When Characters Carry Our Wounds: Exploring Trauma in Gothic Fiction

One of the reasons I write fiction—especially the kind that edges into darker, more Gothic territory—is because stories give us a safe place to sit with things we aren't wanting to say aloud. Trauma, for example, is a thread that weaves through real life whether we invite it in or not. It’s messy, unpredictable, and deeply personal. And yet, when explored through characters, it becomes something we can observe, question, and even understand differently.

How Trauma Shapes Us

I’m fascinated by how past experiences shape people at the core. Sometimes trauma forges resilience, redirecting a life in unexpected ways. Other times, it leaves cracks that widen with time, reshaping someone’s choices and relationships in ways they can’t always see.

In writing, I get to follow those trajectories and ask: What happens if a specific moment from the past lingers like a shadow over everything else? How does it change who we become? 

My characters rarely escape their histories unscathed. Instead, they carry their wounds forward, often unsure if those wounds are a source of strength—or the very thing holding them back.

A Gothic Lens

My new novel leans into these questions with a distinctly Gothic flavor. Gothic literature has always carried trauma in its bones—haunted houses, ghosts of the past, family secrets that refuse to stay buried. But instead of only external monsters, I’m drawn to the internal ones—the memories and experiences that haunt my characters just as much as any stormy estate or darkened corridor.

The Gothic mood gifts me the opportunity to heighten tension, giving the novel's atmosphere the same weight as the characters’ inner lives. Darkness and beauty exist side by side, creating a setting where the past doesn’t just whisper—it demands to be felt.

Joyful Suffering and the Seduction of Escape

At the heart of my newest project is a young woman from a mysterious background, someone who has learned to live with suffering as a kind of strange companion. When she meets someone who claims to feel nothing—no physical pain, no emotional ache—he sparks a dangerous curiosity in her. What would it mean to live untouched by hurt? To shed the weight of memory and trauma altogether?

Of course, the promise of escape is never as simple as it seems. Her search for meaning in “joyful suffering” becomes tangled with manipulation, blurred truths, and the realization that trauma can make us more vulnerable to those who would use it against us. When you’ve been hurt before, it can be easy to mistake control for comfort, or silence for safety.

Why These Stories Matter

For me, writing about trauma isn’t about offering neat resolutions. It’s about showing how fractures live inside us and how they can fuel transformation—for better or worse. Characters may not always heal, but their stories give us a mirror to our own complexities.

That’s what draws me most to Gothic storytelling: the way it acknowledges the darkness without pretending it doesn’t exist. It lingers, it unsettles, and it reminds us that the past never truly leaves—it only changes its shape.