7 Day Story Writing Challenges: A Brief Guide to Writing Gothic Fiction

Sep 16

This guide is all about gothic fiction. What it is, tips for writing it, and a list of gothic stories you can read online for free. We also discuss the difficulties, limitations, and pitfalls of writing in this genre. This guide is a must-read for anyone assigned gothic fiction in a 7 Day Story Writing Challenge, or for anyone wanting to explore new or unfamiliar literary genres!

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What is Gothic Fiction?

We want to keep this genre pretty open to interpretation. We do not believe that a gothic story must be set in a castle or stately home. Neither do we require that your story has a damsel in distress, plenty of mist, or any supernatural elements. For the purposes of our 7 Day Story Writing Challenges, we’re defining gothic as a story that plays with the ideas of mystery, fear and dread. For a story to be truly gothic, we do believe it needs to have a certain dark, mysterious atmosphere and a sense of building, growing tension. If you’d like to use classic gothic motifs, you can.

Difficulties, Limitations and Pitfalls of This Genre

We think we’ll probably get a lot of entries that begin with descriptions of bad weather and creepy old houses. Nothing wrong with that, but you might want to think of ways you can stand out from the crowd. We tried our best to find contemporary gothic short stories you can read online for free, but unfortunately we struggled. Unless you actually want to write a pastiche or a story set in the 19th Century — which would both be fine — we don’t suggest trying to copy the writing style of Poe or Irving. Instead, stick to your own writing style and just bring a dark, gothic atmosphere to your story.

Top Tips for This Genre

If you’re stuck on this genre, we suggest thinking about setting. You certainly don’t have to set your story in a creepy place, but setting is the shortcut to gothic. This doesn’t mean you have to set your story in a haunted house, but darkness, shadows, and isolation can get you to gothic very quickly. Then just give us a character and give them something to fear. Find a way to build tension slowly, and now you have a gothic story! Of course, this doesn’t mean that if you set your story on a sunny day in a bustling city that it can’t be gothic. But it does mean you’ll have to work harder to give your story the gothic feel.