What is Gothic?

Characteristics for your

Gothic Horror Story

Grade 8 Literature/ Writing Skills (Stader)

1) Decide Your Setting.weave the Gothic details

into the story:

Cathedral style mansions, with towers and arched windows

Run down graveyards, fog, mist(Hint: Do NOT call them cemeteries)

Wrought iron gates

Crosses

Darkness

Lots of stone

Crypts, family

mausoleums

Interiors with high windows,

imposing staircases, chambers for the servants,

huge libraries, wine cellars, small chapels inside the

manor (home) itself

2) Decide Your Characters.Dress them appropriate to the Period

in which you are writing.

• Top hats, bonnets• Capes and Cloaks• Heavy skirts, bustles• Buttoned shoes• Smoking a pipe• Parasols• Dressed in fine clothes

• Wealthy people• Well-educated

Include a Protagonist

And an Antagonist

19th Century Names for 19th Century Stories

 

 

Catherine Georgina Charles Henry Dora

 

Charlotte Asa Nathaniel William Lucy

 

Lillia Olive Parker Calvin Ama

 

Philinda Abigail Edmond Clifford Sadie

 

Flora Alice Alvin Samuel Sophie

Clara Anna Williard Almond Edgar

 

Melinda Althea Robert Rebecca George

Phoebe Eliza Julian Benjamin Edna

 

Mabel Sedgewick Lizzie Josephine Heathcliff

 

 

 

 

Decide the main Conflict.

• Jeolousy, love triangles• Jeolousy of property, settling of an estate• Someone dead who doesn’t stay dead• Unresolved conflict• Revenge

• Mysterious illness• Science experiments gone wrong• Business partners who wrong their partner

Work to include:

• SuspenseUpon looking over her shoulder, she perceived the slightest shadow

creep over the wall and instantly disappear.

• Dialogue - required

“Darling, I wasn’t expecting you.”

• Literary Language/Poetic Devices

The frightening flicker of the flame . . .

Cracks lining the musty ivy-covered walls sought to warn me that this was a place not for the living, but for the dead.

Writing in the Style of Gothic HorrorThe mysterious . . .

The ghostly . . .

The horrible.

Themes. . .

~ Dead and undead

~ Scientific experiments

~ Revenge

Now it’s Your Turn!