1. GOTHIC
GOTHIC

2. Saveas Writers’ International Writing Competition 2018
Nightmare: Gothic Dreams
To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, poems and stories are invited in the Gothic tradition.
What does Gothic mean to you? Dark? Spooky? Vampires and ruined monasteries or perhaps something more subtle and uncanny? Maybe Southern Gothic, as in Faulkner or Anne Rice’s work for example, or Canadian Gothic is your thing. It’s up to you and your Gothic imagination.
 Get writing – and chill us to the bone!
Poetry Poems: 60 lines max.
 Prizes First: The Canterbury Christ Church University Poetry Prize of £200
Second: £100 Third: £50
 Judge Sonia Overall
 Entry fees £3 per poem £8 for three
Prose Short stories: 2500 words max.
Prizes First: The SaveAs Writers’ International Prose Prize sponsored by Hot Monkey Publishing of £200
Second: £ Third: £50
 Judge Truda Thurai
 Entry fees £4 per short story £10 for three

3. How would you define Gothic?
1 Germanic people; 2 Medieval culture; 3 Romanticism; 4 Entertainment; 5 Youth culture; 6 Music; 7 Typography; 8 Transport 
of or relating to a literary style characterized by gloom, the grotesque, and the supernatural, popular esp in the late 18th century (Collins Dictionary)
primitive and barbarous in style, behaviour, etc (Collins)
 a style of music that grew away from Punk in the late 1970's. it was propulgated by bands such as Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and was known for its guitar melodies, darker themes and danceable beats. along with the music came a certain fashion sence (generally attributed to be begun by Siouxsie Sioux) consisting of very dramatic eye makeup (taken from the ancient egyptians), teased hair and tattered clothing made of lace and velvet.  (Urban Dictionary)
Definition of Gothic Fiction. The term Gothic fiction refers to a style of writing that is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and very high emotion. These emotions can include fear and suspense.

4. NIGHTMARE What would be in your worst nightmare?
Rats? Serpents? Hounds? Bats? ????
Who would be in your worst nightmare?
Hooded figures? Zombies? Apparently normal neighbours? Witches? Clowns? Druids? KKK? ????
What would be a spooky setting?
Moorland? Old castle? Graveyard? Abandoned factory? Docks? Sacrificial slab?
* Weather? Season? Time? Clothing? Nakedness?

5. Gothic Stereotypes Look for new twists on: The doomed genius
The blood-crazed monster
The evil monk/scientist/seducer/seductress
The beautiful sacrificial victim
The zombie
The ruin at midnight
The doppelganger, the double personality
The deformed outsider
The insane first person narrator

6. Fear of the Unknown What is lurking in the shadows?
External: ghosts / zombies / witches / succubi / watchers / stalkers / serial killers / faces at the window / knocks on the door / sounds in the attic / voices / odours / cold touches on the skin
Internal: madness in the family lineage / paranoia / irresistible urges / curiosity about the forbidden / progressive disease / parasites / aliens taking over your mind

7. TRAPPED the character is trapped inside: an asylum a prison a dungeon
a coffin
a well
a secret society’s headquarters
a hotel (California? Psycho?)
someone else’s dream/body etc.

8. What examples of ‘Gothic’ art are there?

9. ‘Gothic’ artists * Fuseli * Caspar David Friedrich * Arnold Bocklin
* Richard Dadd
* Atkinson Grimshaw
* Grant Wood
* Leonora Carrington
* Rachel Bess
And many others who produce images that might be termed ‘Gothic’ and might form the basis of a poem or story

10. Gothic authors Edgar Allan Poe Mary Shelley Bram Stoker
H. P. Lovecraft
Emily Brontë
Victor Hugo
Robert Louis Stevenson
Gaston Leroux
Ann Radcliffe
Horace Walpole
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Shirley Jackson
Steven King
M. R. James and many more

11. Writing ideas
Take a story you know well, such as ‘Frankenstein’ or ‘Dracula’ and:
* tell it from the point of view of a minor character
* change the ending
* update it to 2018 or 2118
* focus on one scene – e.g. the murder of Elizabeth – and write the thoughts and emotions of one character
* Write a dramatic monologue in the voice of the ‘creature’ or ‘Victor’
* re-write it in the form of texts / s / diary entries / news reports

12. Southern Gothic (USA)
Southern Gothic literature is a genre of US Southern writing. The stories often focus on grotesque themes. While it may include supernatural elements, it mainly focuses on damaged, even delusional, characters
E.g. William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor,

13. “it mainly focuses on damaged, even delusional, characters” – invent your own!

14. The Gothic lives of Gothic writers: a source of material for your own poem or story?
Mary Godwin Shelley – haunted by death (her mother / her babies / Harriet Shelley / her husband’s at sea )
Byron – a ‘doomed genius’ / forbidden relationships, including with his sister Augusta / early death
Shirley Jackson – self-styled witch / lived in a house with a ghost / a collection of her stories was found 30 years after her death

15. FILM
HORROR FILM or GOTHIC FILM –
Is there a difference?

16. Don’t forget to laugh
From Jane Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’ onwards, writers have made fun of the Gothic and its conventions.
You may want to exploit its comic potential.

17. A political slant? The figure of Death stalking the NHS
The ghosts of prime ministers past
The haunted ruins of the industrial past
Pentagon/KGB-controlled robots
The last person alive in a post-ecological-disaster world
Your insane ex-lover in control of Whitehall