torture, to everything."

 

Abercrombie's writing is a particularly good example of how grimdark is often more effective at presenting feelings. I mean, the guy's Twitter handle is @LordGrimdark, so it's clear he knows the genre a little bit.

 

You can find an abridged summary of Abercrombie's AMA via Tor.com here.