Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41470
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

For a few points of comparison:

Our protagonist and her community live in a broken world ravaged by war. They are forced to work while enduring medieval conditions. Every year two dozen people are chosen by lottery to go and die (probably) in a blood-sport for the entertainment of the wealthy and powerful members of the terrifyingly powerful regime that controls the last vestiges of humanity.

The story kicks off when Protagonist's little sister, a rare flower of innocence in this awful place, is chosen for the blood sport and our Protagonist is forced to take her place.

The world of the **Hunger Games** is Horrible, Grimdark and Obscene. It's also a really good setting for the story. The story is about Katniss's mission to survive and later to overthrow the corrupt regime, it's fundamentally an underdog story. Struggle and Trials drive the plot against a background of oppression.

For contrast, an animated series full of anthropomorphic brightly coloured animals can feature a bleak manic-depressed protagonist and be such a crushing downer that I can't keep watching it for long.  
**Bojack Horseman** is a hard watch for me, but it's so compelling that I keep coming back to it. It makes me feel things, not always good things, but it's a journey.

Then there's the world of **Warhammer 40k**. Practically the Trope-Namer for Grimdark. A sci-fi setting where Hell is a real place, Daemons want your soul, alien monsters want to eat you and the good guys are an Evil Theocratic Empire in a millenia-slow death spiral.  
As the opening text for every book in that universe goes _"There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods."_  
Warhammer gets away with it because it's so insanely over the top that it's impossible to take seriously.

How you write it is everything, a well crafted story can be grimdark without being depressing, though sometimes the depression can be the point too.

**Black Mirror** as a franchise basically is intended to evoke grimdark and depression in its audience. It's popular because like any other media, the point is to present emotion and experiences for the audience to experience that they might not otherwise. Some people find depressing material compelling. I'm not one of them, but that's okay.

I think with your bleak setting, you need to decide how you want to tell your story, what kind of story is it? Are your protagonists attempting to change the status quo? Will they succeed? If they're just going to be crushed and stepped on endlessly for 300 pages then it's probably not a story I would want to read.  
I had enough of that with Orwell's 1984.

Honestly though, write your story. Don't worry about your audience, if you're happy with the result then rest assured there will be many many other people who will be too.

Original score: 2