Gothic Short Stories (Tales of Mystery & The Supernatural)

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If you seek inspiration for crafting your own twists, there’s no better place to start than with some of the most popular unexpected plot-turns in film and literature. But be warned: there be spoilers ahead. With that in mind, here are over 50 examples of plot twists in film and literature.

Just like many Gothic stories are set in isolated locations, the motif of strange places puts characters somewhere strange and mysterious. The story of Frankenstein has haunted our collective imagination since its conception by Mary Shelley on one dark night. It’s a classic tale of man’s folly in the pursuit of dangerous knowledge: scientist Victor Frankenstein tries to play God by bringing life to reanimated corpses, but he is unable to confront the sight of the terrible thing he has created. This story can be read in the preview of Dead Letters Anthology. (32% in) “A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf Like other Gothic novels before it, Jane Eyre makes its setting the quintessential isolated house beset by secrets. The unquiet estate of Edward Rochester, where Jane works as a governess, has it all: a strange attic, winding halls, and imprisoned terrors.The hero’s successfully solved the riddle or problem. Great. Time to pop open the champagne, right? The Allisons, a couple from New York, are spending the summer at their cottage. They’ve spent seventeen summers there away from the conveniences of the city. They always leave around Labor Day. This year they decide to extend their stay. Southern Gothic Short Stories The narrator lives on Pest street across from a creepy looking house. She doesn’t see any activity there until one day when a woman comes out on the balcony and empties a dish of bones for a raven. The woman tells the narrator she would appreciate her bringing over any bad meat she has. Writers typically set their stories in abandoned or isolated locations like crumbling castles, windswept moors, places of decay and death. Places with seemingly no escape. But where there are also plenty of secrets with underground passages and hidden doors. This all adds to the sense of mystery and danger.

James Joyce explores the turbulence and humiliation of adolescence. Photograph: Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images “A Bright Green Field” by Anna Kavan (1958) As so often in Hawthorne’s work, this tiny mechanical butterfly represents something much greater: in this instance, the artist’s pursuit of ‘the beautiful’ … Andy is running on a country road. He’s done over 25 miles. His goal is 50, and today is the day he’ll make it. He loves to push himself and always reaches his goals. He’ll be the head of his law firm in a few years. Running puts him in the right frame of mind for success.

Emerging in Europe in the 18th century, Gothic literature grew out of the Romantic literary movement. It’s a genre that places strong emphasis on intense emotion, pairing terror with pleasure, death with romance. The Gothic is characterized by its darkly picturesque scenery and its eerie stories of the macabre. It draws its name and aesthetic inspiration from the Gothic architectural style of the Middle Ages ⁠— crumbling castles, isolated aristocratic estates, and spaces of decrepitude are familiar settings within the genre. A family lives in a futuristic house that automatically meets all their needs, including a nursery for the children that can create any scene they want. The parents are thinking about reducing their reliance on technology by taking a break from the nursery and all the automation, but the children are against the idea. Luella Miller, through a series of roommates who end up withering away while Luella herself thrives, is a new world vampire in an old world town. Though a little bit longer than the other stories on this list, the unsettling development of person after person losing their lives after being with Luella is very gripping for students. After marrying Erastus, he soon died. And although Luella was a teacher, one of her students did most of the work. The student soon deteriorated and died too. They are not the only casualties. Cooter and Loftis, brothers, break into an elderly woman’s apartment. The woman had worked as a maid and been poor her whole life, so the brothers are stunned by what they find. “Snow” by John Crowley

Last but not least is “The Tell-Tale Heart”—arguably one of the most popular gothic short stories ever taught in school. An unnamed narrator, who claims he is not insane, makes a plan to kill an old man under the belief that this man has an “evil eye.” After stalking the old man and watching him sleep, he finally commits the crime that rids him of evil and makes the world a better place. Right? Many famous authors have contributed to the Gothic scene over the years. It as though this fluid and unrestricted format allowed them to let their dark imaginations flow free. A number of these luminaries appear in this collection. Sir Walter Scott gives us ‘The Tapestried Chamber’ (1829), which relates the story of General Browne, a British soldier, who, having returned from the ‘American War’, stays in an old castle where he experiences a supernatural encounter more frightening than any episode in his military career: Howl’s Moving Castle. Howl and Sophie manage to kill the Witch of the Waste — only to discover that the Witch’s fire demon, Miss Angorian, was the real villain all along.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Harry battles through three perilous stages of the Triwizard Tournament to find that the real villain has been under his nose throughout the entire novel: Barty Crouch, Jr. in disguise as Harry’s mentor, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody. The Sixth Sense. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe begins working with a boy who claims that he can see ghosts. It’s not until the final act that he realizes that he himself is a ghost. Ethan arrives at a lime kiln that he used to use. He tells the lime-burner, Bartram, that he left the kiln to look for the “unpardonable sin”, which he claims he has found in himself. The townspeople are told that Ethan has returned. All through the night, there are doors shutting and a ghostly couple walks hand in hand through the house, looking for something. If the couple living there get up to look, the house will be empty.