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Today the lovely Icy Sedgwick, who came to the Bloggers Bash 2016 is talking to us about an area of her expertise: gothic stories. Icy is studying a PhD in film studies looking at space in haunted houses, so she really does know a thing or two about this.

If you want to know some neat little tricks to perfecting gothic tales, check out Icy’s tips below:

You can find Gothic stories in some form or another right through history. But as a genre, you have to go to 1764 to find the first novel, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. Since then, Gothic has given us Frankenstein and his Creature, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dorian Gray, Dracula, Melmoth the Wanderer, Lord Ruthven, Sweeney Todd, and many more.

It’s never really gone away, though its popularity goes up and down depending on the society of the time. It’s had a recent boom in interest through the ‘dreadpunk’ genre, spawned from TV shows like Penny Dreadful, and Stranger Things brought a taste of the Gothic to Netflix.

It’s a really fun genre (well to write, not necessarily to read), and it is well worth having a go if you’re into all things dark, spooky, or just not-quite-right.

There are loads of characteristics to the Gothic as a genre, but what 3 things make an awesome Gothic story if you’re just starting out?

ONE – INTERESTING SPACES

Space is crucial to the Gothic. On one hand, you’ve got your stereotypical crumbling castles, isolated manor houses, and creaky cabins in the wood. On the other hand, you’ve got dilapidated apartments in modern cities, suburban duplexes and even hospitals.

In some ways, it’s even creepier if the weird stuff happens somewhere totally normal. It can also be funnier – see What We Do In The Shadows (2014).

Think of the spaces as being the world building you’d do in fantasy or sci fi. What does it look like? Sound like? Smell like? Is there an atmosphere?

And think smaller. Look at the parts of the building. A haunting might affect the whole building, but it’ll always start in one particular room. Is there a weird stairwell in a block of flats? A cupboard no one will use?

Look at your own life. Everyone has a space they never liked, but couldn’t figure out why. I still don’t like walking under our loft hatch on the upstairs landing.

In The Skeleton Key (2005), Kate Hudson’s character finds a locked room in the attic. In The Conjuring (2013), clues hide in the wall spaces, as well as the basement. Ghostwatch (1992) made good use of the cupboard under the stairs.

Those spaces are the ones where the magic happens.

TWO – BURIED SECRETS

Spaces are super important to our next element – the buried secret. You need somewhere to put it, right?

Whether it’s a portrait in the attic, a long lost twin, a torture chamber under the stairs, or a skeleton bricked up in the outhouse, your story needs a buried secret. It doesn’t have to be literally buried, just hidden in some way.

At their heart, Gothic narratives are about investigating a mystery. The classic stories often feature heroines prying into locked rooms, or exploring winding corridors. Jane Austen even parodied the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe in her own Northanger Abbey (1817).

More recently, you have characters investigating the history of a house to explain a haunting. In The Others (2001), a photograph in a servant’s room unlocked the mystery. Even in Poltergeist (1982), there are buried secrets – quite literally under the house!

You don’t need skeletons to burst through the floor, but you do need your characters to make some kind of discovery.

The heroes want to uncover the secret, and the villains want to keep it hidden. Check out Stir of Echoes (1999) for this concept put very, very literally. And speaking of villains…

THREE – MONSTERS – FIGURATIVE AND LITERAL

You need villains. They nearly always take the form of a monster, but that’s not to say they should be Boris Karloff clones.

Gothic literature (and later, cinema) has given us some of the best monsters in popular culture. Frankenstein’s Creature, Dracula, the Wolf Man – there would be no Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer without them.

You’ve really got three kinds of monsters.

The accidental monster

This is your Wolf Man, or your Creature. Ghosts sometimes fall into this category, especially if they died at the hands of someone else.

The monster didn’t ever intend to be that way. They’re sympathetic in a lot of ways, but essentially they still have to be destroyed by the end of the story.

The intentional monster

Think Dracula. They’re out for what they can get, and the hero/heroine is about to get in their way. But the monster doesn’t always have to be an obvious thing. A lot of people argue that the house in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959) is the real monster of the story.

The figurative monster

These are the monsters who aren’t the ones who hide under your bed. Vincent Price’s Witchfinder General or Hannibal Lecter are good examples. The Gothic isn’t just about monsters and demons. At its heart, it’s about the battle between darkness and light. It’s often referred to as the primitive opposed with the civilised.

So how does your figurative monster represent the primitive?

No matter which monster you choose, just remember that whatever they want is just as important as whatever the hero wants. It’s the conflict between those competing desires that creates the tension.

Putting it all together

So now you’ve thought of your fascinating space. You have to figure out how to isolate it from its surroundings. Maybe you’ve picked an apartment building, and your heroine is a new tenant who doesn’t know anyone yet. Look at The Shining (1977) – the Overlook is literally cut off in the winter when the snow comes.

Think up the backstory for your space. How does it relate to the villain? What did they do there, or what do they want to do there?

Now you have your space, you understand its history, and it’s cut off in some way. What are you going to hide in it? Choose something logical but maybe choose an out of the way hiding spot. It’s rare that a Gothic heroine finds herself investigating a kitchen (unless you find Zuul living in your refrigerator).

So how does your secret tie to your monster? And what will the monster do when the heroine starts investigating?

Eeek the tension!

I hope you’ve found this helpful, and that you’re going to have a go at writing a Gothic story! Remember, atmosphere is everything, and you don’t need to add gore unless you want to.

Happy Haunting!

About Icy

Icy Sedgwick is a writer, as well as Gothic Studies scholar specialising in Film. She blogs about folklore and speculative fiction here because it gives her an excuse to poke around in old graveyards! If you enjoy weird tales of ghosts and goddesses, you can get a free copy of her Harbingers: Dark Tales of Speculative Fiction short story collection here. Find her on Twitter @IcySedgwick or drop her a line at icy@icysedgwick.com.

The post 3 Things You Need To Create The Perfect Gothic Story With @Icysedgwick appeared first on Sacha Black.

I had a date night recently and we happened to watch a film: London has Fallen. It gave me somewhat of an epiphany watching it. Horror in its most basic ‘blood and gore’ sense, is changing.

As a kid, I thought sword fights and giant spiders were terrifying. Granted kids find a lot of things scary but it wasn’t that long ago that adults cowered behind the sofa over the Blob, which barely caused me to raise an eyebrow recently, and only because it was that bad!

So why then, did I find this cheesy American action film only rated 15, so horrifying?

It’s because, horror, like society, is evolving. It’s thrown off its red paint blood shackles and picked up terrorism and child napping instead. We can learn a few lessons from it that can be woven into ANY type of genre.

The films plot in essence was: eye for an eye. America hit somewhere in some middle east country for some inane reason I forgot. A middle eastern guy wanted revenge cause the hit killed his daughter and maimed his family. To do it he (and his remaining family) orchestrated the murdered of the Prime Minster to get a state funeral. Then blew shit up in London whilst the American president was at the funeral. Apparently killing the British PM is easy, but the President is impossible…?!

Pretty trite for an action plot if you ask me. The only interesting thing was that it was based in London, (not something I’d seen before).

It was more than somewhat unnerving watching iconic British buildings get blown up. If there’s one thing the British are, its proud of their heritage and I can’t think of a recent film that’s blown anything other than the White House up. What I wonder is how American’s feel watching their iconic buildings get blown up? Are you too saturated by similar movies to be unnerved anymore or does it still have that shock and awe impact?

Fear isn’t just fear anymore, someone decided to re-write the manual and create psychological fear instead. It’s different, its more, its worse than normal fear. It makes the things that go bump in night look like fluffy teddy bears sprinkled in love hearts.

‘Psychology’, whether fear related or thrilled up, seems to be the new publishing black. Since Gone Girl went nuts, psychological thrillers are all the rage. Now it’s all The Girl on the Train and Before I Go To Sleep.

Horror has traditionally been about taking violence and gore to the extreme. For example, graphic descriptions like this one from James Howell‘s Guinea Pigs book which I read recently (post live 25th April 16).

“One of the hyenas clamped its mouth over her face and tore out an eyeball. The other animal chewed off her nose and lips. Her leg throbbed, the femoral artery ruptured and her life squirted away in thick red jets.” James Howell, Guinea Pigs, buy it here.

BUT, what makes this sphincter tightening psychological horror, is the context surrounding it. The woman being eaten was not only alive and awake, but had been purposefully paralysed (we also knew that was one of her worst fears) and had to watch herself be eaten alive by the hyenas. Read it again knowing she’s awake and watching her flesh get masticated and tell me it isn’t just that bit more gruesome and horrifying!

But what is it about the fact she was awake whilst having her flesh eaten that made it so psychologically terrifying?

1. Because we knew she didn’t want/was afraid of being paralysed
2. Because she couldn’t save herself – she was totally helpless
3. Because she was vulnerable
4. Because it had a particularly gruesome gore factor on top of the above

If you think about it, numbers 1 through 3 are states of mind – emotional constructs, and things that we can therefore ‘feel’. They’ve not actually got anything to do with traditional ‘horror’ as we think of it.

It’s only that the gore gives it its horror context.

Psychological horror is about the emotional state the reader is in, the gore you make them see as per the genre is almost irrelevant.

Here’s another example from another book I am reading currently (yes I read several at once, shoot me.)

“He was standing on the back of a charred sofa bed, swaying a little unsteadily on his short legs, with a makeshift nappy bunched up to one side and sagging to his knees.

“Mattieu!” Jérémy screamed again and scrambled frantically toward the child, one arm outstretched to grab him. A war whoop came from below, followed by the rattle of automatic fire and the screech of bullets ripping along the top of the flimsy barrier. Then came the duller thud that sent Mattieu spinning, spraying blood in a wide arc. Jeremy, still reaching up, caught the next three bullets and the brothers fell together, limp and strangely tumbled, in a light rain of chipboard and pine.” Jane Dougherty, Abomination buy it here.

This is perhaps only horrifying to anyone that’s a parent. But I actually had to pop the book down momentarily. Dead kids is hard and horrifying, at least to me anyway. But especially in the context of the book, where basically the whole world is coming to an end!

But what of the film, and how is this relevant to other genres? London has Fallen is psychologically horrifying because its was SO real, and so possible. Being that close to the truth in a society whose major broadcasts are fuelled by terrorism made me feel vulnerable. Sure, I know it was just a film, I know I’m perfectly safe in London, but it still sowed a seed of doubt. I could open my whole conspiracy can of worms now and talk about New World Order and how the film industry is brainwashing society to accept whats to come, but I won’t…or maybe I just did.

Moving on.

How does this apply to other genres?

Horror, fear, and terror aren’t reserved only for lovers of the night fan club. Characters in my fantasy novel need to be scared, REALLY scared, characters in romances need to be scared of losing their loves etc etc what better way to make it realistic than through psychological horror.

Making characters vulnerable and helpless/hopelessness, as well as playing on their fears and finally sprinkling with a little context fits in any genre, in any story.

Thoughts? Do you think horror is changing? How do you harness a readers fear? What are you afraid of?

If you liked this post and are interested in my non-fiction book on creating villains: 13 Steps to Evil, why not sign up for updates and even more exclusive writing content? Sign up here.

The post The Great Horror Hoax – How to REALLY Harness A Readers Fear appeared first on Sacha Black.

Two sentences… make em as scary as you can… Here’s mine:

Millie’s scream always made my skin crawl, it was a mother’s instinct. I looked at Mike; he’d heard it too. Millie died a year ago.

Once again, I broke my own rules and wrote three sentences! I’m so bad at my own word games! but it was two lines at least… I’m claiming that as counting! It wasn’t the best, but then I’ve never written horror!

Now to last weeks writespiration, and your six word stories. There are some cracking entries, so many I was utterly blown away, so thank you to everyone who took the time to participate.

Annette

An author’s life is all write!

***

Esther

Screaming, suffering, sweating…beautiful baby born.

***

Geoff

Take a letter. Then another. Then…’

***

Allie P

A gale blew. I adjusted sails.

***

Sarah B gives 6 for 6

Hungry? Have a few pomegranate seeds.

I learned the truth at fourteen.

Aliens dissect humans. Discover no heart.

Dieting = refusing pizza, eating chocolate cake.

Tell me. Does it get better?
It gets different. Sad but true.

***

Ali

In my dreams, I am alive.

I wake. Morning brings the shadows.

Death disconnects us, but love endures.

***

Jane

Leaf-gold falling, geese calling, winter’s coming.

***

Hugh

He left. Never came back. Never!

***

Claudette

To be with you is eternity.

***

Debbie

“Tortured by love, awakens the phoenix”.

***

Michelle

Hubby’s business trip means lonely nights.
Little granddaughter’s hugs warm Grammie’s heart.
Though miles apart, mom’s love endures.
Doggie kisses bring laughs and giggles.

***

Luccia

Busy with grandchildren, slept very little,
Can I manage six coherent words?
I nod, bleary-eyed, wasted and grumpy,
A six-word memoir. Piece of cake:

Tears, smiles, ashes. Biography without annotations.

***

Sue Gale

Birth, child, teen, marriage, children, requiem

***

Glen Hefly submitted a whopping 16 entries!

Definition Forever: Six weeks, if lucky.

Death. It wasn’t forgivness, but enough.

She’s cheating. Didn’t bother to hangup.

You’re a character. My character. When?

All this time. Good-Witch my ass.

Want to hear a secret? No.

Everyone’s dead. They don’t know, yet.

Rain hammered the widows. The baby!

We should be better strangers

Saved people surrounded my gallows, cheering.

Oh no! The King is pregnant!

Save me? Yeah, about that Jim.

Wait, ferries don’t run at night…

Heart-drive full. Delete Past Lovers?

She wrote milk, he read gasoline.

She breathed her last into him.

***

Kate my lovely friend from work who secretly loves to write, finally after being berated by me, joined in! (thank you work wife!)

“Hug?” “But I have no arms.”

“There’s always tomorrow.” “Tomorrow I die.”

For Sale; weeding dress. Never worn.

My only true love. My abuser.

ten fingers , ten toes, our everything.

She pressed the button and ran.

Ignition, clutch, gear, throttle, freedom.

***

Last but not least, Stephen Swartz submitted an entry via twitter for last weeks romance story. I felt it so brilliant I had to post it. Thanks Stephen

They met and had a frantic two day affair, sniffing and licking each other with delight. Until the dogcatcher hauled Pugsly away.

The post Writespiration #66 2 Sentence Horror Story appeared first on Sacha Black.

I first watched the Exorcist when I was about 9, I don’t know whether it was the projectile green vomit or badly done makeup, but I wasn’t impressed. If I’d watched it for the first time now, it might be a little different. I was skeptical about everything back then. These days I’m only skeptical about some things because I know there really are things that go bump in the night. Scary movies, books or stories, have a bigger effect on me now—yes, I leave lights on, scan rooms and ceilings and ensure there’s a hockey stick within reaching distance!

I’m my own worst enemy and can never please myself. I started this series because I wasn’t happy with my villain or the villains in popular culture, guess what, I’m still not. So I started investigating what makes a really scary bad guy. This post aims to identify what sets apart your Lemony Snicket from your Michael Myers (Halloween).

I’ve already talked through 6 Simple Steps to Superbad Villains and morals, motives and positive traits for your villains. These things still stand and are really key to creating a truly scary villain. A while back I asked you who your favorite villains were and you listed loads, and some particularly scary ones too:

Lee Harvey Oswald, Vergil from DmC: Devil May Cry, Bellatrix Lestrange, Professor Umbridge, Annie Wilkes, Norman Bates from Psych, Cruella de Vil, Queen Jadis, the Witch from the Chronicles of Narnia, Sauron from Lord of the Rings, Child Snatcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes, Nurse Ratched, Jack Torrance (The Shining).

But what is it that makes them really scary? Lots of the stories these characters come from were made into films, and I think there is something we can learn from that. Here are the six things I’ve learned about creating really scary villains:

6 Terror Tactics For Really Scary Villains: Setting, Setting, Setting

One thing I failed to consider when thinking about my villain was what else other than the character themselves contributed to making them super scary. Films have the ability to add music: the creaking of a door, the vibrato on a particularly high note as the character pushes open a door into a darkly lit corridor… oh wait a minute, we writers can do that shit too!

Take the photo right. It’s dark anyway. Put yourself in there, and you’re immediately drawn to the rusted machinery that still looks like it works. It’s positioned just close enough to the light, you know it’s important, it can be used, but it’s obscure enough you don’t quite know what it’s used for… What’s worse than knowing something is awful, but not knowing why? If there was a small splatter of blood slowly dripping down the chair, and another spot on the machine it would just finish the setting off. It tells you the blood is fresh, that someone is wounded, but not dead because there’s not enough blood. It also tells you the machine is involved—and this room is a torture room.

I said ‘splatter’ on purpose because too much blood, and you remove the anticipation, tension, and mystery. Giving a hint of horror, a tiny clue to the atrocities that await you without slamming it in your reader’s face like a knife laid in a whopping pool of blood does so much more for building terror in readers (and your character).

What else can you do to your setting? Think about Pathetic Fallacy (a kind of personification of the weather/nature).

Really Scary Villains: 2 and 3—Credibility & Believability

Credibility leads to believability. Credibility is the quality of being trusted and believed in. Having credible villains means we will believe in whatever scary ‘thing’ it is they are doing. But how do you create credibility?

Use core value: Even though they are a villain they will still have core values— even if that means they are warped and evil. Sticking to core values also means you will be consistent which builds character. It also means your villain has a reason to fight—they will defend their values to the death just as much as your hero will—it just happens that they are opposing each other.

Integrity: Although integrity is about doing the right things for the right reasons if your villain has core values even if they seem illogical—and he fights for them—then he has integrity. A villain fighting with integrity and thinking they what they are doing is right, and for the right reasons is scary. Especially if what they are doing is horrific like a mass genocide or whatever. They will be able to give reasoned, logical explanations for why they are doing what they are doing, and reason and logic mean that occasionally you will believe what they are doing is right too!

Authenticity: Your villain needs to do exactly what they say they are going to do. Especially if that means torturing your main character or killing off a couple of major minor, or minor minor characters. Without following through on their convictions, they become weak and flaky.

Expertise: Having an intelligent villain with expertise in a particular area means they know more than you do and especially more than your main character—this makes them unbeatable—but i’ll cover this later. It also means they can think of new cruel and unusual ways to defeat your protagonist.

There is one more aspect to this, believability can come from playing on fears. I always think some of the things that are the scariest, are those that are the closest to reality, the ones that could almost be true. Take Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. When the film was new, and the child catcher first appeared, it was so close to reality in that there are child kidnappers that it made it scarier. Using concepts that could be true, or things that are just plain wrong, like torturing or hurting children (amongst other topics) brings a frightening element to stories, especially if the Villain can make reasoned arguments as to why they are right.

Really Scary Villains: 4 and 5 Transparency, Clarity, and Secrets

Saying transparency, clarity and secrets sounds like a contradiction. But it’s not. A villain needs to be transparent over their goals and be able to articulate them—verbally or otherwise—with absolute clarity. There is nothing scarier than a villain who is absolutely crystal clear on the consequences of crossing them or, how they are going to exact their revenge on you. But this doesn’t have to just come from spoken words. It might be done through body language or prior actions. Either way, you need to make your reader know the shit is about to hit the fan – even if you just allude to it. Villains need secrets. They need deadly, evil, twisted secrets. To keep the villain credible, the reader and/or the protagonist need to know the villain has secrets, but not what they are. And of course, these secrets need to foil the heroes plans.

Really Scary Villains: 6. Make them Unbeatable

Everyone loves an underdog. Sometimes your hero needs to be the underdog. Really scary villains appear completely unbeatable. They are too intelligent, too many steps ahead with more resources at their disposal than the protagonist. Cut all the heroes options off, pull away all the resources they need. Make life look completely hopeless, and your villain will look even scarier.

***

If you liked this post, why not get even more awesome tips in the book 13 Steps To Evil – How to Craft Superbad Villains

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Amazon Book Blurb:

Your hero is not the most important character in your book. Your villain is.
 
Are you fed up of drowning in two-dimensional villains? Frustrated with creating clichés? And failing to get your reader to root for your villain?
  
In 13 Steps to Evil, you’ll discover: 
 
+ How to develop a villain’s mindset
+ A step-by-step guide to creating your villain from the ground up
+ Why getting to the core of a villain’s personality is essential to make them credible
+ What pitfalls and clichés to avoid as well as the tropes your story needs
  
Finally, there is a comprehensive writing guide to help you create superbad villains. Whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned writer, this book will help power up your bad guy and give them that extra edge.

These lessons will help you master and control your villainous minions, navigate and gain the perfect balance of good and evil, as well as strengthening your villain to give your story the tension and punch it needs.
 
If you like dark humor, learning through examples and want to create the best villains you can, then you’ll love Sacha Black’s guide to crafting superbad villains. Read 13 Steps to Evil today and start creating kick-ass villains.

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