A Monstrous List of Southern Gothic Elements

Photo by Ashley Knedler on Unsplash

I'd honestly love to see more Gothics set in the American South. So, I'm hoping to spark some writerly imaginations by providing a list of Southern and Appalachian Gothic elements. It would even be great to see some of these elements in a Dark Fantasy, Gothic Romance or some other unexpected Dark Fiction. Here's to your journey into the deeply dark and at times grotesque, but always disturbing, world of the Southern Gothic.

Settings

Decaying Plantations

Tin roof shacks in the woods

Swamp shacks

Bayou

Wilderness

Derelict old houses

Swamps

Southern Appalachia

Mississippi River

Deep South

Characters

Hellfire and brimstone preachers

Steely matriarchs

Henpeck husbands

Redneck/Hillbilly

Patriarchs

Moonshiners

White suited plantation owner

Sherriff

Corrupt government official

Southern Belles

Scantily-clad country girls

Shut in

Locked up grotesque, physically deformed or mentally deficient

Outsider

Loyal housemaid/servant

Themes

Family Secrets

Dark History

Southern values

Hypocrisy

Moral integrity

Demoralization

Sexism

Incest

Alcoholism

Slavery

Racial oppression

Violence

Domestic Violence

Rape

Social issues – Family, Race, Poverty

Decaying morals, decaying society

Mental disorders

Isolation

Other Southern Gothic Elements

Rusty farm equipment/implements
Cotton gins
Spanish moss

Alligators

Voodoo/Hoodoo

Snakes

Decay

Cotillions

Pageantry

The Klan

Lynching/Lynch Mobs

Corncob pipes

Chain Gangs

Shotgun weddings

Good O’Boy network

Civil War and the Confederacy

Dismemberment

Disfigurements

Heat/oppressive humidity

River baptisms

Southern hospitality

Notable Southern Gothic Authors and Reads
William Faulkner. As I Lay Dying.

Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird.

Flannery O’Connor. A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Cormac McCarthy. Outer Dark.

Truman Capote. Other Voices, Other Rooms.

There are many more by these authors and others, you can find more suggestions for Southern Gothic books.

What other elements would you add to this list? Do you have a favorite Southern Gothic novel? Are you using any of these elements in your writing? I'd love to hear about it. Let me know in the comments below.

Always stay Beautifully Haunted,

♥  Shadow.

Stay Connected! 
Join the Web! 
Author Shadow Leitner's Monthly Newsletter.
http://bit.ly/ShadowsWebNews

3 Tips for Writing Creepy Sounds + A Haunting Playlist

     

Writing Gothic fiction has so much to do with setting the atmosphere. While using all of the senses are important to creating this, sounds are a powerful emotional vehicle.  Not only do they evoke emotion they also can symbolize a character's internal environment.

I'm always challenging myself to find different ways to describe sounds that will bring that sense of foreboding or create a dark atmosphere. While there are certain words that incite an immediate eerie sense, sometimes it can feel clique, overused and readers may be desensitized to them. And meh, is never the reaction I want when writing dreadful things. Now, I'm by no means suggesting to never use these, but if every door creaks and there is a crash after every lightning flash, it might be time to switch it up a bit.

So, here are 3 tips for writing creepy sounds.

1. Add a sound description that one doesn't normally associate with the thing making the sound. For example, the birds barked from the treeline to warn us of what lay beyond. Or, the fire cackled mocking my attempts to concoct the perfect brew. You get the gist. Providing a sound that isn't expected naturally puts one at unease, consciously or unconsciously.

2. Use onomatopeia, by writing the sound itself. An example would be writing tick, tock as the sound of a clock. It places the reader deep within a character's experience. It is also a nice way to zoom in tight on a sound, silencing everything else. This a cinematic approach but can be just as powerful in the written form.

3. Use metaphors and similes. For example, the storm growled where it crouched on the ridge ready to pounce, and the floorboards moaned like an old woman beneath his feet. Sometimes attaching a creepy image to a sound can enhance its spookiness.

How do you approach writing eerie sounds? Let me know in the comments.


My Haunting Playlist for Writing.

Not all writers write to music. I am one that does. Music and sounds are both powerful in conveying emotions and immediately put me in the place I need to be to write a specific scene.  So, I thought I'd share the link to Shadow's Haunting Playlist on Spotify, my playlist of haunting tunes for writing. Enjoy and let me know if you have other tunes to add. I love to discover new haunting music.

As always, stay beautifully haunted,

♥ Shadow.

Setting the Gothic Mood: Weather

"It was a dark and stormy night" - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford

There's a reason the phrase, it was a dark and stormy night, is synonymous with dark tales. The mystery and foreboding are aided by a description of the weather. That mixed with the darkness and you get the feeling something eerie is about to happen.

Let's talk about the weather. It's spring and it's raining a lot where I live. So this month, I thought I'd explore the use of weather when setting a Gothic mood.

The Gothic genre is extremely atmospheric and weather almost takes a life of its own in these stories. It can convey what the characters are feeling, it can be used to sway the plot and it can also prepare the reader for what's around the bend. This is true of all genres, but I find it vital for Gothic tales.

When it comes to your characters and the weather, it can affect them and their mood, as part of the setting. But you can also use weather to describe your characters' internal landscape. Weather is all about the emotions, which I discuss further in another post about the symbolic language of weather.

Weather can be used to isolate the characters, which is an important aspect of this genre. It can direct your plot, as your characters become snowed in, a deluge washes away the only bridge or lightning strikes a transformer effectively cutting off the phone lines. I'd say, your plot just took a turn.

You can also use the weather as a way to foreshadow events in your story, as well as set up an emotional moment or turning point, like the calm before the storm or using severe or unexpected changes in the weather.

Here is a list of some weather conditions to consider for your Gothic and Dark stories.

• Rain
• Storms
• Lightning
• Fog
• Mist
• Snow
• Ice
• Extreme heat – as in a desert
• Humidity - southern or tropical.
• Extreme weather – hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis

I recommend reading or re-reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Bronte uses weather brilliantly in that novel, and in all of the ways I've described above. While reading it take note of the weather and what it is really describing.

Now, I've used a lot of cliques in this post to help make my point. They are all scenarios and descriptions we've seen and can quickly pick out from previous works. The world of weather is much richer than this, so play around with descriptions and add in your own voice.

Want to learn more about writing the weather?  Try this post by Novel Writing Help. I'll also be creating lists of weather descriptions this month, so keep an eye out.

How have you been using the weather in your stories? Do you have any other examples of where the weather was key to the tale?

♥ Shadow.

Reading Recommendation: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.