Reading Like A Writer
A new notecard method and a gothic horror reading list
—Esque is a creative outlet. Part-journal, part-newsletter, part-exploration. Filled to the brim with art, literature, poetry, writing, interesting questions and an honest attempt at answers written by Ariane Elizabeth Scholl. If you enjoy this piece, please consider subscribing or buying me a coffee. Thank you for reading!
I am deep in a gothic horror reading spree. With an estimated 15,000 words left to add to the first draft of my gothic horror manuscript, I have been committed to only reading texts that inform the manuscript. And as a result, I have collected an interesting array of books on my ‘read’ list over the past twelve months. And also lots of random notes, underlined paragraphs and scraps of paper with ideas, inspirations, and passages to return to.
While reading Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a gothic novel that is formatted in a traditional gothic structure:
A person arrives at a strange or grand or decrepit house or manor. They discover unusual happenings, uncover secrets and notice strange phenomena.
Someone tells them to leave or they get the sense they should, but something keeps them there.
Then when they finally realize it’s dangerous and decide they want to leave it’s too late and they are stuck facing the consequences of those choices.
Refer to the masters: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson or Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
My novel also plays with many of those traditional gothic tropes. So as I was reading Mexican Gothic, I started having a bunch of epiphanies about the structure and scenes I wanted to write in my own work.
At the time, I was using a thick cardstock flyer that a stationery vendor had given me as a bookmark. Needing somewhere to jot my ideas down, I wrote on empty spaces of the flyer. I loved how thick the paper was. It’s thickness made it so easy to write on.
As I was jotting down notes on the random flyer, I got the idea—it would be a hell of a lot easier to find the notes if I wrote them on a card that I left inside the book, rather than underlining passages or writing down notes in my notebooks or on scraps of paper.
So I went to Walgreens and bought the largest notecards they had, disappointed that they were lined because I really wanted them to be blank, and tried using those. But they were too slim. They didn’t hold the weight that the thick cardstock flyer held. The weight is what made it easy to write on and gave it presence and made the notes seem important.
So annoyed with myself that I can’t ever accept the average version of a product, I searched the web for thick blank index cards and found 5x8 Super Thick Index Cards* made from archival acid-free paper from a US based company called Norstrum Dumati. They are essentially the grade of paper that the flyer was printed on, but blank. They are also the perfect size to fit inside both paperbacks and hardcover books without sticking out.
They have served as the perfect notecard to jot down my notes while I read. I personally like to list the page numbers for easy reference and then write down a quote or summary of what I’m referencing. Underneath that I jot down the idea that it sparked for my own manuscript. Sometimes it’s something broad like, “Reference this passage to see how dread was built.” Other times it’s more thematic or rooted in a specific detail like how I’m describing food.
It’s a new method I’ve decided to try and so far I have found a lot of value in it. It’s much easier to pull out one card from a book I’ve read to remember what ideas it sparked, then to flip through the whole book looking for passages. And I like to imagine it’ll be a kind of record for me to look back on in the future when I think about the novel and why I enjoyed reading it. A little cheat sheet of my favorite parts and ideas it sparked.
As I mentioned above, I’ve been reading a lot of gothic horror novels to inform my project over the past year, but it’s also a genre I’ve always enjoyed. So please enjoy this round-up of gothic horror novels that helped inform my manuscript. I’ve also included some novels that are coming out (or that I’m yet to read) that I’m excited about.
My Favorite Gothic Novels
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
“First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.”
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
“Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate”
“In Monte Carlo, our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at Manderley, her husband's cavernous estate on the Cornish coast, that she realizes how vast a shadow his late wife, Rebecca, will cast over their lives--introducing a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their love from beyond the grave.”
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“An isolated mansion. A chillingly charismatic aristocrat. And a brave socialite drawn to expose their treacherous secrets. . . . From the author of Gods of Jade and Shadow comes “a terrifying twist on classic gothic horror” (Kirkus Reviews) set in glamorous 1950s Mexico.”
“In 1948, Irene Willard, who’s had five previous miscarriages in a quest to give her beloved husband the child he desperately desires, is now pregnant again. She comes to an isolated house-cum-hospital in the Berkshires, run by a husband-and-wife team of doctors who are pioneering a cure for her condition. Warily, she enlists herself in the efforts of the Doctors Hall to “rectify the maternal environment,” both physical and psychological. In the meantime, she also discovers a long-forgotten walled garden on the spacious grounds, a place imbued with its own powers and pulls. As the doctors’ plans begin to crumble, Irene and her fellow patients make a desperate bid to harness the power of the garden for themselves—and face the unthinkable risks associated with such incalculable rewards.”
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
“Jane Eyre meets Shirley Jackson (think: We Have Always Lived in the Castle) in this Victorian horror-comedy . . . This nasty novella doesn't spare innocents or shy away from on-the-page violence and gore, culminating in a deliciously macabre finale. It is a fantasy of female rage and wickedness, and boy, is it fun.-- "NW Book Lovers"“
On my TBR List
"Vantage Point is a haunting, pitch perfect exploration of paranoia and perception, the ways we craft our identity both publicly and in our own minds, and the fine line between loyalty and complicity, power and control. Sara Sligar is that rare writer whose high concept is matched by faultless prose, rich emotional insight, and a vein of delicious dark humor that bleeds when pressed. This is a novel to devour, then savor. I loved every mind-bending page."
—Katie Gutierrez, author of national bestseller More Than You'll Ever Know
"A ghost story, a love story, and a spiral all at once—an intense reckoning with the human mind, House of Beth examines both the horror and the resplendence of being alive."
—Danya Kukafka, national bestselling author of Notes on an Execution
"A rich and daring reimagining that brings the beating heart of Carmilla to life again. Hungerstone is a delicious tribute to the inherent horrors of womanhood and the desperate and exquisite vulgarity of desire. This is everything I dream of in a novel." --Ava Reid, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Drowning and Lady Macbeth
“Nicky Gonzalez channels Shirley Jackson (something I do not say lightly) in this disquieting, mesmerizing twenty-first-century Southern Gothic. In Mayra, the hazy borders of friendship and identity are blurred, made uncanny and dangerous, and I was hooked from paragraph one.”—Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts
Marrow by Samantha Browning Shea
“A searing take on femininity and power, Marrow transports readers to a small island off the coast of Maine, where a coven has done the seemingly impossible.”
Cape Fever: A Novel by Nadia Davids
“From award-winning South African author Nadia Davids comes a gothic psychological thriller set in the 1920s, where a young maid finds herself entangled with the spirits of a decaying manor and the secrets of its enigmatic owner.”
Currently Reading
White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
“Profoundly chilling . . . a slow-building neo-Gothic that will leave persevering readers breathless.”
—The Boston Globe
It’s a strange novel, that as the above review hints to, is a slow build but I am enjoying it thus far.
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*(If you’re interested in the Super Thick Index Cards, you can buy them here. Please note that they are sold on Amazon which I hate and would not have bought on there but they truly don’t sell them anywhere else. And if it makes you feel any better, the note cards came with a handwritten note from the owner so they are coming from a small business. It made me feel slightly better. That and the knowledge that they are sold in a pack of 100 so I won’t be needing more until I read over 100 books.)
That's such a good idea with the notecards! And thank you for this incredible reading list. I recently had the realization that my WIP might be a modern gothic (or at least have some of the themes of a modern gothic) and made a mental note to read at least a handful of the books you listed. I'll be adding the rest to my TBR!
I love that notecard method! I’ve been struggling with figuring out how to annotate books in a way I can go back and get a scan as opposed to go through each page and find my notes. Excited to give it a try!!