Last night opened the doors to an inspiring conversation about darkness in Middle Grade fiction on Twitter (#ukmgchat), an area of debate being the inclusion of hope to provide light in times of darkness for child readers.

Although I believe hope is a vital component of MG, should it be the rule? In Adult, and even YA, we go as far as to see darkness triumph so why should it be any different for MG? I can understand the limitations on how dark we go but at the same time, hope suggests the inevitable – good will always triumph over evil.

Don’t get me wrong, this is usually the outcome I look for in a novel, and it is one that works well, but sometimes I occasionally like evil to put a spanner in the works, and win. As an example, can an antagonist truly be dark, if they have an element of hope within them? Hope suggests grey. Can grey be true evil?

If you are looking for your characters to conquer the darkness or for your antagonist to have a grey area, then I think hope is wholly justified. It offers that contrast for the reader so that they can feel elated when the protagonist comes out the other side. On the other hand, I think complete darkness has to explore the idea that there is no hope.

I remember picking up the Goosebumps series where you would turn to various pages and discover your fate. More often than not, there was no happy ending. My character would be captured, trapped or devoured by a creature. Did I need hope to get me through this peril? Certainly not. As a child, that was the fun of it! It offered perspective.

If we look at the classic tales behind Disney, the reality is that none of the protagonists really get their happy ending, and the hope we hold for the characters on their journeys, is what we should actually label as “false hope.”

If we take the original tale of ‘The Little Mermaid’, she is actually given a knife by the Sea Witch to stab her Prince to death so she can relieve her despair, and live as a mermaid once again.  That’s after she marries him to get a human soul in the first place so that she can go to heaven. There are several different endings but they all align with how she chooses to jump in the sea and dissolve into foam. Some sources report a dispute over the endings, where one was later changed so that the mermaid could redeem her immortal soul, if she was to fulfil good deeds. The fact there are multiple endings to this tale, with and without an element of hope, suggests that darkness could possibly exist in MG without its counterpart.

In my opinion, The Little Mermaid made her choice to live a human life for selfish reasons, and upon realising it was the wrong decision, she is offered an escape route. Do you not think she maybe deserves a bit of tough love?

One could argue that if there is no silver lining for a character in MG fiction, why would we want to read it? The answer is that in the same way we look at hope as a lesson for triumphing over darkness, a lack of hope (or “false hope”) is also a lesson to show we don’t always get the outcome we want, despite the odds.

I think we sometimes forget that children are quite perceptive when it comes to reading. They will pick and choose a genre that suits them. This also means, they might also seek that book on the shelf where the white knight doesn’t exist. After all, in reality, good doesn’t always prevail.