What is Dark Fantasy? And how does it differ from Horror?

I was recently talking to a group of people about my book, when I told them it is a dark fantasy I was surprised to see the puzzled looked spread across their faces. Then one of them said ‘Oh, it doesn’t look like a horror’

I realise that a lot of people look at dark fantasy as horror with fantasy and paranormal elements. Although both have similarities, they are not the same.

Horror, I believe, is written primarily to scare. Dark fantasy, isn’t. It will have horrific elements in, the main character is usually an anti-hero of sorts, complex, dark, murderous even but also good, kind, caring, heroic. As long as the horrific elements are only the secondary element in the book, and the adventure and goal is the primary element then I think it can be defined as dark fantasy. The villains in the book, unlike some other fantasies, aren’t bad for the sake of being bad, they have a twisted dark past perhaps that made them like that, they have a little goodness inside of them.

In short, Dark Fantasy doesn’t shy away from the darkness inside the characters. But the focus of the book isn’t to scare the reader.

This is my favourite genre to read and write, I like other genres but in this one it seems more realistic. We all have darkness inside of us, whether we like to admit it or not. In Dark Fantasy, it doesn’t shy away from that, it doesn’t portray the villain as simply bad and the protagonist as a Mary-Sue.

Some examples of Dark fantasy are:

• American Gods
• Coraline
• The Graveyard book
• Pans Labyrinth
• Lord of the rings.

There are many more, but these are my best examples. Although Dark fantasy does seem to overlap other sub-genres, I don’t think any one book can be part of just one sub-genre. My novel has been described as primarily dark fantasy, but also as urban fantasy, psychological horror, Gothic and paranormal.

The best quote to describe dark fantasy I found is:

‘It is a fantasy that is bleak, pessimistic, brutal, gritty and graphic. The dark side of human nature is not off limits and protagonists are not necessarily sympathetic.’

Of course, this is only my opinion and I welcome your comments below on what you think defines Dark fantasy and how it differs from horror.