How to Write Dark Fantasy: A Guide for New Authors

One of the (many) great things about the new publishing landscape is the plethora of books available for all different tastes. No matter how strange or niche you think your tastes are, you're likely to find something that will scratch that particular itch.

While dark fantasy isn't all that niche, it's a broad enough genre that it contains a number of different subcategories and story types to appeal to a broad audience of avid readers. 

So in this article, I'll go over how to write dark fantasy readers will love. 

What is Dark Fantasy?

Dark fantasy is characterized by the mixture of sinister elements commonly found in horror, and fantastic settings and storylines commonly found in fantasy. While traditional fantasy novels usually have happy endings, this is not always the case for dark fantasy. Likewise, the books of this fantasy genre explore darker themes than the often black-and-white, good-vs-evil of other fantasy genres. 

The worlds in dark fantasy are often just that—dark. It's not always easy to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Morally ambiguous antiheroes are common protagonists in dark fantasy novels.

Different Types of Fantasy

To understand dark fantasy, it's important to make a distinction between it and other types of fantasy. Here's a brief overview of the most common fantasy subgenres. 

• High Fantasy – Sometimes called epic fantasy, these stories have clear heroes and villains and usually feature a wide-ranging conflict with extremely high stakes. You can often spot a high fantasy story by its extensive cast of characters and its epic storyline. 
• Low Fantasy – These stories usually feature some sort of magic from a fantasy world coming into the real world. In essence, these stories are a little more grounded in our reality than epic fantasy stories. 
• Urban Fantasy – Urban fantasy narratives usually take place in the modern day, in our world, where magic is used but not widely, and often not with the knowledge of the world at large. 
• Grimdark – Grimdark fantasy is dark fantasy cranked up to the utmost. Where there may be some pockets of goodness in a dark fantasy world, there's nothing but evil, war, pestilence, and backstabbers in a grimdark fantasy world.

It’s worth noting that there’s overlap between genres and definitions can vary depending on the source. 

Dark Fantasy Novels to Read

To get a feel for a good dark fantasy story, it's good to read what others have done before. The most well-known dark fantasy series is probably A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, thanks to the Game of Thrones HBO show. (That series could also be considered epic fantasy.) But it's important to read widely in the genre. 

Here are just a few excellent examples to get you started:

• The Citadel of Fear by Gertrude Barrows
• The Black Company series by Glen Cook
• Most of Clive Barker’s catalog
• Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman
• The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
• Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
• The Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson
• Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop

Research Your Genre Before You Write

While there aren't a ton of dark fantasy categories on Amazon, it's still important to do your genre research before you start writing.

There is a dark fantasy category under the broader horror category, but there's also one in the teen and young adult category. In the past, Amazon would let you put your book in both adult and teen/young adult categories, but they've been cracking down on this recently. 

While they won't explicitly prevent you from selecting both major dark fantasy categories (yet), they're likely to simply remove your book from whichever category they feel doesn't fit and put it into one they feel suits the novel better, even if they're way off. 

This is why it's so important to research your genre first and determine which categories you will put your book in. If you're planning on writing a really dark and violent fantasy, you'll probably want to stick to the non-young adult categories. But then that begs the question: which three will you choose?

The less competitive the category, the more likely you are to rank in the top 100. And if you can get into the top 100, you're more likely to get the algorithm to work for you to get organic sales. 

This is one big reason why we created Publisher Rocket. This tool pulls information directly from Amazon to give you easy-to-understand information about:

• Customer search terms related to dark fantasy and similar genres. 
• Category data to help you decide which three categories to put your book in. 
• Competition data so you can know what you’re up against in a given category. 
• Amazon ads keywords to use in your marketing efforts.  

Using this tool can help you get your dark fantasy novel out on the right foot from the moment you press publish. Check out Publisher Rocket here to learn more. 

How to Write Dark Fantasy: Writing Tips

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The following tips can get you started on your dark fantasy story. Whether you like to outline or just fly by the seat of your pants, these tips can help you flesh out your story idea. 

Contemplate Your Fantasy World

One trope common among all types of fantasy is the world in which the story takes place. In a dark fantasy, the world is often dark and gritty. Maybe there's a curse on the land and the people within, or a vicious army that has come in and taken over what was once an idyllic kingdom. These are pretty basic examples, but you get the idea. 

Part of the fun is determining the logic of your fantasy world and why it is the way it is. The possibilities are endless when it comes to fantasy. You can create an entire magic system that operates within the world, or you can make magic a rarity in your world, only used by a select few crazy enough to try and tame it. It's completely up to you. 

When it comes to any societies in your fantasy world (those not already besieged by some Great Evil, anyway), don't shy away from the more unpleasant modes of operation. You'll often find that societies in dark fantasy novels are brutal and unforgiving, operating on the backs of slaves and crushing the weak under the constantly churning wheels of civilization. 

In some dark fantasy series, there's no such thing as a “good” society with a benevolent ruler. If there is, they're usually conquered during the course of the story. More often, you'll find bad and “less bad” societies, along with hordes of wild people and/or creatures who live outside the walls of “civilization,” such as it is.

Craft Your Protagonist

When I'm crafting a dark fantasy protagonist, I like to think of your average protagonists from Disney fairy tales and then do the opposite of that. Whether your main character is male or female, they should be deeply flawed, gruff, and the furthest thing from a traditional hero as you can think. 

Often, the protagonist in a dark fantasy doesn't have any truly heroic tendencies—just a goal in opposition to that of the antagonist. This goal is usually driven by pure selfishness, such as seeking riches, power, or revenge.

However, while dark fantasy readers expect these kinds of protagonists, it's still important to give the reader a reason to like yours. There are a number of ways to do this, such as making them funny, giving them a sympathetic past, or just having them demonstrate how not as bad they are compared to other brutes in your dark fantasy world.

Consider Magic and Creatures

As mentioned above, dark fantasy has elements of horror in it, often in the form of magic and magical creatures. While a traditional high fantasy novel may have cute unicorns and benevolent elves, a dark fantasy novel is more likely to have unicorns who are vicious and elves who kill anyone who crosses them with no questions asked. 

A dark fantasy book may also feature other fictional creatures, such as vampires, werewolves, and Eldritch gods in the vein of Cthulhu. 

When it comes to magic in a dark fantasy story, it's not going to be pretty. Often, using magic takes a terrible toll on the user, or requires some heinous sacrifice to use it in the first place. Those who wield it use it for evil, creating death, destruction, and disfigurement for pleasure or power. 

Other times, magic is barely used due to its difficulty or limited usefulness. When it is used, bad things tend to happen. 

Conjure Your Antagonist

There's something about a good antagonist that really gets the heart pumping. If you can make your readers understand but hate the Big Bad in your dark fantasy novel, it will go a long way to getting them invested in the story. 

Since there's no guarantee of a happy ending in these stories, the reader will want to see whether the villain is vanquished or not. Since dark fantasy doesn't often hold back on the gritty and brutal, you can really turn your antagonist up to eleven. 

Keep in mind that this doesn't have to be a human or even a human-like character. Although the books fall under the epic fantasy heading, Sauron from The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a great non-human antagonist.  

Your antagonist doesn't even have to be a single being. It could be a group, a curse, or even some powerful and destructive magical element that no one truly understands. 

Create Conflict

The key to any compelling fantasy story is conflict. What kind of conflict will depend on the story and characters, but it should be the driving force behind the plot. 

It's never a bad idea to study plot structures like the Hero's Journey, which has conflict built into it (as do other plot structures). The conflict often starts when something pulls the main character out of their “ordinary world” (even if that world is filled with magical creatures and horrendous curses). 

The primary conflict should make sense for your characters. Again, this isn't usually the heroic prince heading off to save a damsel in distress. In dark fantasy, the protagonist is often acting out of purely selfish motivations.

Speaking of motivations, let's talk about character development. 

Develop Characters

While you'll often see a positive character arc for main characters in most other fantasy fiction. This is where the character changes for the better by the end of the story. 

Dark fantasy is a little different. While there's no rule against having a positive character arc in your novel, it's more common to have a flat arc or a negative arc. 

As you can probably imagine, a flat arc is where the character doesn't noticeably change. They may learn a new skill or overcome challenges, but they don't change internally. 

A negative arc is where the character changes for the worse. This is possible even when your character accomplishes their goal. If they're motivated by revenge or a quest for riches at the cost of their morality, a negative arc is common even when there's a “happy” ending for the character.  

Consider Your Ending

Like other genre fiction, you'll want to end your fantasy story with an exciting climax. While this often includes action of some sort, like a battle or a head-to-head confrontation, any action you include should be meaningful for the characters involved. 

Remember your dark fantasy book doesn't have to have a happy ending. It can have an unhappy ending or a neutral one where the outcome is neither good nor bad for your main character—they end up not accomplishing their goal but not losing everything either. 

The part of your book after your climax is also the place to set up the next book if you're writing a series. 

Stick to a Writing Habit

Like all artistic endeavors, creative writing only pays off when you do it consistently. In the beginning, creating a writing habit can be difficult, but you can do small things to reinforce the habit and help you do it every day. 

This is why the team at Atticus has added a writing goal tool. You simply set your goal for whatever days of the week you want, and Atticus will record your words as you write in the app. It will let you know when you've reached your goal and how many words you have left. This is a simple but effective way to reinforce your writing habit. 

When you're ready to bring your dark fantasy world to life, having the right tools can make all the difference. That's where Atticus comes in. This powerful book writing and formatting software is designed with authors in mind, offering features that are particularly useful for fantasy writers.

With Atticus, you can easily organize your complex world-building notes, keep track of your gritty characters, and set writing goals to maintain consistency in your dark fantasy writing journey. Its distraction-free writing environment allows you to immerse yourself fully in your brooding universe.

Once your manuscript is ready, Atticus seamlessly transitions to formatting, ensuring your dark fantasy novel looks as professional and captivating on the page as it does in your imagination. Whether you're publishing an ebook or print version, Atticus has you covered.

Ready to elevate your dark fantasy writing experience? Check out Atticus at and see how it can transform your writing process.

How to Write Dark Fantasy: Conclusion   

As a dark fantasy author, you get to create a brutal and unforgiving world populated by unique characters and creatures with a one-of-a-kind set of rules. This type of dark fiction has a ready-made audience of hungry readers looking for books similar to the ones they love. If you can hit all the right tropes and present your book with a professional cover and a great-looking interior, it's very possible to make a living as a fantasy writer!