How to Write in Dark Times

It is objectively difficult to create when it feels like the world, including the networks and structures we take for granted, is crumbling around us—even more so when it actually is. But art in all forms is a critical kind of resistance and reconstruction, and it's one way we can actually help.

But what the heck do you write about when everything is terrible?

Thankfully, we're not the first to experience this. Writers have been writing in dark times for as long as there have been times. Stories didn't stop being told just because there were world wars, global depressions, or raging pandemics. In fact, many of our best stories were created from those times.

With that in mind, here are some of the reasons I and others continue to write.

To Give People Hope

A story can give people hope that the darkness can be beaten, that even the smallest person and the smallest act can matter. For example, J.R.R. Tolkien drew on (among other things) his experiences in World War I to write The Lord of the Rings, even as he lived through the build-up toward World War II.

Stories can give people hope for a better future, like Susan Kaye Quinn's Nothing Is Promised hopepunk series, written amidst the ever-present doom of our climate crisis yet presenting a vision of what humanity is capable of.

To Give People Inspiration

The darkness can be beaten, but how do we beat it? Your story might address this more directly, presenting a dystopian world and the hard-pressed, reluctant heroes who tear it down—for example, Suzanne Collins' Catching Fire, Lois Lowry's The Giver, or Alan Moore's V for Vendetta. It's fiction, yes, and not an instruction manual, but stories like these can be the seeds for real-world ideas (or in some cases, real-world warnings).

To Shine a Light on the Truth

Many stories, especially those by authors from underrepresented or oppressed groups, reveal truths that majority culture is often blind to. These are the kinds of stories that can change someone's entire worldview, and humanity needs as many as we can get.

R.F. Kuang's Babel takes a scathing look at the former British Empire and the cultures that were crushed to create it. It raises critical questions of whether an invincible power can be fought at all and, if so, how—all while telling a gripping historical fantasy tale.

Celeste Ng's Our Missing Hearts paints a vision of a terrifying America-that-could-be (one that feels increasingly real in today's political climate) and asks the reader to consider how such a thing could have happened and what they might do within it.

To Increase Empathy

Not all stories need to touch on dystopia to make a difference. Every story is an exercise in empathy, especially the most personal ones, and empathy is critical to pull us out of the darkness.

In Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng writes about a town that believes itself to be uplifted yet struggles when faced with its own underlying biases. There is no great villain nor power to be toppled in this story, but it nonetheless forces us to empathize and wrestle with multiple perspectives on difficult moral questions.

(Honestly, all of Celeste Ng's work is amazing. I can't recommend her enough.)

To Provide an Escape

Not all stories need to inspire or teach or represent. A story that is merely an escape is every bit as vital during dark times. When every headline feels worse than the one before, despair comes all too easily. But despair is how the darkness wins. In a fight like that, joy and escape become lifelines and weapons.

My examples, of course, are from my own interests—what I have read and remember (hence all the sci-fi and fantasy). But there are so many good examples I am omitting here. Please, recommend your own stories-from-dark-times in the comments. We want to read them!

But What Can *I* Do?

When I rebooted this blog, I told myself it was going to be for writing and editing tips. But now, the US president decided to do an authoritarianism, and I mean... come on.

A lot of us are feeling fear, despair, and motivation to do something but also confusion about what will help. This is my attempt to distill what I've been learning, what each of us can do to help, and why even the smallest act matters.

What Action Feels Like

I think one of the most important things to remember is that, very often, it will feel our actions have no effect. We want to call our representatives and see laws enforced. We want to donate to an organization and see criminals face consequences. We want to call out what's happening on social media and see minds changed.

It almost never works like that.

But these actions do matter.

One person on a street corner holding a sign that says "Nobody elected Elon" feels pointless, but that small, seemingly ineffectual protest can encourage others. It names the falsehoods and gaslighting for what they are. It encourages others that they're not alone in seeing what's happening. One person can even give some the courage to stand alongside them, until that one person becomes thousands.

Action looks like a meaningless ripple over and over and over, until one day, it's a tidal wave.

Actions for Yourself

You can't help anyone if you aren't okay. There's a reason airlines tell adults to put their mask on first before helping a child. But how can you do that?

• Stay informed. Find trustworthy sources so you know what's going on. A major authoritarian trick is to convince people that they can't trust the mainstream media, so that facts are just their word against their enemies. But there will always be people and organizations who care about truth, objectivity, and democracy. Be discerning and seek them out.
• Stay sane. You need to be informed, but you don't have to swallow a 24/7 firehose of bad news. Pace yourself. Focus on the topics you care about. Give yourself permission to step away. You don't have to be aware of everything, nor can you. Trust others to take what you can't.
• Find joy. Read books. Watch movies. Enjoy music. Be with those you love. Remind yourself why any of this matters.

Direct Actions

Everything above is important, but what can you do? There is a lot, it turns out, so long as you remember that it doesn't have to feel impactful to be impactful.

• Bother your representatives. Bug them in person if you can. Call if you can't. Email if you've got nothing else. It doesn't matter whether your representatives are for or against the current administration; every voice serves as ammunition or encouragement.
• Join communities. There are people already out there resisting. Most of them aren't advertising it online; they're just doing it. Find them. Join them. Ask how you can help. Listen and learn.
• Donate to organizations that are fighting. Don't break your bank, but as with every action, every little bit helps.
• Protect your people. If you know folks who are directly affected by the administration's actions, help them. Speak in their defense. Stand beside them. Protect them if you can. (Though as with helping anyone, find out what they find helpful before just diving in.)
• Talk to people about what's happening. Only you can decide what conversations you can handle and with whom, but in-person conversations can be far more effective than online ones, especially if the person you're talking to knows you care about them.

Resistance

If you're in a position where the administration is looking right at you, action is scarier but also more impactful. Always take care of yourself, but in as much as you can...

• Resist
• Protect
• Do not comply
• Play dumb
• Move slow
• Make things worse

Helpfully vague, I know, but if you're in such a position, ways to resist may become more clear, and sometimes just slowing things down can be enough to give others time to mount a response.

Online Actions

I'll be honest. Living overseas makes me wonder if there's anything I can do that will matter. Social media feels so ineffective, and I'm still figuring out how best to use it. But here are some things I've learned:

• Inform. Not everyone is an information-gatherer. For some, you might be their only source of information. Don't assume everyone knows what you know.
• Encourage. Don't flood people's feeds with doom. Encourage them. There are good things happening out there, and hearing about them is often what people need to take action themselves.
• Delight and amuse. Be a source of light and humor. These are far more effective tools than rage and despair.
• Limit pointless arguments. The effectiveness of social media to change people's beliefs is... arguably not great. We've all had arguments with That One Guy who's "just asking questions," until it becomes clear they never wanted a genuine discussion. Ignore them. Mute them. Block them. Your information, encouragement, and joy is not for those who have decided but for those with ears to hear.

• Be kind and compassionate—not just toward those who need help but also toward those on "the other side" when they begin to see or question what's really happening. Schadenfreude and "I told you so" are so, so cathartic, but the way through this danger is to work together—all of us, from every side and background and belief. Don't shame people. Welcome them.

Above All, Don't Give Up

A lot has happened these last weeks, and that is intentional. They're trying to flood the zone, to overwhelm the public and the media so nobody can focus on any one thing. But we're not a single entity. Working together, we can focus on several things at once.

The suggestions above are really just a kind of starter pack. There is much more that can be learned and done, and people are already doing it. Keep learning, and don't give up.

Authoritarians want us to give up, but their power is brittle, and they know it. Force and fear can only hold them up for so long. Eventually, they will crumble.

Heck, that's how the US started. We can continue the same way.

Writing as Resistance

Politically speaking, a lot happened since I left. I knew it would—I was traveling to the US on Election Day, after all—but the results are not what I hoped. (According to current voting counts, they're not what a majority of voters wanted either.)

It's been almost a month since the election, and people are still hurting. Still scared. Still anxious. And why wouldn't they be? We don't yet know what will happen next. I know not everyone believes the US is headed toward an autocratic hellscape, but historical precedent does us few favors here.

To those of you who are worried like me: It's okay to be anxious. Feel what you gotta feel. I'm still considering what I can do in the coming months and years, but here's one thing I do know:

We can write.

Stories give us hope. When the protagonist gets back up after being left for dead, it makes us believe we can do the same. When the heroes win against all odds—when Katara defeats Azula, when Sam carries Frodo to Mount Doom, when Luke strikes the Death Star's core—it reminds us that those in power are vulnerable.

Even the coziest stories give us joy and an escape, and these are every bit as necessary as hope. Stories also share the power of love and connection. They remind us what we are fighting for.

Stories give us symbols. Alan Moore inspired the face of Anonymous, and Katniss's three-finger salute has been considered cause for arrest. Symbols are powerful. They remind us that we are not alone. They terrify oppressors by reminding them how outnumbered they are.

Stories foster empathy. Empathy is the antidote to fascism. It is vital to creating a world we can all live in together.

No matter what you feel about the present time, even if you feel powerless, know that your stories matter and are absolutely necessary.

There's a reason fascist regimes always ban books.

It is the same reason we need to write them.

On the Importance of Democracy

One of my kids told me they didn't really think they were gonna vote when they turned 18, and I felt like I failed as a father. I know that's a common feeling (am I right, fathers?), but it drove me to action. I don't want to fail them, and I don't want to fail you, so you get to be my temporary children for the next few minutes.

You gotta vote.

I don't mean that in a burdensome obligation kind of way, but in a "Hey, it's actually pretty cool we live in a time and place where our opinion has meaning!" kind of way.

It's a safe bet that you have lived your whole life in a democracy. I know I have. Because of that, it's easy to take it for granted that (1) we can always vote (that's what all countries do, right?) and (2) our vote doesn't feel like it does anything.

But here's the thing. If you live in a country without a democracy (or with a fake/failed democracy, like say Russia), your opinion is worthless—sometimes even dangerous. The people in charge of your country/state/city/school are chosen by other people for reasons you don't even get to know about. The law is whatever those leaders say it is. And there's nothing you can do to change it short of some sort of rebellion, which are notoriously difficult to organize and bad for the health of everyone involved (historically speaking).

Voting's easy though. Among other things, the organizing has been done for you, and most laws ensure a minimum of bloodshed. Most importantly, your voice matters.

Yeah, your voice doesn't make change alone—it's the collective voice of thousands or millions of people—but your voice is part of those millions. Change happens when we speak together.

Despite popular opinion, there are electable representatives who care about people and who will fight for change that serves all people. These candidates aren't always available at the highest levels of government, but guess what! The highest levels of government are not the ones that matter the most!

Sure, it'd be nice if the federal government finally ended Daylight Savings Time, raised the minimum wage, or did literally anything about 70% of the world's mass shootings. But state and local governments can and do make those kinds of changes all the time, and your vote carries orders of magnitude more weight in those elections. And when enough cities and states make a successful change, the federal government eventually just goes along with it.

And while you're there, vote for the highest levels of government too. It's just one extra dot.

Voting isn't the end-all fix to the world—nothing is. But so long as we live in a place where it's an option, voting is one of the easiest, most important ways to help.

I know there's a lot going on in the world right now. Hope is a hard thing to maintain, but hope is absolutely vital to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Voting itself is a kind of hope, and you know what they say....