Question in regards to tonal shift

PoppyTheMerpasaur 2024-04-08 14:56:16 UTC #1

I have an upcoming chapter in my webcomic that's about 4-6x longer than my previous chapters, and it takes an incredibly dark turn in comparison to the first few chapters. I'm concerned people will stop reading, both from the length and the tonal shift. The story has never been "happy", but nothing particularly foreboding has happened yet. To go from just verbal stuff to people getting their skulls clamped seems a bit of a leap, doesn't it?

So I suppose that I'm wondering if there's anything I can do about that?

The story has always been intended to be a dark one, and there's only 4 chapters out so far, so maybe people will understand, but I dunno.

Leyelle 2024-04-08 15:10:53 UTC #2

I think if it's only a few chapters in, a shift is reasonable, things have to build up, most stories don't start on their lowest point. I was a bit worried about that with my own novel, because while it starts with the biggest threats being injury from a car accident, and mental health, it has a lot of real life in it, some of which is based on my real life, so darker elements come into play piece by piece. I think because it's led into, it will probably be fine, but you may want to give your readers a warning if it's very graphic.

BoomerZ 2024-04-08 15:27:53 UTC #3

Truthfully it's not what you shift to, its the shift itself. I haven't read your story but if you put it out as a type of story, you have a contract with the reader that it will be that type of story. It's a simple thing. The reader starts the story because they think it's a type of story they want to read. If you change that, they will feel betrayed and stop reading. This would be the same as if you started your story as a fighting manga and then 3 episodes in it became a romance. Fighting fans won't want to read that, and romance fans never will even start. I would be very careful proceeding with this type of shift unless you heavily foreshadow it, or in the actual description of the story you spell it out.

AmysGames 2024-04-08 17:02:26 UTC #4

My advice is: write what you want to write.

Stories that start out light and slowly get darker are pretty common. (Heck, my own comic does that, lol.) Sure, there might be people who won't like the tonal shift, but there will also be people who do. It's better to focus on the things you like about your story, and let people who also like that come to it, than to worry about catering to the people who probably won't like it no matter what.