POV: You’re tucked into bed, the duvet an elaborate mix of black lace and blood-red silk. Your sleep has been fitful, filled with phantom memories like ghosts—or maybe you’re actually being haunted. By real ghosts. A bump in the night pulls you out of bed, and you wander down the cold stone hallway (by the way, you’re sleeping in a castle) as you look for the source. Terror grips you when you find it: a shadowy figure, nay, a demon!
What is Gothic Horror?
Alright reader, come back to the real world, and let’s talk about what you just experienced. If it felt familiar, you might be a fan of Gothic Horror, a subgenre of horror fiction popularized in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of you may be familiar with the Gothic aesthetic. To be fair, aesthetic value is a major component of the subgenre. Dread pervades the atmosphere, and settings are often dreary or decayed. Characters are rarely the emotionally stable types, and much of the journey through a Gothic Horror novel involves exploring the convoluted and confusing corners of their psyche. Most importantly, terror meets horror (and maybe a little melodrama) in this spooky subgenre.
The Gothic writing tradition spawned out of the Romanticism movement, and so early works have considerable overlap with Romantic conventions. The use of epistolary writing was particularly prevalent in the early days, as well as other nontraditional framing devices. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a great example of how Gothic writers used epistolary writing to increase suspense and complicate a character’s emotional journey. Gothic Horror requires readers to suspend disbelief and embrace a myriad of supernatural elements. Think about elements of speculative fiction that seem so normal to us now that were less visible in literature at the time. Vampires, ghosts, and demons existed within folk culture, but the Gothic writing tradition codified them with high and low forms of writing.
Common Tropes
Gothic fiction is all about terror, wonder, dread, and the grotesque. Atmosphere is everything in a Gothic novel, and even though it’s not impossible to incorporate sunny glades into one of these stories, it is difficult. (For a successful integration of a relatively sunny atmosphere, check out Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.) If you want a little help creating the right atmosphere in your Gothic Horror, consider incorporating these elements:
- Haunted or Dilapidated Settings: While many early Gothic novels incorporated Medieval aesthetics, that is not a prerequisite for the genre. What medieval castles provided that Gothic Horror thrives on is an old, often dilapidated setting that may or may not be haunted. A major element of Gothic Horror is the past creeping into the present, which settings like this are prone to do. Likewise, the decrepit nature of these settings can be external representations of the character’s inner turmoil. Other examples of settings that lend well to Gothic stories are monasteries (Matthew Lewis’ The Monk) and lonely country abodes (Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic).
- Supernatural Elements: Mysterious portraits, man-made monsters, and demons haunt the halls of Gothic Horror. Often, these supernatural manifestations are tied heavily to the character’s psychology. In The Haunting of Hill House, Eleanor experiences numerous supernatural events, but the question remains: Did Eleanor find herself in the grip of a malevolent entity or did she bring it into existence?
- Morally Gray Characters: Gothic characters are rarely entirely evil or entirely good. Like most of us, they fall somewhere in between, making both good and bad decisions that severely impact their lives and others. Consider Ambrosio in The Monk, a devout monk who falls into debauchery after succumbing to temptation. In a less extreme case, look at Dorian Gray, whose eternal youth is only maintained as his portrait absorbs his evil. As you try to write your own Gothic Horror, think about how you can balance the peaks and valleys of your character’s morality.
Why I Like Gothic Horror
As you may have guessed by now, I’m a big fan of spooky things. Related assumptions you would be correct in making are that I love skeleton decorations, I drink pumpkin spice lattes year-round, and I follow more horror channels on YouTube than any other genre. Gothic Horror is spooky, sure, but it’s also fun. In its early days, it was known for a hint of melodrama. Character reactions can be extreme, so much so that it can turn these books from horror to comedy quickly. If you want to read a book that vacillates between humor and horror, look no further than The Monk—I know I’ve talked about it a lot, but it’s just so good. My point is this, Gothic Horror doesn’t take itself too seriously. It doesn’t rely entirely on body horror, gore, or being entirely grotesque (although it can include all of those). The feeling I get from Gothic Horror is that it’s simply out to have a good time but at a haunted house instead of a shopping mall.
Why YOU Should Explore Gothic Horror
Gothic Horror is a great medium for exploring psychological subjects because it spends a lot of time in the characters’ heads. Readers go through insanity and elation in equal parts as the story progresses, and writers have the opportunity to follow each terrifying thought through to the very end. If you want to write a Gothic Horror story but are struggling to find a good subject to pair with a healthy dose of psychological exploration, try one of these themes:
- Terror vs Horror: In Gothic Horror, the distinction between terror and horror is an important one. Terror deals in suspense. It’s the unease that comes from expecting something terrible. Horror, on the other hand, is what happens after that expectation is delivered. Horror is short-lived. The adrenaline hits and goes away. Terror lingers, and sometimes it goes unreleased.
- Religion: Many Gothic Horror stories are focused around religious settings and subjects. (Here’s my obligatory reminder to read The Monk because it absolutely eviscerates religious superiority.) Religion is a popular theme because it provides a good platform for moral quandaries. What are the consequences of playing God (Frankenstein)? What happens when your god turns out to be bad for you (A Dowry of Blood)? If you want to dissect religion, Gothic Horror could be a good choice for you.
- Isolation: Isolation, usually at the hands of a societal rule or the character’s home itself, pervades Gothic Horror, and it often leads to insanity. Think of the unfortunate protagonist of House of Leaves who is driven insane by the perplexing dimensions of his home, or Jack Torrance’s descent into madness when he becomes trapped in the Overlook Hotel. As you write your Gothic Horror story, think about what isolation will bring out of your characters.
Gothic Horror Novels We Love
Surprise! I’m not going to talk about The Monk here because I’ve spoken about it enough already. Instead, I’m going to reveal that I am a complete Shirley Jackson stan. Her command of a certain ethereal terror has a vice grip around my heart, and she is a major influence on my own writing. One of my favorite stories she wrote is We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Merricat is a compelling protagonist because she is unlikeable and yet so easy to root for. Veiled under relatively straightforward prose is Jackson’s hidden message, and if you don’t pay close enough attention, you may miss it. I can’t recommend this book (or any by Shirley) enough.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is the ultimate science experiment gone wild—imagine baking a cake, but instead of a fluffy dessert, you create a brooding, misunderstood giant who’s got some serious abandonment issues. It’s the original cautionary tale about playing mad scientist without a manual, mixing in themes of ambition, isolation, and “yikes, did I just make a monster?” moments. Shelley’s tale is equal parts gothic horror and philosophical pondering, all wrapped up in the creepy coolness of a lightning-charged lab.
My suggestion for this week isn’t purely (or even primarily) horror, but it is heavy on the Gothic aesthetic and I absolutely love it. Salt & Broom by Sharon Lynn Fisher follows a witch as she strives to free a brooding family home from the pall of a curse. There is light horror and cozy romance, with carefully crafted characters and beautifully rendered settings. The world of this novel is fantastically Gothic, and I couldn’t recommend it more highly!
One of my absolute favorite examples of Gothic Fiction is The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This short work isn’t necessarily horror, but the suspense that is built throughout the piece is masterful. Follow the narrator as she slowly descends into madness after being diagnosed with a “nervous depression” and forced to sequester in an old colonial mansion by her husband. It condemns how women were treated in the 19th century, and how the treatments doctors prescribed them did more harm than good. If you’re a fan of those stories where something lurks just out of eyesight, this is the story for you.