Something not like the rest.

[History_lives]

Hello there,
I've been thinking of a story. A different type of story where the "hero" doesn't win, where "good" doesn't triumph over "evil." where the hero isn't given what he wanted, but he must work for it. Something just different and doesn't follow the certain way fantasy stories are with "happy endings."

Even though, I have this idea, I don't know where to start. I could use some help please. I'm open to ideas.

[T.Allen.Smith]

Do you have characters & a basic storyline in mind yet?

If not, start by generating characters. You'll get a long way just starting with that.

[ThinkerX]

Unfortunately, this idea has been done many times in many ways.

[ethgania]

Yeah, definitely start just by looking at characters. What are the hero's flaws? Who is your non-triumphant hero?
Flipping the dichotomy like this isn't the most unheard of thing in the world, so you really want to focus on your characters... perhaps think on why heroes in Fantasy always win... is it something in their personality or past? Or is it because of the weakness of their antagonists? Think of the rules as you know them and then rather than flagrantly having a "Evil wins!" story, make sure to really focus on the subtlety of character.
Also a good thing to consider is the world being built. Perhaps the world just isn't really conducive for supporting a hero. Maybe it has some dark stuff going on already and that's how it's always been. It doesn't always have to be "The land of happy meadows and kittens, while it has always had problems with its black market drug rings, has suddenly come under attack by the evil wizard from Mordor." Or something (I like to make silly metaphors, forgive me!)
So really, it's not too different from starting any other fantasy story... focus on character, and world! Hopefully this will help you approach it in the way you'd like to get at, though?

[T.Allen.Smith]

Unfortunately, this idea has been done many times in many ways.

All ideas have been done many times, many ways. As modern authors we're repackaging those ideas for our modern audience.

[Legendary Sidekick]

My feelings on bad guys winning have already been expressed here.

@History Lives, you should click that link not so much to read my response but to check out that entire thread. It's about whether good should always triumph over evil, and it has a lot of interesting responses that may give you ideas about "dos and don'ts" for your bad-guys-win idea.

[KC Herbel]

Try reading some Michael Moorcock.

[Chilari]

Why is it you've decided to write a story where evil wins in the end? If it's just to be different, that's not a good enough reason. Never ever write something solely to be different. Why? Because that's a negative method of writing. It's writing something because it is the opposite of what you don't like, rather than what you do like (and those two things aren't necessarily the same thing). So before you begin, work out why you want to write a story in which evil wins, and be brutally honest with yourself, and then decide if you still want to write it.

If you decide that you're writing it for better reasons than because it's different, start with a character, that character's goal, and an obstacle. That's always a good way to start, whatever the story itself.

[Taro]

Even though it may have been done before, who cares. if you can turn it into something new amd exciting than it will be great. In my opinion i like stories that don't end in a happy way, i try to write stories like that, some work some don't but your characters have a big role to fill and everything starts with them. Good luck!

[Bear]

I did that in my second book. The good guys didn't win and evil was allowed to continue doing what it was doing. The story used druggies and a journalist as the main characters and they got caught up in a conspiracy with organ stealing cultists. The boyfriend was being turned into a mindless slave so the girlfriend shot him. The girlfriend got her guts ripped out by a creature and the journalist shot himself instead of letting the creature eat him. Then the cult just went on harvesting organs from the local dmv organ donor registrar.