Jonathan B. Edvane · On writing
The Dark Hearth is a craft blog by Jonathan B. Edvane, on the writing of dark fantasy, the roots of it, and the decisions that go into building a world that carries weight.
Dark folklore keeps the danger that older traditions understood. What my story, The Broomfield Witch, reveals about writing witches who refuse to be victims, folk horror's domestic territory, and narrators who tell the truth and lie with it at the same time. With Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson and Andrew Michael Hurley.
Read →Dark fantasy is fantasy where the wonder carries a shadow. A working definition of the genre, how it stands apart from horror, grimdark and gothic fantasy, and where a new reader might begin. Drawn throughout from tales of the Marchlands, from a staff that mends at a terrible price to a room that keeps the dead who broke their promises.
Read →Folklore is not a stock cupboard of creatures. It is a way of thinking about the world. What my story, Bramlick the Brownie, shows about adapting old folk belief into living dark fantasy, and why a brownie is never just a small creature in a hat.
Read →A dark fantasy setting feels real when it has a job to do. It should not exist merely as scenery. It should have rules, habits, damage, duties and limits. What my story, The Farewell Chamber, reveals about places with purpose, memory and consequence.
Read →Darkness in fiction is not a filter. It is a structural principle. The difference between a story that feels genuinely bleak and one that merely performs bleakness is not the quantity of misery on the page — it is the weight of consequence behind every choice.
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