Category:Gothic Horror Tropes

A list of tropes found within the Gothic Horror genre. While you don't need all of them to write a gothic horror novel, the more you have the better. Horror has some things that are universal to all genres of horror but not everything on that page is used in gothic horror.

Other genres that might employ heavy use of these tropes:

• Cosmic Horror Story
• Dark Fantasy
• Gaslamp Fantasy
• Fairy Tale
• Gothic Punk
• Mystery - depends on the subgenre
• Punk Punk
• Romance - depends on the subgenre
• Steampunk - mostly the mad scientist tropes unless the author feels like leaning towards fantasy instead of scifi. If the latter is this case these tropes will be given priority over more stereotypical fantasy elements.
• Supernatural Fiction
• Urban Fantasy
• Vampire Fiction
• Weird West
• Werewolf Works

Note: Zombies didn't start appearing until the 1920s, but many older creatures were absorbed into the zombie mythos. So use caution when adding zombie examples.