My brief for this blog was to make it spooky - it being nearly Halloween. I then trawled the internet for the best historical spooky tv series and found one - The Living and the Dead - which really piqued my interest. The main character, played by Colin Morgan of Merlin fame, is a farmer who is driven to explore what happens after death. It was made for the BBC in 2016. Unfortunately, for some reason I have not been able to fathom, it is not available on iPlayer. So, there went that idea. That left me back at square one, with the Historical and Spooky guidelines not really helping. None of the others caught my interest quite enough. Perhaps, after I'd found The Living and the Dead , I didn't really feel like anything else was going to be as good. So Virginia suggested Ghosts . Ghosts ? Spooky - of course. Historical - not really! But she pointed out that there is a multi-timeline which happens in the series, as we continue to discover more and more about the individual ghosts...
I know we’re nowhere near Halloween but, let’s be honest, every season is spooky season if you want it to be! So, I’m going to share some thoughts about one of my favourite genres to read and write: Gothic Horror.
I first discovered it as a genre when I was a teenager being taught at home. Every week, Dad would take me and my sister to the local library and we would pick a book or two to read. One week, I picked an abridged version of Dracula. I loved it so much that I immediately graduated onto the full version, before moving on to The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe.
There was something about these stories which completely
immersed my imagination, and I think it was how setting is always an extra
character in them. I read a piece a couple of weeks ago which was labelled as
Gothic, but the setting wasn’t right. It didn’t jump out as one of the characters
in the book which was twisting and turning as much as any of the humans (or not-quite-humans!)
Whitby is rightly proud of its connection with Dracula, but
there is only a part of the book which is set there. Still, the ruins of the abbey
always evoke that sense of the vampire, especially when it is pictured against
the backdrop of the sea and sky at one of the liminal points of the day.
What does it evoke in your imagination?
When I write Gothic Horror, the setting is always of the utmost importance. In fact, I usually have the setting before I have the main characters. In The Devil’s Servant (published by Quill & Crow in their anthology, Ravens & Roses: A Women’s Gothic Anthology), the main character immediately celebrates the lively setting of the Crystal Palace:
“There is something of writing about those days which evokes
memory in each one of my senses: neither sight nor sound more permeating than
the recollection of the scent of so many people thronging together to ogle and
admire the vision which was the Great Exhibition, or the taste of food snatched
when possible between meetings with one genius or another.”
However, as the story moves on, it takes the reader to
Broughley Abbey, an altogether less ‘modern’ place. This is why many writers (including
me!) still opt to set their Gothic Horror stories in the Victorian era, because
it was a time when modern and ancient were meeting in the everyday. Just like
Whitby Abbey at sunset, the 19th century was a liminal point in
history for this reason.
By way of comparison to the Crystal Palace, here is a
description of Broughley Abbey:
“I took in the magnificent view of the house and the
haunting ruins of the abbey in the grounds, and I wondered that Giles spent so
little time in such a place. Indeed, my imaginings led me to lose track of
time, and I hurried back to the house as dusk was beginning to fall around me
and the sky was becoming busy with a host of bats whisking their way over my
head.”
Notice the darker undertones and the setting of
the house at dusk as the narrator views it alone? It could not be any more
different from the Great Exhibition. I’m not even sorry for engaging the
age-old trope of bats representing darkness. There are some things which are
just too Gothic to be omitted!
Broughley Abbey has its own stories, which appear in many of
my books, although The Devil’s Servant is still the only one which is
currently Out There. However, other places which I have enjoyed creating include
Hedgwick Grange (The Lady Who Dances in the Ashes published by Sley
House Publishing in Tales of Sley House 2022); Stretton Hall and
Raighvan Park (The Grey Lady); and Priest’s Acre (Death at Priest’s
Acre).
I love naming them: once they have a name, they become real,
three-dimensional places which I can see and explore in my mind. I know where
the ghosts are hiding, where the skeletons are buried, and I also know there are
still secrets for me and my readers to discover.
I hope this little blog has given you some food for thought
about the importance of setting in Gothic Horror. Feel free to send me any
suggestions for reading, and of course I would encourage you to explore the two
stories I have mentioned as being Out There!
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