Blog: A Tribute to My Influences in Gothic Literature and Beyond

To write good or great fiction, one must journey back to the past…

Every writer is asked about their influences. Most horror writers might express their exposure to Stephen King as rudimentary, but everyone has reasons for entering the horror genre, and an immersion in dark/weird fiction of whatever form is typically where it all starts.

I credit my beginnings to authors like Poe and Shelley after buying books in our local bookstore in the Philippines in my teens. One read of Poe’s tales brought forth an awakening, an awareness that there were other things in this world that spurred my creative interests besides the obvious (music, arts).

My English teacher in high school, Marlene A., swore I’d love Poe. She recommended I do a book report on his tales. Although my writing must have been primitive in its humble beginnings, I had a blast writing about stories that opened my eyes to something as deep and profoundly exhilarating as literature.

I would later revisit that great satisfaction in my college years when our library introduced me to a plethora of classics. Reading Dante, Lord Byron, and Auden during my college years fused my love of poetry with the flowery narrations of Gothic horror. Many years later in 2024, I would rediscover Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein during an exhaustive exploration of 19^th-century Victorian literature, realizing how many aspects of her writing had trickled down to my style in the modern age.

But what about Frankenstein had managed to worm its way into my brain and manifest in my manuscripts in my teens and beyond? For one thing, there was the purposeful inclusion of longer sentences to add variety in sentence structure. Not to say that a single clause sentence would end up too long. These longer sentences usually consisted of an independent clause connected to dependent clauses by way of commas, snaking down the length of a paragraph without solely comprising it in its entirety. Therefore, the goal was simple: to not sacrifice fluidity, lyricism, and meaning. By giving paragraphs variety and nuance, single independent clause sentences mixed with those daisy-chained to create complex elaborations.

And these were known hallmarks of Gothic literature to speak of. Besides this, there was the emphatic addition of svelte lines and quasi-intellectual coined jargon to give descriptive paragraphs more color and more persuasion—something I blame on a love for poetry as mentioned. Shelley used this method extensively, making her descriptions of the most ‘horrific’ scenes bloodier and more bombastic for the sake of astute language.

All of which have trickled down to my manuscripts in great amounts today. Since Poe and Shelley’s Gothic stories remain popular no matter the modern emphasis on simpler sentence structure, this strategy succeeds not only in crafting something of novelty but makes use of a rarefied skill. Rarefied? It’s true. Some authors can do it while others can’t. The extensive proliferation of horror fiction titles reflects not just the abundance of talent, but the relative simplicity required upon the author to craft something of distinct quality, especially given the lowered expectations of a fanbase too immersed in subpar writing of late.  

It is why I called my once-self-published book, Below, a literary horror novel in tribute to my influences. Still, the prospect of making comparisons to authors like Poe and Shelley can be tricky, owing to some readers making sharp insistences that authors refrain from comparing their works to the classics, no matter how said influences have legitimately shaped our writing, and how said critics will criticize authors for the sake of offering blind criticism. To give people an idea of what to expect pertaining to certain elements, even if my books would sound different because they are my own and are certainly different in the first place, the tributary elements must be identified and the influences made known.

Another way to look at my creative process? This blend of accessible genre writing and complex sentence structure excludes the willful addition of coined expressions and intricate academic writing that contribute to an otherwise intelligent read. In a perfect world, accessible writing should meet literary aesthetics in a bar-room brawl with no escape. It is my hope that by combining my sensibilities as an essayist with the colorful and composite descriptions of scenes both fictional and realistic, I succeed in endearing my readers to a love for language and an appreciation for a Filipino backdrop and culture that are unique in the world.