Can I be haunting?

Can I be haunting?

I’ve debated trying my hand at gothic and/or ghost stories. I’m intrigued by the mystery of them but I'd do them without doing an actual mystery, as in Agatha Christie. I wanna do something that’s a touch of Hitchcock with the flair of Nora Roberts and a dash of Stephen King. Does that make sense? I want dark, sexy, and compelling. 

Gothic romance

Gothic romance, type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was the forerunner of the type, which included the works of Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Charles R. Maturin, and the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey satirizes Gothic romances. The influence of the genre can be found in some works of Coleridge, Le Fanu, Poe, and the Brontës. During the 1960s so-called Gothic novels became enormously popular in England and the United States. Seemingly modeled on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, these novels usually concern spirited young women, either governesses or new brides, who go to live in large gloomy mansions populated by peculiar servants and precocious children and presided over by darkly handsome men with mysterious pasts. Popular practitioners of this genre are Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Catherine Cookson, and Dorothy Eden.  http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/entertainment/gothic-romance.html

As I write primarily paranormal romantic suspense, I have an edge that can be transformed but can I do it successfully? I’m going to start researching authors and see what they have out there, like I do for my own genre. I think that I’ll challenge myself into doing my version (after I graduate from college). I’ll need to research settings, darkness levels, amount of wit (as I’m a believer in wonderful one liners), and where I would have to morph my voice into something that isn’t humor based. 

After I accomplish some of this needed research, I have a couple of ideas to feed and see if they’ll go anywhere but I believe that I need to read a few before I finish out my plot outline.

Suddenly, I realized that I already had a few examples of gothic romance. Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, so at least I have something to go by.

I'm interested in reading:

Dark Lily by Nina Navarre  

The Singing Stone by Phyllis Whitney

Blood Wine Series by Freda Warrington

The Prince of Darkness by Barbara Michaels

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews  

I also came across this website that had a few tidbits for me to glance over. 

http://www.virtualsalt.com/gothic.htm

http://english.answers.com/history-of-literature/elements-of-gothic-literature-the-beginnings-of-the-horror-genre

http://www.ebscohost.com/novelist/novelist-special/gone-but-not-forgotten-...-gothic-romances

This is going to be learning experience for me as I see what I can come up with for you guys.

Is there any tools/literature/books/movies that you'd suggest? Please let a wench know.

)))Corset Hugs(((

Ginny Lynn

Wench Writer