In an article for Writer’s Digest, Katie Lumsden shares five tips on how to write a gothic novel, and suggests questions to ask before deciding if the gothic tone and setting is right for your story.
If you’re interested in a gothic setting, you’re in good company. Some writers who have embraced the gothic include Edgar Allen Poe, Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Jackson, Susan Hill, Flannery O’Connor, and William Faulkner. If you want to join them, Lumsden has some advice:
- Pick your time and place carefully. “In gothic novels, the setting acts almost as a character in its own right,” she says. “Early gothic writers set their books in the medieval period and abroad, because an unfamiliar setting allowed their readers to believe in the impossible. The most important thing is to pick a setting that lets you isolate your characters and create a sense of foreboding.”
- Build your atmosphere. Atmosphere is a vital component to gothic literature, perhaps the most important element. “Atmosphere comes not only from the setting but from how your characters interact with the setting,” Lumsden notes. “The atmosphere is created by your characters’ observations, and above all by their state of mind as they make these observations.”
- Plot your mystery. While not all gothics are mysteries, many are. “The mystery gives you a framework for the plot and provides a way to build tension; but the solution to the mystery—the plot twist or the reveal—is what really makes the novel,” Lumsden writes.
- Have fun with tropes. Common gothic tropes include big, spooky houses, the supernatural, unreliable narrators, old legends, bad weather, and fires. You can lean into them or undermine them.
- Use the gothic as a means to an end. The themes and tropes of gothic writing are a framework, not a set of rules, Lumsden notes. “The best gothic works use gothic tropes to emphasize their themes,” she says. “Wuthering Heights is more about grief, revenge, and generational trauma than it is about anything supernatural.” Before you enter a gothic novel, think about why this background is right for the story you want to tell. Will the atmosphere help you explore the theme or your characters? What is the core of your mystery? What are you trying to say, and how can gothic elements help you say it?
