Thread:LucidPigeons/@comment-24469175-20160220021754/@comment-26205772-20160220031308

I'll provide some quick tips to make sure you can at least balance out the setting.

 1. Make your characters sympathetic: This is bar none the most important aspect of avoiding a world like this. It goes without saying we want to have engaging characters. They're one of the most important aspects of a story. A problem with settings like The Punisher  is an over-abundance of unsympathetic characters. The protagonists, the antagonists, major, minor, everyone's a dickbag. Some have sympathetic traits, but they're so overwhelmed by negative ones that they're rendered meaningless. Sympathetic characters in settings like these get tortured, killed, or brutally forced into becoming cynical just like the rest. Even in Crapsack Worlds, though, these are not characters you want carrying the story. If you do, you have a very likely chance of completely turn off the interest of the audience. Nobody roots for unlikable characters.

 So, to get around that, we introduce some sympathetic traits to the characters. This is especially key for the protagonists; we don't want to follow heroes who butcher incidental citizens and start fires for giggles. Now, it's alright to have anti-heroes – it's appropriate for the setting, as no innocent, pure-hearted character walks through a world like Oceania with happy hopes for the future – but make sure their conflict is relevant and you provide a genuine excuse as to how they were shaped this way. Even after that, it's a good idea to have at least a 50/50 balance of good and bad traits. Sympathy works wonders on villains, too. Irredeemable villains work for the setting – especially a dictator like President Snow who you can't see changing for the better (although even that still can be done; check out Ava Paige from The Maze Runner  book series) – but not every antagonist has to propagate misery wherever they walk and perpetuate the misery of the setting. It's much more engaging, for me, to see an antagonist shaped into their current position by a series of tragic circumstances rather than one who's like that just because.

 To sum, we want characters we can identify with and root for. Making a character overly negative shuts down that connection and makes the audience unable to like or relate to those characters – and as a consequence, not care about them.

 2. I ntroduce some optimism into the setting: Crapsack Worlds are not pretty places to live in. Be it post-apocalyptic or dictatorships, the world will be dismal and chances of anything changing are slim at best. As a result, a lot of the characters will be leery of any positive change in their lives. Don't want a Crapsack World? Introduce some optimism into a setting that would otherwise be one. Make your characters believe that they can change the world. Make them believe they can survive and persevere, that while a good resolution may be challenging, it is still possible. Have this hope spread to the rest of the setting, too. Now, it's perfectly alright to place your characters in a circumstance that seems unmountable, or to shake up the setting or change things for the worse, so long as it's relevant and the characters can reach a solution.

 Meaningful conflict doesn't come from your characters wallowing in a pit of despair and with glum hopes on anything changing. Idealism is unrealistic, and cynical stories are often the most realistic (and it's also true you shouldn't introduce too much idealism into a setting lest it becomes overly-cheesy and the conflict becomes void) but a setting should not be so brutally cynical unless it needs to make a point. This leads me to my next point...

 3. Make the characters able to change the setting for the better: Most Crapsack Worlds are immutable. What this means is that whatever happened to the setting that has changed it into what it is now? It's going to stick, and that means that the misery of the setting isn't going to be changing anytime soon. To avoid a Crapsack World like this, let a positive change in the status quo be a possibility. This is another weight to the conflict; the stakes should be high, but they shouldn't be too high, or you risk the problem becoming unsolvable and the audience's interest wavering, especially if said solution is only workable via a contrived deus ex machina.

 Most Crapsack Worlds will have an unsolvable solution to the misery as an intention; avoid that if you don't want a Crapsack World. Ask yourself; is the antagonist (be it a living character, an object, or even an event) creating this misery able to be stopped or negated, and is doing so a possibility within the story? They should still pose a threat, and if they are defeated, it will usually come at a price, but curing what looks like a Crapsack World even partially is a sign that things are better than they seem.