Tips on writing a Gothic story.?

Question

I'm working with some ideas for a new story. It's a modern tale of dark sorcery. The time period setting I've having some issues with, but this doesn't deal with that. Right now I'm looking for some good suggestions on how to make it as dark and gothic as possible without loosing the main story.

What does it take to write a decent dark/gothic story? What elements do I need?

Answer 1

Hmm... Use as much dark imagery as possible. Make your main characters brooding.

I am giving you homework. Go watch Sweeney Todd. That's a dark movie, all right. It's so dark because of contrast.

Torture your charachters. Make them forget their own morals in their blinding love/selfishness/greed/desire. To add extra darkness, have someone accidentally kill their best friend.

Answer 2

Generally speaking, Gothic stories tend to deal with strong emotion in one form or another;  all consuming passion, sorrow, hate, ect.  A lot of stories like this deal in extremes, so having characters who seem apathetic towards what's going on won't fit.  Whatever is going on, they're going to react strongly to.  

Whatever you decide on, you're going to need a protagonist that people can relate to, at least on some level.  Because dark or gothic stories deal so much with emotion of all kinds, having someone who's superhuman and perfect in every way isn't very interesting because we start not caring about them or worrying for them.  Give your characters believable flaws or vices;  the detective trying to do the right thing who's addicted to cocaine, or the girl who's too naieve/romantic for her own good.  A person can be interesting and strong and still have problems.

Characters are also more extreme or flamboyant than normal.  You're a lot more likely to run into Morticia Addams in a Gothic novel than you are June Cleaver.  Since you want to do a darker story, keep in mind that most characters will have a dirty little secret of some sort or other, some darker than most.

As far as writing from first person goes, the biggest mistake an author can make is to "tell" rather than "show".  What I mean is overloading the reader with so many details on the physical appearance or mood of something that they actually overwhelm them and lose interest.  For example:

"I didn't think the room had been decorated in the last century.  I'd never seen so much crushed velvet and polished wood in one place outside of a bordello."

sounds better than

"The room was black and the floor was made of polished red wood, reflecting the huge, overstuffed armchairs and ornate woodwork that depicted angry demons and frightened cherubs.  The fireplaces was made of old stone and the pavers looked stained and dry.  There was a painting on the wall that showed a forest at night and the dark shape of a wolf running through it."

Details are good, but in moderation.  One or two descriptive terms is fine, but too many and you risk boring the reader.  I mean, are you here to tell me a dark, interesting story or describe a furniture catalog to me?

At the moment that's all I can think of.  I hope I helped a little.

Answer 3

You should rent this movie called Hangman's Curse. That's got a lot of what you need in it.