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@allison-grace I really appreciate the way that you re-hashed what I said and gave some concrete examples from your own stories. 🙂 I liked this rant! You should go off on them more often. XD

@morreafirebird Heartily agree that motivation is one of the most important things to remember as a writer. Where does the arrow ultimately point the reader?

@kelly-lundgren I completely agree with what you are saying, that hope and joy are ultimately the most realistic parts of “real life” that we could write. Thank you for bringing that up!

Also, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been so negatively effected by this focus in a lot of modern/new stories. I agree that it is really not an accurate reflection on the ultimate reality we are trying to draw foremost attention to, as Christian writers.

One thing as a small reminder, though. I think we need to be careful to allow for a broad variety in types of stories, ranging from quite dark and disturbing, to lighthearted or even comical. And everything in-between.

I’ve learned over the past few years that there may well be a place for legitimately dark, horrible stories. A very small place, but a place for some people, nonetheless. The darker and more shocking, the smaller the effective audience will be, but I think we need to be careful not to de-legitimize stories simply because they go further than our personal preference.

Keep in mind everything that I said in my first answer, and also remember that I agree with you that the sum of the focus ought to be on the ultimate realities which give substance, hope, and joy to our lives here on earth.

But I personally believe that it is legitimate for some stories to purposefully shock their readers with the level and/or kind of darkness that they portray (again, purposefully and not wantonly). Actual gory details is not what I have in mind; nor actual details of any other kind of immorality. Rather, the level and kind of darkness and evilness being confronted is what shocks the reader. There are a very few things that I have encountered which brought me to such a place of perturbation that I came away with very deep and prolonged thought on the topic, in addition to the emotional turbulence that it created within me.

If these particular stories had shied away and not gone as “far”, it would have been much easier for me to deal with, ignore, and brush aside. But because the evil was right there in my face without filters, it was as if the veil was ripped off my eyes and I truly confronted the nature of evil in a very deep and powerful way. And it made me hate it so completely and thoroughly. It made me long for and desire goodness – God Himself – so much more. It made me cry out: Come, Lord Jesus!

It had the net effect of causing me to meditate for a long while on God’s truth, how HIS world works, how amazing and uplifting and beautiful goodness is, and conversely how terrible and horrible evil is (and it brought me to see and hate the evil in my own life more completely, and resolve to abandon it).

I can say with confidence that the vast majority of readers would not be able to come away with that kind of response. It would end up traumatizing them, and leave them unable to process and work through it mentally, so as to arrive at the net effect that I was able to get to. So I do not recommend or promote this kind of storytelling, nor do I willy-nilly recommend the specific stories that did this. It would not be right to be wanton with so sharp and terrible a knife as that.

But can it be used for good? I do believe so – to a very specific audience. Am I comfortable writing with that level of darkness? No, not personally. (Unless it was something that I released privately and advertised through word of mouth to people I knew would benefit from the challenge of working through that level of darkness.)

I guess, in summary, I don’t want to present a uniform idea of what ‘level’ of darkness we include in our stories. The ultimate realities must be included, as you said @kelly-lundgren , or we aren’t being faithful to what “real life” actually is. But beyond that, audience, motivation, and intent do inform us most of all – and that means that there will be (and should be!) a whole spectrum of stories that are lighter and darker, depending on what the individual authors are comfortable with writing, and who they are writing to. As readers, we have to be careful to discern who’s who and stick with those who benefit our souls – keeping them fixed on heavenly realities most of all.