Gothic Writing Creating tension in a horror story - PowerPoint Presentation

1. Gothic WritingCreating tension in a horror story

2. Group DiscussionWhat are the ingredients of a good horror story?What kind of scenery or setting might it have?What types of characters would appear in the story?What events might happen in a horror story?

3. Some other pupils’ opinionsThere should still be some kind of mystery at the end so you think the story is not quite over.The writer should build up suspense bit by bit so you’re hanging on the edge of your seat.To have the evil come from an unexpected place.Things should happen in places you could see or visit so you would believe it could happen to you.You should care about one of the characters so that you invest in their survival.

4. You will now hear three extracts of stories.Working in pairs, use the ideas you have just discussed, and the table below, to decide:Where horror stories usually occur.The type of people usually involved.The type of incidents that are likely to happen.IngredientsSettingA forbidden room that is out of bounds.CharacterSomeone is disturbed by what they see, is in danger of being caught, but is fascinated and explores regardless.EventsBuilding/creating character from other people’s bodies (dolls)

5. Gothic stories became popular around 200 years ago and have remained popular ever since. Gothic stories are usually about ghosts and horror built up through creeping tension. They often include these features:wild and remote placesdark and gloomy settingsgraveyards, tombs and corpsesfamily curses and dark secretssupernatural powersmysterious and frightening creatures, people or ghostsold, ruined, isolated castles and mansions, often with secret passages and mysterious towersnightmares, madness and mental tormentscience used for evil or disastrous purposesextreme natural events (storms, full moons etc.).

6. Task:Write a brief note to a budding gothic horror writer giving them advice on the elements they should include in their writing.

7. Question TimeWhat novels or poems can you think of that may have been influenced by the gothic genre?

8. Read the following two Gothic story openings and analyse the language used – which techniques help to convey the Gothic atmosphere?AMirkstane Tower finally rose into view behind a line of dense, gloomy fir trees. The closer we got, the more it looked like a brooding monster – battered and bruised but still menacing. A fierce wind tugged at its broken shutters.BA sudden dark shadow swept across the bright moon, momentarily blocking out its light. Megan stumbled against a gravestone that was leaning towards the path like a cracked and crooked tooth. An owl gave a ghostly hoot. Consider:Names and titles which have suggestions or associations of words which convey fear, mystery, threat…Powerful adjectives (but not overdone).Strong nouns and verbs.Good similes, metaphors and especially personification to evoke fear.A variety of sound techniques but not overdone.Experimenting with symbolism and foreshadowing.

9. Setting, character and suspenseGothic stories rely heavily on setting and atmosphere. Writers try to create a clear and imaginative setting or place where the action happens. They try to describe that setting in ways that convey a powerful atmosphere or mood.Suspense or tension can be created in a number of ways, including having a character react to events and to the setting around them. Good writers create suspense by:Describing things that worry the character (and us, the readers!)Making us care about characters so that we worry about them.Making a character seem foolishly unaware of what might be about to happen.Making us expect that terrible things are going to happen.Using a variety of sentences to vary the speed of the story (see later section on fierce creatures).Using a variety of powerful words and/or imagery to describe the setting and the characters’ reactions.

10. Which of the techniques mentioned has Arthur Conan Doyle used to create tension/suspense in this extract from The Hound of the Baskervilles? Analyse the passage, making notes as we read through. Baskerville HallOver the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream. Rolling pasture lands curved upward on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped out from amid the dark green foliage, but behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of delight, looking eagerly about him and asking countless questions. To his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year. Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of rotting vegetation – sad gifts, it seemed to me, for Nature to throw before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles. Our driver half turned in his seat. 

11. Which of the techniques mentioned has Arthur Conan Doyle used to create tension/suspense in this extract from The Hound of the Baskervilles? Analyse the passage, making notes as we read through. ‘There’s a convict escaped from Princetown, sir. He’s been out three days now, and the warders watch every road and every station, but they’ve had no sight of him yet.’ ‘Who is he, then?’ ‘It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer.’ The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders. Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline. Suddenly we looked into a cuplike depression, patched and stunted with oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip. ‘Baskerville Hall,’ said he. The lodge was a ruin of black granite and bared ribs of rafters. Baskerville shuddered as he looked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the further end. 

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15. Find synonyms of these words to help improve your writing:Dark Big Horror Bad GrossScary Look Alarm MoveScared Fear Say/said

16. Try writing your own version of a gloomy, depressing but suspenseful journey. Make sure you use language effectively to describe  the passing countryside and settinga character’s (or characters’) changing mood(s)an ominous mood, suggesting future dangera final destination in the distance (or a close-up description upon arrival) – probably a huge, dark building will work best. Use the pictures below to help you with the last bullet point, if you want, but the earlier pieces of description will need to be inspired by the Baskerville model.

17. Group ProcessingTake it in turns to read your piece of writing to your group. Each group member is then asked to provide the speaker with a ‘criticism burger’.Once all of your group has been heard, identify the strongest piece of writing created during the exercise to share with the class.You also need to identify any issues or questions your group has had. Keep this anonymous – the point is not to name and shame. Use the language below to help communicate your problems back to the class.We had issues with…One of our group struggled with…We found that…Positive commentsPositive commentsThings that can be done betterThings that don’t workThings that don’t make sense

18. Fearsome Creatures

19. Hideous Dogs The first of the creatures had already halved the distance between itself and Matt, yet it didn’t seem to be moving fast. It hovered in the air between each bound, barely touching the grass before jumping up again. There was something hideous about the way it ran. A panther or leopard closing in for the kill has a certain majesty. But the dog was deformed, lopsided, ghastly. The flesh on one of its flanks had rotted and a glistening ribcage jutted out. As if to avoid the stench of the wound, the animal had turned away, its head hanging close to its front paws. Strings of saliva trailed from its mouth. And every time its feet hit the ground, its whole body quivered, threatening to collapse in on itself. Matt reached the fence and clawed at it with his hands, crashing his fingers against the wire. He thought he had run in a straight line, following the way he had come, but he seemed to have got it wrong. He couldn’t find the gap. He looked behind him. Two more bounds and the dogs would reach him. There was no doubt that they would tear him apart. He could almost feel their teeth tearing into him, ripping the flesh away from his bones. He had never seen anything so ferocious – not in a zoo, not in a film, not anywhere in the real world.Language = word choice, imagery (simile/metaphor/personification) and sentence structure.Consider how Horowitz uses the following language techniques:Using vivid, unusual words.Repeating words and phrases to build up a fast rhythm.Using short sentences for impact.

20. Co-op TaskUsing the Thesaurus to help, write down as many alternative words (synonyms) as you can think of for: ghastly bound deformedstench trail quiver claw tear ferocious

21. Timed writing taskUse your group’s list of alternative words to write TWO paragraphs: one describing your creature and one describing your character’s thoughts and actions when they come across the creature.

22. Group ProcessingTake it in turns to read your piece of writing to your group. Each group member is then asked to provide the speaker with a ‘criticism burger’.Once all of your group has been heard, identify the strongest piece of writing created during the exercise to share with the class.You also need to identify any issues or questions your group has had. Keep this anonymous – the point is not to name and shame. Remember, you will succeed or fail as a team. Use the language below to help communicate your problems back to the class.We had issues with…One of our group struggled with…We found that…Positive commentsPositive commentsThings that can be done betterThings that don’t workThings that don’t make sense

23. Beginnings and EndingsThe strongest short stories have an element of their ending relate to information (a hint/detail) that can be found at the beginning of the story.As writers, we call this foreshadowing.If the element at the end of the story relies upon a prop/object of some kind, you may also hear the technique referred to as a Chekhov’s Gun. This label is usually used to refer to plays rather than prose, but the concept remains a strong one regardless.

24. Night of the Stick Insects by Alan Durant You got any pets? Dog, cat, goldfish maybe? Well, Tommy had lots of pets – jars and tanks of them. Tommy bred stick insects, though I guess it wouldn’t be quite right to call them ‘pets’. His pet was really the gecko lizard that lived in the big glass tank on his chest of drawers. Every now and then he’d get that out and, you know, pet it, stroke it, chat to it, that kind of thing. The stick insects, well they had other uses. Some of them, he sold – and he’d made a fair amount of cash, too. It was amazing how many kids were willing to pay him for the brown stick-like things. At school there was a craze for them. Tommy thought they were kind of boring himself. They didn’t do anything did they? They just hung about on the wire mesh frame he’d put up against the container wall, imitating twigs. Big deal. He much preferred preying mantises. His dad had a whole collection of those, but he wouldn’t let Tommy near them.What language techniques does the writer use to grab our attention in the opening of the story? 2. What do you think will happen in the rest of the story?

25. Night of the Stick Insects by Alan Durant By the dark, dark early hours of the morning, Tommy’s room was thick with stick insects, grown to a gigantic size – some the size of Alsatian dogs. In the darkness they hissed and clicked, as if in angry conversation, discussing what to do. It was to this that Tommy awoke…His first thought was that he was having another nightmare. And even when they lifted him from his bed with their sturdy, tree-trunk limbs, he could not believe it was real, that this was actually happening. It was only when they lifted him towards the huge, open, slimy, tooth-filled mouth of the now monstrous gecko that he understood the full, real horror of the situation. And by then he was half-inside and it was too late.Explain how the tone of the opening of the story is different from the ending (you might have to read them again quickly!). Explain how clues in the opening of the story prepare us for the ending.Whole Class Discussion

26. Using the Thesaurus to help, write down as many alternative words (synonyms) as you can think of for:Dark thick gigantic darkness hissed clicked angry nightmare sturdy limbs huge open slimy tooth-filled monstrous

27. SettingExamplesThink of a location that is striking. Use your imagination to give it detail. Focus on small features to add depth to your descriptions.Draw a map or sketch of locations.Ask yourself what might happen there? Then ask what is the least likely thing to happen there? Write about something that will surprise the reader but is believable.A:Deserted airfield, night, where a small plane roughly touches down.B: A dark forest which someone suddenly runs into and scrambles up a tree.C: A quiet country shop that sells handmade trinkets where a tired traveller stops to ask for directions.Take the ordinary and make it different.Take the different and make it ordinary.or

28. Basics of PlotNormalityDisruption to normalityAttempts to overcome the disruption/problem/issueProblem is overcome/protagonist is beatenNew normalityThink of a basic step-by-step storyline. Your story needs CONFLICT.Plan the first stage. Think about what could happen as a result.Choose steps that might surprise your reader (whilst being realistic).Write out your plot as a flow chart diagram – just the basic features for now.Consider the final step in your story – how do you want it to end?StartEndMain ConflictAttempts to overcomeFirst Conflict

29. Academic Challenge – Creating a DisplayYou are tasked with creating a display to teach the new S1 what you have learned about gothic genre writing. Ok, time to think about what we should include….

30. Information display

31. Academic Challenge – Creating a DisplayYour display should include:Examples of some of the vocabulary we have learned.Five examples of the strongest techniques used in the extracts we have read so far to create tension/suspense. Write down the quotation and explain how each one suggests that things will turn out badly/adds tension to the scene.An overview of the settings, characters and events commonly found in gothic writing.You may also wish to include:Examples from your own writing.Your budding gothic horror note.Examples of well known gothic horror stories.Pictures/illustrations.Examples of other gothic features we have studied.Time to plan:10 minutes