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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40711
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Have a lighter "B" plot. Yes, your main character is getting deeper and deeper into a dark place because of the struggle with the evil overlord -- and in the midst of it all she also finds herself caring for her ex's rambunctious puppy.

Tell the story in a way that offsets the mood of the events. A snarky first-person narrator or a lighter third-person narration can make a big difference. (With the first-person narrator you have to be careful; the _character_ needs to be able to rise enough above the gloom to still talk that way. An example where this doesn't happen and the narrator is deep in the gloom is the last book of the _Hunger Games_ trilogy.)

One recent series that lightens "heavy" topics is Debra Dunbar's Imp series (_A Demon Bound_ et al). The first-person narrator is a mischievous demon (an imp) who gets caught up in the struggles between heaven and hell. There's killing and casual violence and you definitely get the sense that many of the sympathetic characters are, well, rather different from us, but the author uses both ligter subplots and humorous writing to keep the mood mostly "up". (There's one book in the series where that's not true, be warned.)

Original score: 4