 Horror/Scary: March 31, 2021 Issue [#10692] |
This week: Gothic horror Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week: "Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."
~Edgar Allan Poe |
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The word "gothic" can describe styles of fiction, art, music, architecture, and lettering among other things. In literature, it is a style that includes horror, death, gloom, and occasionally romance.
The first well known Gothic novel is The Castle of Otranto, written by Horace Walpole and published in 1764. It tells the story of a princess who comes to a medieval castle to marry the owner's son. The author initially claimed it was a translation of a manuscript dating back to the time of the Crusades, but later admitted that it was all his own creation.
Other well known authors of Gothic fiction include Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, and Daphne du Maurier.
Well known Gothic films include Pan's Labyrinth, The Haunting, and Rebecca. Parodies of the Gothic genre include Love at First Bite, Young Frankenstein, and most of the Scooby Doo cartoons.
Tropes often included in traditional Gothic novels include mysterious mansions or castles, secret rooms and passageways, brooding or threatening characters, ghosts and other supernatural elements, darkness, insanity, family secrets, innocent heroines, and a generally spooky atmosphere.
Even when they take place in more modern times, Gothic novels often include Medieval elements such as suits of armor, swords, and castle dungeons.
Darkness is important in establishing the frightening atmosphere of a Gothic story. The scariest events of the story always seem to take place either at night or during thunderstorms. Collinwood, the setting of the 1960s Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, should have been under water considering the amount of rain that seemed to fall there.
The covers of stereotypical gothic novels often feature a terrified heroine in a white gown running away from a forbidding dark mansion with one light burning in a tower window. While most of the tropes associated with Gothic horror are part of the fun of this genre, the hapless heroine who does nothing but scream, cry, and faint has become annoying over the years. It might be a good idea to retire that trope in favor of a main character who is capable of dealing with scary situations without fainting or waiting for a man to rescue her.
Something to try: Write a Gothic story in a modern setting.
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