Writing, particularly of the harrowing genre, is more popular now than ever before. With both published novelists and online writers participating, the tragedy genre is showing growth, both vast and wide. The real inquiry? Why is it so popular? Are wordsmiths writing just to write? Or is there something deeper? Could these authors be projecting their own thoughts and feelings into their works? Could they be using their craftsmanship as an outlet for the desires they’re unable to live out?
As an avid reader and writer myself, on the beloved Archive of Our Own website, I took it upon myself to interview a few fellow writers who delve a little bit deeper into these bone-chilling stories. Archive of Our Own, more commonly known as AO3, is a fan-made, non-profit community where fans of popular media can go to read and write fanfiction and original stories promoting their work. While some of these publications have happier endings, I’ve been seeing more and more that don’t tend to go that route. Some favored works in the Marauders fandom, for instance, consist of Choices by MesserMoon, Art Heist, Baby by Otrtbs, and Crimson Rivers by BizarreStars. These works seem to stand out to readers severely more than the upbeat ones. They’re three of the most popular fanfictions in the fandom, and the one thing they have in common? They’re all truly and utterly devastating.
Therefore, the query is: why do we become so enraptured in stories with tragic and calamitous endings, and not the ones that end happily? Do we read and write them to feel something? Are we, as a society, just inevitably depressed and crave that fictional sadness to feel something other than our own? There’s a quote in the film Dead Poets Society where Robin Williams’s character says, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion.” This quote is compelling and meaningful to anyone who writes anything. Writing books and novels, or even just fanfiction on a website, is a type of poetry. I believe that all kinds of writing can be poetic.
Poetry is all about getting your feelings out there in the open. It’s about telling a story, and projecting your thoughts onto a page– there’s a saying about authors bleeding onto the pages they write, and the person who came up with it could not be closer to the truth. There’s a reason that AO3 authors put pen to paper, and there’s a reason that so many people pick them up and devour them like a pot roast.
I asked AO3 writer, Atlas Morris, what emotions typically stir up their writing process, and they responded with an answer that, in a way, proves the theory of authors bleeding on the page. “I’d say that when I’m just starting a new novel, the feelings vary depending on what story I’m trying to tell. Sometimes it can be a feeling of sadness, others it can be extreme happiness, or fascination.” When Atlas and many authors, really, are in the writing process, they tend to take their own feelings into account. If they’re writing something when angry, the work will likely come out reading as more disturbed— whereas, when they’re happy, the book will reflect that emotion instead.
Atlas also said, “When I’m writing, it can be a great mix of chaos and serenity. The ideas juxtapose in a way that’s kind of perfect— but when I’m writing tales of tragedy, I typically find myself surrendering over to the chaos to get a better story” Essentially what they’re saying is that, though you need both the chaotic and peaceful aspects to make for a great story, sometimes it’s better to lean more one way than it is the other.
As I was saying before, there is a reason so many folks glorify tragedy the way they do. There could be darker motives; there are proven darker motives. Writing and reading things that so often end horrifically can be used as a catharsis. A way to let out all the feelings that we, as people, choose to repress. The National Library of Medicine said in an article, “on social media sites like Tumblr, the romanticization of mental illness may be especially dangerous because the platform tends to encourage the development of solitary ‘echo chambers’. ‘Echo chambers’ are online communities where people can feed off each other’s negativity and reinforce ideas and beliefs through repeated exposure within a closed system.” I believe what PMC is trying to say is that putting these heartbreaking topics on such a pedestal is really doing more harm than it is good.
On the contrary, it’s more important now than ever before to acknowledge and to tell these tragic stories. If a piece of literary work is written well, it can be a catharsis. Reading this kind of material is a coping mechanism for so many people, I know it is for me. Throughout the story of Crimson Rivers, everyone had some sort of trauma, and a lot of them didn’t even make it to the end. Regardless, this is probably my favorite piece of literature that I’ve managed to get my hands on— and the fact that it’s a work of fanfiction makes it all the more perplexing. The thing is, throughout the book, everyone went through something, and the part that really spoke to me was that everyone got through it. Everyone was able to heal in one way or another, even after all of the terrible and tragic things they’ve had to endure. In the book, Regulus Black says the line “If I cannot climb, I will grow,” and I personally think that is such an earthshatteringly beautiful quote. It tells us, as people, that if we can’t do one thing, we can do another. If we can’t climb, we can grow instead.
To me, reading these kinds of novels, the kind that are so gut-wrenching and horrific but still somehow manage to end at least a little bit happily, is cleansing in a way that’s sort of difficult to explain. Seeing these characters, and what they have been through, seeing how they’ve healed and glued the broken pieces of themselves back together, is so purgative because it tells us that things can and will get better. Watching fictional characters heal, in return, helps us to do that very same thing, and that’s why it’s so important for us to have these pieces of fiction. I asked Caroline Daschel, a current author on the archive as well as an avid reader, if she sees writing these genres as a way to release the things that are sometimes too heavy to say aloud. She said in response, “I think there’s something cathartic about writing something that you know ends badly. As much as I whine and complain when my favorites are killed off in stories, the pain makes me remember the book so much more. We all feel pain, and sometimes reading different kinds can help us heal or forget about our own, even if just temporarily.”
Reading and writing these kinds of horror can help us to forget our own pain, and while I know that isn’t necessarily a healthy coping mechanism, sometimes we just need a break. Sometimes we need to forget about it for a little while before the healing process can truly begin, and sometimes reading things like this doesn’t even make us forget! Sometimes it scratches and claws until the wound is ripped back open again, and it’s red, and it’s bloody— but sometimes the wound is already infected. Sometimes it needs to be reopened before it can be properly stitched back together, and that’s the variety that these pieces of literature can offer.
Caroline also stated, when asked what draws her to these pieces, “Is it bad if I say masochism? Because otherwise I genuinely do not know. The sheer number of times that I have been caught weeping over characters is inconceivable at this point. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult broke something in me that I will never get back. But I still treasure it. I think it’s also curiosity. I have always been fascinated with how people handle different things, and reading stories is the best way to dig into different reactions. I read tooth-rotting fluff when I need comfort, or stories that I know end well (like Hunger Games or even Les Misérables) despite being tragic. Because reading about characters who go through unimaginable trauma, but making it to the end and working towards healing makes me believe there is perhaps the smallest sliver of hope for mankind.”
This ties into what I said earlier, about how these harrowing tales can sometimes help us heal. Well, it seems I’m not the only one who feels that way. Reading and writing, whether it’s fiction, or fanfiction, or Sci-fi, or even something else- it is a catharsis for so many people, and it would be cruel to take that away. When questioned further about the topics of comfort and fiction, Caroline said, “ Reading so many stories where characters struggle internally, but are there for everyone else around them, is incredibly, painfully, relatable as well. I have been that person my whole life, but I genuinely think that reading stories of James or Remus or Lily overcoming their people-pleasing tendencies has helped me to do the same. Yes, I have amazing friends and a wonderful mother, and I have grown so much since leaving high school. These works even helped me to figure out my sexuality. You will never convince me that what started as a silly little love of my wizard fanfiction didn’t have some part to play in my drive to self-discovery… A story does not need to be written to comfort, in order to comfort you. If it helps you, it helps you. There isn’t anything you can do about it, so just go with it and let yourself have a hand to hold on your journey.”
What Caroline spoke about goes back to the point that PMC made about how so many of these stories are tales of tragedy and woe that everybody chooses to romanticize. While I’m with them on the topic of horrific representations of mental health in the industry, there are works that I think portray it beautifully. Yes, sometimes people do a terrible job at showing off what mental illness really is; they romanticize it and make it this pretty and aesthetic thing, but it’s not. And that’s why I think I love Crimson Rivers so much, because it doesn’t downplay the mental health aspect at all. There are characters who struggle with anxiety, intense fears, aquaphobia, and depression— It’s all written so beautifully, and it’s more informative than anything else. It shows people, “Hey! This is what mental illness. This is how mental health really affects people, and it’s not pretty, and it’s not fun, so stop pretending that it is.”
I asked Mr. Sommers, a teacher at Berry Goldwater High School, a couple of things regarding the psychological aspect of this particular thesis. He has a degree in Psychology as well, so he was happy to help. When asked how creative writing can act as a sort of catharsis, Sommers responded, “Processing is a word you hear a lot in Psychology. When we go through things like pain and loss, to move on, we have to make sense of them. Sometimes we find out rather abruptly that the world isn’t what we thought it was, we aren’t who we thought we were, and our lives aren’t going the way we had assumed or at least hoped they would. It can be jarring, and sometimes adjusting to the new circumstances or finding a new conception of reality is difficult. I think that ‘processing’ means intentionally thinking things through, reevaluating, updating our outlook, and making sense of things. People have to do it in their own way at their own pace. Writing is not the only way to process, but it is a particularly good one.” Writing can be used as a catharsis, and it is almost all of the time.
I spoke to another fellow reader about their thoughts and feelings toward all of this—Lena Jones, a primary member of “The Marauders” fandom, and much like myself, someone who can hardly go a day without having an AO3 tab open. I asked her about how she feels when she’s just finished a particularly disturbing novel or fanfiction— and in her words, “Finishing a story like that leaves me feeling empty in a way. It’s sort of like when you leave a concert, and you realize that you’ll never be able to relive those moments again. In a way, these stories become a part of you while you’re reading them, that goes with any story, honestly. You get to know these characters and how they lived their lives. By the end of the story, you feel like you’ve known them your entire life, and it’s hard to let go of that. To accept that it’s all over, you won’t ever relive those moments again. Yes, you can reread the stories, but it’s never the same. It’s more like you’re visiting an old friend rather than making new ones. Finishing these stories is also kind of like a wake-up call. It’s like “oh, these things could actually happen.” If you take away the “magic” of the book and set it in today’s world, it makes you realize that some of these things could, or are already happening.”
It seems like reading these sorts of tragedies serves as a kind of caution sign to those who choose to immerse themselves in that world. For instance, The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins. It’s such a famous and popular book, almost everyone has read it, and those who haven’t have at least heard of it. This particular kind of writing delves into the future; it shows us, not what it will be, but what it could be. One wrong turn and we could end up fighting each other in arenas— one faulty move and we could be separated into factions. It really shows us just how easy it is to mess up in today’s world. These books teach us how easy it would be, how one wrong turn can burn things entirely to the ground, and, more importantly, how difficult it is to rebuild from absolutely nothing.
Creative writing, and reading for that matter, is a cathartic process for so many people, and like Sommers said, “It is a particularly good one.” Sometimes we have things that we need to say, but we can’t find the courage to speak out. Sometimes we just need to process things, and writing is such an intelligent way to do that. It lets us get all of our thoughts and feelings out, if not to the person they’re directed at, then at least out of our heads and onto a page. Writers do bleed on their parchment; everything they write down in that ink is a thought or a feeling or something more than that, and writing these kinds of stories, reading the novels that we know won’t end well, it’s simply a part of the human experience. They make us laugh, cry, jump around— dance. The world really would suffer without the blessings of literature, and with that, the people in it as well…
