#narrative themes and motifs good

[astxrwar]

yea ok thunderbolts was actually good

[obliqueletterkennyreference]

its interesting to me how aang appreciators also tend to be zukaang shippers? or vice versa, zukaang shippers tend to be big Aang Appreciators. which is interesting cause i feel like hes the least appreciated character of the main cast generally speaking

[dykeofmisfortune]

being a pretentious fuck is embarassing sometimes. bc if someone asks me what video games i play im like "yeah i only play story based indie games about depression and guilt" like omfg shut UP

[1o1percentmilk]

something that bothers me is my inability to see people as people and rather more as a collection of themes/motifs/objects/skills

[fumifooms]

Shogun 2024 is really good holy shit

[krytus]

a week ago i was ready to give up on kings blood and today i just finished outlining each new chapter of the restructuring/rewrite im doing 😌.....

[artekai]

Even if it doesn't make sense to anyone but me.... I have to write a Dailah x Kina fic

[sunnnfish]

COMPLETED DUNGEON MESHI !!!!! SO GOOD !!!!

[welcometoteyvat]

hh xiao and yelan chasm remembrance (based on that millelith memorial) idea speak to me

[kianamaiart]

what was the process like for naming the pppidwtbamg characters?

Scrolling down various baby names dot com sites LOL

"Aika" was just a name that I liked that felt fit her after I designed her. Not that much thought went into her name since she was the first character I made and wasn't planning on doing anything with her after that. Everyone else's names are very on the nose so I was thinking about giving her a star related name later but also I kinda like that her name is the only one that doesn't line up (as she doesn't want to be a magical girl or "a star")

"Hoshi" literally means star in Japanese which was me being lazy and once again just attaching a name to them because I wasn't planning on doing more. But also it fits haha. I did seriously consider changing Hoshi's name before working on the pilot because "why would a space star have a Japanese name?" But it works out with the backstory in my head wherein Hoshi and Aika meet for the first time, and Aika just starts calling them "Hoshi" because she was small and Japanese was her first language (she is Black/Japanese for those unaware). Hoshi ended up just adopting the name.

Then "Zira" is a name of African origin meaning "moonlight" which I felt was really fitting since I knew I wanted to do a moon motif with her to contrast Aika's star. Was also intentionally looking for "Z" names to further push the idea that Aika and Zira are opposites.

"Eclipse" is Eclipse because it sounded like an edgy-ish name he'd give himself and also at this point I knew I was going for a space theme with all these characters (a good chunk of magical girl stuff does). I knew he was gonna be Aika's self proclaimed love interest, while Zira is her actual love interest so giving them both moon motifs and names but in different ways felt fitting. I've mentioned it here a couple times that his real name is Elio, which means "sun" so do with that what you will.

Lady DeVoid is based on voids/black holes so... yeah hahaha. Added the "Lady" since a lot of classic villainesses have that title and I was also inspired by Cruella DeVil's name.

Miss's real name is unknown but "Miss" as a name is based on my experience in school where most kids just call teachers "Miss" or "Mister", not really bothering to say the rest of their names. As I grew up I kinda found that to be sad and feel like it kinda takes away from teachers' identities a bit. But I did like how narratively it works for Miss, since she drowns herself in her work and has, over time, lost who she is. She is Miss. Just a school teacher and nothing more (for now). She is intended to have an Earth motif so maybe her real name's related to that...

[etherealspacejelly]

im so jealous of people who have special interests that are facts based. like how am i supposed to communicate to people that my special interest isnt star trek the tv show its star trek the story. the characters. the themes and motifs.

people ask me stuff about the lore or the production and im like nah nah nah. idk any of that stuff. but i could spend 30 minutes analysing the scene in corbomite manouver where spock says "im s-" and what implications that has for his character and his relationship with jim.

i dont know how a mind meld works or what powers a phaser but i could write you an essay on the themes of found family in star trek v, including the significance of row row row your boat in the cyclical narrative.

"how does a transporter work" fuck if i know. can i tell you about 'good luck spock'???

[byoldervine]

Foreshadowing Ideas

• Character themes/motifs. I’ve heard of one writer who tries to give each character their own theme for similes, metaphors, descriptions, etc so there’s like a theme to the way they’re portrayed. You could use that to foreshadow notable secrets about the character that will later be revealed, or if at any point they’re disguised then you can use that to tip off the reader that they have the same motifs and so might be related/the same person

• Tiny details hidden in lists. Say the MC was trying to work out the identity of a bad guy, who we know was wearing a red shirt on the day of a big bad event. A few chapters later, MC is checking around their best friend’s room to find them, with the place its usual mess with discarded takeaway boxes, the bed unmade, a red shirt left on the floor that could use a good sweep. The red shirt might not click with all the readers, but those who register it upon their first read will eat it up

• Inconsistent behavioural patterns. Once we have a good idea of what a character is like, having them act out of character can set off alarm bells and make us question what’s occurred to make them act this way. Let the other characters register it too, if it’s reasonable that they would, but let them ultimately brush it off quite quickly to keep it subtle. Or just call it right out, whichever you prefer

• Unreliable narrators. Let one character say one thing and a second character say another, even if they both ultimately agree on the same thing but get one or two small details wrong. Ideally do this two or three times in order for the reader to know it’s not just a mistake in the plot but an intentional inconsistency, but even if it’s only done once and it’s taken as a mistake it’ll still slot together like puzzle pieces in the end and they’ll be kicking themself for dismissing it

• In-universe red herrings. If you’re going to add red herrings as foreshadowing, it’s helpful if the red herring aligns with the intentions of someone person aware of the upcoming plot twist who’s trying to control the narrative. Say the plot twist was the reveal of a mysterious character’s identity to be the best friend of the MC, the best friend might have deliberately thrown the MC off their scent by planting suspicions in the MC’s mind that a different character was the mysterious character’s identity all along. This is less about foreshadowing the actual reveal, of course, but rereads will be a punch to the gut when everyone realises that all this misinformation and red herring business came from someone trying to cover their own ass rather than coming from misunderstandings or multiple other random sources

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Since everyone is talking about that concept art of Jayce and Viktor fighting, it's useful to know that the concept artist, Suheb Zako, also posted it on their twitter with some context.

It is early concept art for a final fight between Jayce and Viktor in the hexzone sorry I'm not calling it that astral plane. There's a link in the twitter thread to an anime clip that gives you a sense of what the vibe would've been.

It's not totally clear when in the development/production process this art is from, but I wouldn't be surprised if Jayce and Viktor originally had a dynamic that was more like their game counterparts. In that case a knock-down-drag-out fight in the astral plane might've fit better. But in the final version of the show it wouldn't have worked anywhere near as well as what we got, and not just because it would have seemed out of character for what the characters and their relationship arc became in the finished show.

First of all, we already did have a knock-down-drag-out fight between them. That's the Council chamber fight scene. It would've felt like a repeated beat and that's the last thing you want in your big finale. When you have characters who fight each other multiple times, you want each fight to reflect a progression of their relationship.

Secondly, by the end of the show, Viktor is absurdly overpowered compared to any other character. Once he goes full Machine Herald he is basically a god. A conventional fight scene is just not gonna do it here. You need a twist, some way to win that doesn't involve being stronger than him. And the trump card being The Power of Unconditional Love (And Also This Time Machine Getting Chucked at Your Head) fits perfectly with the show's themes.

Thirdly, the final episode is ALL action. In an episode that's one massive battle, it takes a lot of work to make individual pieces of action stand out. (And generally, you do it not by making the fighting look Super Duper Extra Cool, but with character work.) But any scenes between the characters that are not action are automatically gonna pop because they're so different in pacing and energy from everything around them.

I haven't seen as many people discussing this set of keyframes, but the changes here are also fascinating:

Because Viktor assimilating Jayce as a battle move is almost the complete opposite of what we got in the finished show, and what we got in the finished show is so fucking good. It's one of my favorite moments in the whole damn series.

I've already written about it here, but playing it so that Jayce doesn't get surprised or overpowered but chooses to allow Viktor to bring him into the astral plane as a last-ditch effort to reach whatever is left of Viktor's humanity is sooooooo narratively sexy. (And also just. Sexy. Big stronk dude with his fuckass hammer and his stupid shoulder armor waiting on his knees for his eldritch god bf to materialize behind him and oh so tenderly penetrate his brain with his magic fingers, listen I am not making this up this is just what happens, no homoerotic fight scene could ever top this.)

It also fits with the motif of a number of characters winning their individual battles in the finale by surrender/submission/potential self-sacrifice. It fits with Caitlyn realizing that to cut the string of protective runes off Ambessa's arm she has to allow Ambessa to get within stabbing distance of her face. And of course, Jinx forcing Vi to let her go by popping the gemstone out of her gauntlet and letting herself fall with Warwick.

Arcane has fantastic action storytelling and part of good action storytelling is knowing when to have the character stop fighting each other. Seeing the early concept art is cool to see how much things evolved, but I'm glad they moved away from just trying to do an epic boss fight because what we ended up with is so much more interesting.

[physalian]

Pacing your Story (Or, How to Avoid the "Suddenly...!")

Arguably *the* most important lesson all writers need to learn, even for those who don’t give a damn about themes and motifs and a moral soap box: How your story is paced, whether it’s a comic book, a children’s chapter book, a doorstopper, a mini series, a movie, or a full-length season of TV (old school style), pacing is everything.

Pacing determines how long the story *feels* regardless of how long it actually is. It can make a 2 hour movie feel like 90 mins or double the time you’re trapped in your seat.

There’s very little I can say about pacing that hasn’t been said before, but I’m here to condense all that’s out there into a less intimidating mouthful to chew.

So: What is pacing?

Pacing is how a story flows, how quickly or slowly the creator moves through and between scenes, how long they spend on setting, narration, conversation, arguments, internal monologues, fight scenes, journey scenes. It’s also how smoothly tone transitions throughout the story. A fantasy adventure jumping around sporadically between meandering boredom, high-octane combat, humor, grief, and romance is exhausting to read, no matter how much effort you put into your characters.

Anyone who says the following is wrong:

Good pacing is always fast/bad pacing is always slow

Pacing means you are 100% consistent throughout the entire story

It doesn’t matter as much so long as you have a compelling story/characters/lore/etc

Now let me explain why in conveniently numbered points:

1. Pacing is not about consistency, it’s about giving the right amount of time to the right pieces of your story

This is not intuitive and it takes a long time to learn. So let’s look at some examples:

Lord of the Rings: The movies trimmed a *lot* from the books that just weren’t adaptable to screen, namely all the tedious details and quite a bit of the worldbuilding that wasn’t critical to the journey of the Fellowship. That said, with some exceptions, the battles are as long as they need to be, along with every monologue, every battle speech. When Helm’s Deep is raging on, we cut away to Merry and Pippin with the Ents to let ourselves breathe, then dive right back in just before it gets boring.

The Hobbit Trilogy: The exact opposite from LotR, stretching one kids book into 3 massive films, stuffing it full of filler, meandering side quests, pointless exposition, drawing out battles and conflicts to silly extremes, then rushing through the actual desolation of Smaug for… some reason.

Die Hard (cause it’s the Holidays y’all!): The actiony-est of action movies with lots of fisticuffs and guns and explosions still leaves time for our hero to breathe, lick his wounds, and build a relationship with the cop on the ground. We constantly cut between the hero and the villains, all sharing the same radio frequency, constantly antsy about what they know and when they’ll find out the rest, and when they’ll discover the hero’s kryptonite.

2. Make every scene you write do at least two things at once

This is also tricky. Making every scene pull double duty should be left to after you’ve written the first draft, otherwise you’ll never write that first draft. Pulling double duty means that if you’re giving exposition, the scene should also reveal something about the character saying it. If you absolutely must write the boring trip from A to B, give some foreshadowing, some thoughtful insight from one of your characters, a little anecdote along the way.

Develop at least two of the following:

The plot

The backstory

The romance/friendships

The lore

The exposition

The setting

The goals of the cast

Doing this extremely well means your readers won’t have any idea you’re doing it until they go back and read it again. If you have two characters sitting and talking exposition at a table, and then those same two characters doing some important task with filler dialogue to break up the narrative… try combining those two scenes and see what happens.

**This is going to be incredibly difficult if you struggle with making your stories longer. I do not. I constantly need to compress my stories. **

3. Not every scene needs to be crucial to the plot, but every scene must say something

I distinguish plot from story like a square vs a rectangle. Plot is just a piece of the tale you want to tell, and some scenes exist just to be funny, or romantic, or mysterious, plot be damned.

What if you’re writing a character study with very little plot? How do you make sure your story isn’t too slow if 60% of the narrative is introspection?

Avoid repeating information the audience already has, unless a reminder is crucial to understanding the scene

This isn’t 1860 anymore. Every detail must serve a purpose. Keep character and setting descriptions down to absolute need-to-know and spread it out like icing on a cake – enough to coat, but not give you a mouthful of whipped sugar and zero cake.

Avoid describing generic daily routines, unless the existence of said routine is out of ordinary for the character, or will be rudely interrupted by chaos. No one cares about them brushing their teeth and doing their hair.

Make sure your characters move, but not too much. E.g. two characters sitting and talking – do humans just stare at each other with their arms lifeless and bodies utterly motionless during conversation? No? Then neither should your characters. Make them gesture, wave, frown, laugh, cross their legs, their arms, shift around to get comfortable, pound the table, roll their eyes, point, shrug, touch their face, their hair, wring their hands, pick at their nails, yawn, stretch, pout, sneer, smirk, click their tongue, clear their throat, sniff/sniffle, tap their fingers/drum, bounce their feet, doodle, fiddle with buttons or jewelry, scratch an itch, touch their weapons/gadgets/phones, check the time, get up and sit back down, move from chair to table top – the list goes on. Bonus points if these are tics that serve to develop your character, like a nervous fiddler, or if one moves a lot and the other doesn’t – what does that say about the both of them? This is where “show don’t tell” really comes into play.

4. Your entire work should not be paced exactly the same

Just like a paragraph should not be filled with sentences of all the same length and syntax. Some beats deserve more or less time than others. Unfortunately, this is unique to every single story and there is no one size fits all.

General guidelines are as follows:

Action scenes should have short paragraphs and lots of movement. Cut all setting details and descriptors, internal monologues, and the like, unless they service the scene.

Journey/travel scenes must pull double or even triple duty. There’s a reason very few movies are marketed as “single take” and those that are don’t waste time on stuff that doesn’t matter. See 1917.

Romantic scenes are entirely up to you. Make it a thousand words, make it ten thousand, but you must advance either the romantic tension, actual movement of the characters, conversation, or intimacy of the relationship.

Don’t let your conversations run wild. If they start to veer off course, stop, boil it down to its essentials, and cut the rest.

When transitioning between slow to faster pacing and back again, it’s also not one size fits all. Maybe it being jarring is the point – it’s as sudden for the characters as it is for the reader. With that said, try to keep the “suddenly”s to a minimum.

5. Pacing and tone go hand in hand

This means that, generally speaking, the tone of your scene changes with the speed of the narrative. As stated above, a jarring tonal shift usually brings with it a jarring pacing shift.

A character might get in a car crash while speeding away from an abusive relationship. A character who thinks they’re safe from a pursuer might be rudely and terrifyingly proven wrong. An exhausting chase might finally relent when sanctuary is found. A quiet dinner might quickly turn romantic with a look, or confession. Someone casually cleaning up might discover evidence of a lie, a theft, an intruder and begin to panic.

--

Whatever the case may be, a narrative that is all action all the time suffers from lack of meaningful character moments. A narrative that meanders through the character drama often forgets there is a plot they’re supposed to be following.

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

do you have anything on gothic horror and gothic erotica?

Writing Notes: Gothic Horror & Gothic Erotica

GOTHIC HORROR

A subgenre of horror novels that focus specifically on death.

Originated in the 18th century.

Exemplified by the author Edgar Allan Poe.

Also known as gothic fiction.

It is a literary genre characterized by elements of:

mystery,

horror, and

the supernatural.

Features of Gothic Horror

These are a few of the distinctive features of Gothic Horror:

Complex heroes: In Gothic tales, writers portray the protagonist as an anti-hero—someone with a complex personality that reveals elements of good and evil. As an outcast of society, the protagonist usually has monotonous features, which appear physically or emotionally. For example, the hero may have an uncontrollable rage. Thus, the troubled and doomed anti-hero is a Gothic motif that has influenced the literary canon.

Damsel in distress: A damsel in distress—typically an innocent, young woman—is a classic, Gothic trope used across stories. Often a supernatural being has held the helpless woman in captivity, locking her away in an isolated tower or castle. In Gothic romance, the damsel in distress often falls in love with the anti-hero, who has a seductive and charming personality combined with a dark side, such as a violent temper.

Existential themes: Explores existential themes to dramatize the plot. Gothic writers examine and question morality, reality, religion, and philosophy to match the ominous setting.

Extreme emotions: The idea of emotional extremes is another creative tool used in Gothic fiction to dramatize the story. Characters experience an internal torment that can assume a variety of different forms. Tragic and ominous plot points, such as the death of a loved one or an unsolved murder mystery, often send the protagonist into a spiral or raging catharsis.

Ominous setting: An eerie and spooky setting is a pillar of the Gothic novel, invoking suspense into the narrative. Common locations in Gothic fiction include Medieval ruins, haunted houses, and dilapidated monasteries. These types of ominous spaces often have secret hallways, trapdoors, and mysterious rooms that conjure fear and curiosity in the reader.

Supernatural elements: Supernatural elements—such as the use of ghosts, vampires, monsters, and demons—are another defining feature of Gothic fiction. Gothic writers employ these spooky elements to explore paranormal activity, embed terror into the plotline, and evoke fear within the reader.

Inspired by the aesthetic and architecture of the Middle Ages, Gothic literature gets its name from the Gothic castles, churches, ruins, and abandoned estates it uses as a setting for the haunting storyline.

Writers combine dark imagery with suspenseful narrative to reflect the decayed and battered state of the architecture, fusing terror with pleasure.

Romance often plays a role in Gothic fiction literature, as writers interweave the element of death into romantic relationships to build tension and capture the reader’s emotions.

Gothic Horror is one of the oldest of the horror genres.

Darker, edgier and on the Romanticism end of Romanticism Versus Enlightenment (in fact, it quite literally emerged alongside the Romantic movement in the late 18th century as a reaction against the values of the Enlightenment), it tends to play on both the thrill and the fear of the unknown and places a great importance on atmosphere.

It's usually heavily symbolic, sometimes even dreamlike.

In addition to being important to the horror genre, the first Science Fiction, Mystery Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller, and Adventure authors drew inspiration from Gothic horror, so it's sometimes considered the parent of all modern genre fiction.

Gothic fiction is usually used as a synonym or is the name given to Gothic horror stories that are saturated with the above mentioned sci-fi, fantasy, romance, mystery, or adventure elements.

As new writers contributed to the Gothic genre, numerous subgenres developed, such as the Southern Gothic, Gothic romance, Gothic ghost story, and modern Gothic, all of which fuse aspects of the supernatural into the story.

While the popularity of the Gothic novel soared during the late 18th century, it peaked during the Victorian era.

Today, Gothic fiction continues to inspire the themes and styles of thriller and horror novels.

Modern writers that use Gothic elements in their stories include Toni Morrison, Shirley Jackson, Susan Hill, and Stephen King.

If you’re looking for a basic answer for what makes up gothic horror, some of the hallmarks are:

Haunted and decayed settings (castles, homes, etc.)

Supernatural elements (especially ghosts)

Themes of isolation and/or confinement (both physical and mental)

Emotional and psychological overwhelm (characters doubting their reality, facing emotional turmoil like grief and loss, etc.)

Morally ambiguous characters (these characters engage the reader’s thinking on a deeper level)

Discussions of religion or philosophy (often tied to the morally ambiguous character)

Terror vs. horror (terror is when authors use suspense to build unease, and horror is when the promise of that terror is delivered)

Examples

Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897). A gothic horror novel about a vampire who wants to spread the undead curse to as many people as possible.

Frankenstein (1818): Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is one of the most well-known works of Gothic fiction. In this classic Gothic novel, Shelley explores the ramifications of science, as protagonist Victor Frankenstein attempts to create life from a corpse. Shelley’s image of a monster sewn together from human body parts has become a famous symbol associated with Gothic literature and horror.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891): Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic horror story that uses a portrait as a base for entering the supernatural world. Wilde examines morality in the text, as the protagonist chooses to sell his soul in the pursuit of sin.

GOTHIC EROTICA

This blends elements of gothic literature (see Features of Gothic Horror above) and the erotica genre.

The erotica genre intends to arouse the reader.

Any genre can become an erotic genre, as long as it has a place for sex—explicit sex scenes, to be precise.

Romance novels might be a gateway to the erotic women’s novel, but the romance novel has more emphasis on the sweet relationship between the characters, where, the erotic novel is more tuned in to the sex acts.

Erotic Literature - (or Erotica) written stories about people having sex.

Although it's like porn, Erotica can be educational, well-written, and sometimes even pass into the literary canon as acknowledged classics.

A way to divide the two is to mentally remove the sex from the story. If you still have a story, it is erotica.

Modern day books tend to deal with the emotional side of sex and sexuality, and often — with varying degrees of success — attempting to introduce a story or arching plotline.

Erotic Horror works often push against the limits of our comfort zones. Typically includes:

Consent issues

Graphic violence

Sexual themes that shock

A blend of discomfort with titillation

"Psychosexual Horror" Trope

This trope is when eroticism, sexuality, and scenes of a sexual nature are the theme or genre of a story, usually done through Personal Horror, Psychological Horror, Supernatural Fiction, or represented by characters and monsters with Freudian associations.

These powerful feelings of desire are depicted as uncontrollable hormones, instincts, and temptations that overwhelm a character's better judgment with great force and intensity, leading to conflict when it overcomes their judgment.

The psychosexual horror genre explores themes of:

sexual exploitation,

emotional manipulation,

sexual violence, and

sexual identity.

Often involving:

power imbalances in relationships,

manipulation,

obsessions, and

traumas that are linked to past sexual abuse, childhood trauma, or other traumatic experiences.

In relationships, sex is a weapon in these stories by using sexual tension and sexual prowess as a means of control and dominance.

Examples

Bitten: Dark Erotic Stories by Susie Bright. An anthology of gothic-style erotic horror.

The Bloody Chamber: Many of the stories (including the title story, which is based upon "Bluebeard") explore themes of sexual awakening, intimate relationships and predatory behaviour via Gothic fairytale retellings. The stories usually focus on a female perspective, with girls and women having to outwit predatory men, although some stories play around with this (for example, "The Lady in the House of Love" has an innocent, idealistic young man preyed upon by a female vampire, who struggles to overcome her monstrous nature to obtain her dreams of love).

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ⚜ More: Notes ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Writing Notes: Gothic Fiction & Gothic Romance ⚜ Horror

Hope this helps with your writing!