Writing popular fiction

of
Legacy of Terror
:
As they drew near the house, she saw the windows were open, airing out the odor of paint—and of misery.
    "Don't worry about tomorrow," Denny said. "Enjoy today, Elaine. That is a big achievement in itself."
    "Oh," she said, "I'm not
worried
about tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it!"
    And the blunt assurance of future happiness is here in the last few paragraphs of
Demon Child
:
"Now," he said, "we've got to get to the house and wrap up this awful business. Dr. Malmont will be there, and we've got a surprise for him. As nice as it might be, we can't remain here all night, kissing in the rain."
    She giggled and felt younger than she had felt since she was fourteen. There might yet be problems in life. Everything wouldn't go smoothly all the time. But she felt that she was ready to face the rough spots. It was time that she collected the happiness in life that God set aside for everyone.
    By the time they reached the great house, the rain had stopped completely. The clouds were scattered thinly across the night sky, and the moon shone through, brilliant and huge. If she still believed in omens, in forewarnings of good and bad luck, she would have known that this sudden clearing of the sky meant that the future could
only
be a happy one.
    The taboos in the Gothic novel are few but inflexible. The sooner you understand the limits you must work within, the sooner you will be producing marketable material. Following are seven Gothic taboos in easy-to-refer-to form:
    Stories that do not employ the Gothic plot formula are taboo
. You must have a heroine who is alone in the world, and she must suffer through some nightmarish ordeal in a strange place, finding terror and romance along the way, triumphing in the end. Though creativity is more difficult within this genre than within any other, you can write fresh stories within the plot formula if your heroine is strongly characterized and your background exotic.
    Stones that do not center on an old, gloomy house—or some variation of the same—are taboo
. The ancient mansion, permeated with evil, should be as much a character in your story as any of the people who live in it. Variations on the house might be: a steamboat used as a dwelling, archaeological diggings in a strange country, or a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the 18th Century. Anything used in place of the old house should have all the same qualities of it: isolation, gloominess, an air of mystery, lots of dark places, eerie corridors, and musty rooms.
    Stories that do not feature the traditional Gothic heroine are taboo
. Gothic readers most easily identify with the type of girl we have already discussed, and they will rarely support the writer who gives them other kinds of heroines. Never, of course, employ a man as a Gothic hero, in the place of a young woman.
    A
heroine who does not mature through the course of the novel is taboo
. Give her a single major character flaw and then help her to change as the story progresses, until, at the climax when the real villain is unmasked, she fully understands where and why she has gone wrong.
    Stories that lack happy endings are taboo
. Throughout the novel, the heroine's condition has been filled with danger. Her past is bleak—though it may have had moments of happiness in it—because she was orphaned or witnessed some traumatic disaster, and her future has seemed even worse from the moment she entered the old house around which the plot revolves. The Gothic reader, after going through so many scenes of impending doom, demands some glow of hope at the conclusion, to relieve what would otherwise be a depressing story. Not every Gothic novel must have a Pollyanna ending in which
every
problem is solved and
all
the characters are set for brighter futures, but it ought to contain at least the intimation of good things to come.
    Stories not written in the moderate Gothic pace are taboo
. The murders should, if possible, be limited to one; you cannot pile the bodies atop one another like lengths of cord-wood, as you might in a suspense or mystery novel. Once the reader has been shown that the villain will go to any lengths to obtain what he wants, as is witnessed by the first murder, there is no need to kill off anyone else. There will seldom be a
direct
chase scene of any great length in the Gothic novel, though the heroine will
feel
pursued through out the book. Rarely will a Gothic contain a race against time. Instead, the narrative tension