Introduction—simplifying the snippet

This snippet is from Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. It describes a character stuck out on a cold and desolate moor, trying to get into a farmhouse.

Read it carefully and think about how it makes you feel.

On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.

Wuthering Heights(1847)

A lot of classic gothic fiction was written in the 1800s, so the language is a little more ornate than what we are used to today. It can sometimes be quite tricky to read.

This snippet isn’t all that difficult but let’s think: what is the absolute easiest, quickest, most straightforward way this passage could be written?

It was cold outside. I couldn’t get the chain off so I jumped over the gate. I ran up to the house and knocked on the door but nobody answered. Some dogs started howling.

You have a go. Write your own super-simple version of the snippet.

The original is spooky and unsettling. You get a real sense that the narrator is in trouble.

The simplified version is kind of dull. It’s just a series of actions, with no particular emotion or meaning.

Since maybe that didn't come out as expected, let’s rewrite the original snippet again, trying to keep it simple but also creepy.

The hilltop was really lonely and cold. I couldn’t get the chain off the gate so I became depressed. I jumped over the fence and ran up to the house, and I knocked on the door but nobody came, which meant I was totally alone. Then the dogs howled in a really scary way, which creeped me out.

Give it a shot. Write your own version where you make sure we understand just how creepy and desperate the situation is.

What we can probably conclude is that if you just write 'this is lonely/cold/creepy/scary' it doesn’t actually sound all that convincing.

So what makes gothic description work? How do you give your reader the creeps?

Let's find out with some close rewriting.

Entering the darker places: The bleak hill-top in Wuthering Heights

Introduction—simplifying the snippet