It’s all post 9/11

It used to be that the bad guys dressed in black (unless they were stormtroopers) and had diabolical plans. OK, so I’m over-generalising again, but there was a definite shift to the more gritty in the last 10 years.

Post 9/11 the world became more unsure, our villains more hidden and layered, and I think in trying to understand that the general populace wanted their art to reflect that. Gritty has happened in more than just fantasy, it’s culture-wide. I wondered whether something like Obama (seen culturally as a new start) would herald a new wave of utopian art, but it’s still a little early to tell.

It’s just an indication of tone.

It is used to take another path on certain canons, for example: a swordfight is actually a bloody and sickening thing. Scary. Not a clean duel where the nameless victim kneels and passes out. You won’t collect just non lethal bruises.

It mostly indicates the intent of a more realistic and unfiltered approach.

I don’t take ‘gritty’ to mean blood and guts per se. I’ve always assumed it included moral shades of grey, unpleasant choices reluctantly made and, well, a certain noir element.

You are going to have to do an awful lot more work than that to link gritty fantasy to 11th September.

I take gritty to be a shorthand for greater realism and as such swearing, violence, moral ambiguity, etc are just symptoms of this. Obviously this sort of realism has always been around but it isn’t strange that it is increasingly prevalent since gritty is usually applied to a particular subgenre of fantasy which is still relatively young. Rather than talking about gritty fantasy it might be more useful to talk about what (I guess) is the Third Wave of epic fantasy. (Input from a better historian of the genre would be welcome.)

Germaine Greer said of another novel (think it was one by Bret Easton Ellis she was criticising) that: ‘Boredom is not a narrative device’.

For that substitute ‘gritty’ in fantasy. Which frequently mistakes the subversive mannerisms of ‘gritty’ for sub-text and therein lies the growing problem of the growing body of the stuff if it contains not much else.

In fact, the moment it is identified as such in an almost default way and indeed discussed as a movement, maybe it has already become passé.

@Adrian – I think the post-911 idea is a good one and I hope that you post your thoughts on it somewhere (but 1000+ essay is probably not appropriate for comments to this post). I think it’s an important aspect of much of popular fiction these days and it’s a central part of much of the new urban fantasy that is so popular these days.

But ‘gritty’ – it’s a buzz word. The ‘new’ thing. Though if you look closely it’s not all that unique or new. I think it’s mostly a stand-in for ‘grown-up’ and the realization that fantasy isn’t just for kids (again, that’s not new either).

Funny this also cropped up in a Twitter conversation I was having with Sam Sykes yesterday. Personally I am pre-disposed to the darker spectrum of SF, and I love ‘grit’ and ‘grime’ in my novels. I guess I’ve witnessed a fair bit of grit in real life, after all I’ve worked in prisons and been a police officer. So I can be turned-off if a story fails to reflect that reality, when I think it’s required. The flip-side of this, however, is that if a writer tries too hard to appear ‘edgy’, ‘urban’ or ‘gritty’ I think it shows. I also think it can appear quite juvenile, like a posturing adolescent trying to appear tough and cool. I also agree that the same post-911 paranoia that has produced a massive upturn in post-apocalyptic settings is partly responsible for this. Although I feel this trend has been gathering momentum since the mid 90′s at least.

See as an escapist reader and one that has to have an emotional connection to the journey of a character describing something as gritty is going to make me wary rather than think oh good more reality. I’m reading to be outside all of that.

I’ve been told that Abercrombie and Morgan are good at what they do – but I’m not sure that’s enough to cut above the fact that they are going to be more realistic, harsher and bleak – at least that’s what gritty always brings to mind.

I’m probably wrong but am I in a rush to prove myself wrong?

Umm, yeah, what Gav said for me too actually.

Well I think we may have to define what we mean by ‘grit’ as well. To me grit does not automatically equate to bloody. Gore can be unrealistic and fantastical, neither is bloody anything new. In horror in the 90′s you had the so-called splatterpunks.
For me it is as much about the approach to violence as the violence itself. Casual violence meted out for arbitrary reasons, lack of remorse etc. These things are perceived as being ‘real’ in our society. I think it reflects a wider media obsession that delights in depicting our culture as increasingly degenerate morally. The suggestion that sits alongside this, that to not see this harsh reality is naive and childish. This also combines with wider cultural pessimism, that has abounded particularly (but not exclusively) since the terror attacks in the US and elsewhere. Paranoia is not new, but with new media and a global reach, it is perhaps more pervasive.
In fantasy writing there can be a certain amount of pressure I think, to prove that what you are writing is adult and serious, especially amongst the male demographic. For some this seriousness will translate through a kind of cultural osmosis into arbitrary, morally ambiguous and visceral violence.
As someone who is primarily interested in horror and dark fantasy (not paranormal romance…) I can certainly see the appropriateness of this in some situations. A problem arises when this is all that is depicted. There is no contrast and no colour. In an effort to be taken seriously the writer produces a story that becomes a lifeless parody of notions of urban bleakness, rather than something that is truly engaging.
The real skill I believe comes form those writers who are able to lift the reader up to the heights and then drop them to the darkest depths, and visit all the valleys and plateaus in-between. This is why in my view ‘Grit’ can be great, but does not in itself equate to good writing, and often masks the opposite.

@Adrian Thanks, glad you could read my unformatted mess…

I also agree that gritty is not limited to violence. I think it broadest sense to me it means to highlight the details in a way that doesn’t seek to gloss over the ugly & imperfect. A perfect example for me might be a Mike Leigh type “kitchen sink” drama.

Having said that I think within the context of this debate, the kind of grit being assessed is largely the violent kind.

Still it would be interesting to see some of the so-called gritty fantasy writers depict the rise of teenage pregnancy amongst the elven population, and ruminate over why Orcish children need better male role models.

Despite being a native Southerner, I hate grits and anything that reminds me of it. So I guess this “gritty” is in reference to grits-filled dialogue and action?

Well Watchmen was by a british author shortly after the Falklands war, so there’s that connection.

I wouldn’t lay gritty solely at the feet of Spetember 11th but if you watch the news, you are usually guaranteed to see reports on wars, disasters, terrorism etc. Gritty could just be a reflection of the times we are in.
But I think the big influence is largely down to their being a handful of very successful “gritty” writers and the market responding by trying to replicate the success. In that eagerneess they have probably let a few books where grit does not equal quality. As long as they sell well you could argue it doesn’t really matter

Jesse Bullington reads my mind. Hard for one to be entirely unaffected by the prevailing political climate, and maybe that’s increased the audience for things dark grey, but for me gritty fantasy is much more a response to the decidedly un-gritty sub-Tolkienery of the 80s.

Grittiness can be an aesthetic but surely it’s also used to refer to content and approach. For me it’s not so much a question of blood n guts and Legolas vomiting down Gandalf’s robe after an opium binge, so much as a grittiness with regard to character, politics, and narrative form which is the point.

Are people really making a connection between gritty and good? I see lots of people complaining about grittiness, wishing it would go away, being bored of the use of the word itself, even. Sure, some books are gritty and bad, just as some are romantic and bad. Is grittiness an effective disguise for badness? No more so than any other, I’d have thought.

Da-hoy, of course I can read your mind, Joe. Where do you think I get my grit?

Like the remix idea, btw Mark…will try to get in on that but this week is doing unspeakable things to my already sweaty workload.