Gothic: It's a Vibe, Not a Plot
The delightful folks at Flights of Foundry allowed me to muse on the recent surge of Gothic fantasies, mysteries, and romances in the 2020s. I started this discussion at Norwescon in April. There I proposed that it was as much the mid-20th century Gothic romance paperback boom as 18th and 19th century gothic literature craze fueling so many intriguing new books. You can read more about that panel here.
The Flights of Foundry's Gothic discussion started as a group chat about what books we liked but it turned mostly into a Q&A with me trying to provide the answers. One of the most intriguing was "what makes something a Gothic?"
By the end of the discussion, we had established that it wasn't plot. Yes there are some big Gothic romance tropes like "poor governess goes to mysterious house and falls in love with rich man with secrets" (aka Jane Eyre) or "poor young woman marries rich man with secrets and goes to his mysterious house" (aka Rebecca). Both fueled the Gothic paperback romance boom of the mid-20th century.
While Gothics never totally went away in the 20th century, the big craze for historical and contemporary Gothic romances eventually burned out. Rather than dozens of titles being published every month, you might get one or two Gothic-flavored mysteries or romances a year. But the number of books labeled "Gothic" has been increasing.
Looking at Goodreads lists of "Gothics" published in the last ten years, it's easy to see that the fabulous Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia caused a definite bump in books being labeled "Gothic" in the last five years. It also helped boost the vile fungus as villain subgenre along with T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead.
Both stories are great examples of Gothic horror, the creeping dread caused by staying a strange house and dealing with people who know more than the protagonist about what is going on with the mushrooms.
As we drilled into what made these books Gothics, the consensus became that the Gothic is more a vibe than a specific plot. Which is why it is so easy to adapt into almost any fictional genre. Gothic elements are a sense of menace, impending doom, or (my fave) creeping dread. Often this is enhanced by the protagonist being alone in a situation, even if surrounded by a family and its servants in the manor house, the other residents in the old apartment building, or the crew of an interstellar spaceship.
In general, the protagonist does not have all the information needed to make a wise decision (like run screaming before being consumed by fungus) and the other people are actively trying to keep the information secret.
Shadowy corners, secret staircases, chanting in the basement, or an unreliable partner who may or may not save the protagonist are not necessary for a Gothic, but these tropes occur. Writers can pull almost any setting and any plot twist into a Gothic, as long as they keep coloring it creepy.
It's this vibe or feeling that makes the Gothic such a compelling if not necessarily terrifying read. While straight horror may make you shriek when the lights go out, the Gothic tends to give you a nice shiver and the compulsion to find the flashlight so you can finish the chapter. There's a general sense in the Gothic (going all the way back to Jane Eyre) that our underpowered, isolated, but often plucky protagonist will make it to a happy ending. We, as readers, just don't know how and that's what keeps us flipping pages.
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