Writing Southern Gothic: Atmosphere, Secrets, Ghosts & Grace with M. L. Bullock
A Prerecorded Creative Writing Course with M. L. Bullock
Step into the shadows and learn how to write Southern Gothic fiction that lingers.
In this six-week prerecorded course, bestselling Southern Gothic author M. L. Bullock will guide you through the essential ingredients of haunting, atmospheric storytelling: decaying houses, family secrets, restless ghosts, buried grief, complicated characters, and the strange beauty of the South.
This is not a dry literary lecture. This is a practical, creative course for writers who want to build stories with mood, mystery, emotional weight, and supernatural tension.
Whether you are writing a ghost story, a haunted family saga, a Gothic romance, a mystery with dark roots, or your first Southern Gothic novella, this course will help you shape a story that feels rich, eerie, and unforgettable.
Each weekly lesson includes a practical homework assignment so you can build your own Southern Gothic story step by step as you move through the course.
By the end of the six weeks, you won’t just understand Southern Gothic storytelling.
You’ll have the bones of your own haunted story ready to write.
Course Begins June 26
A new prerecorded video lesson will be released every Friday for six weeks.
You can watch each lesson on your own schedule after it drops.
Course Schedule
Week One — June 26
What Southern Gothic Really Is
We begin with the heart of the genre. What makes a story Southern Gothic instead of simply spooky, historical, or Southern? We’ll explore decay, memory, land, family, faith, shame, secrets, and why the South itself often becomes a character.
Week Two — July 3
Atmosphere Is Everything
Southern Gothic lives and dies by atmosphere. In this lesson, we’ll talk about weather, old houses, cemeteries, churches, river fog, Spanish moss, candlelight, cicadas, heat, mildew, and how to make setting feel emotionally alive instead of merely decorative.
Week Three — July 10
Family Secrets, Curses & Old Wounds
Every Southern Gothic story needs something buried. This week focuses on family secrets, inherited guilt, generational patterns, curses, old letters, hidden rooms, portraits, heirlooms, graves, and the question that drives so many haunted stories: what happened here?
Week Four — July 17
Writing Ghosts That Matter
A ghost should be more than a jump scare. This lesson explores how to write ghosts as messengers, victims, warnings, witnesses, and accusers. We’ll talk about how to connect the supernatural element to the emotional wound of the story.
Week Five — July 24
Characters in a Haunted World
This week is all about the people who walk through your haunted places: grieving women, sensitive children, charming villains, secret-keepers, believers, skeptics, outsiders, old families, and characters who must face the past before it consumes them.
Week Six — July 31
Building Your Southern Gothic Story
In the final lesson, we’ll pull everything together. You’ll learn how to shape an idea into a workable Southern Gothic story using arrival, unease, discovery, resistance, revelation, confrontation, and release — or ruin.
What You’ll Receive
- Six prerecorded video lessons
- One new lesson released every Friday for six weeks
- Weekly homework assignments
- Practical writing exercises for each topic
- Southern Gothic story-building guidance
- Tools for creating atmosphere, secrets, ghosts, characters, and structure
- A completed Southern Gothic story blueprint by the end of the course
Who This Course Is For
This course is for writers who want to create:
- Southern Gothic fiction
- Haunted house stories
- Ghost stories with emotional depth
- Family curse stories
- Gothic mysteries
- Paranormal Southern fiction
- Atmospheric novellas or novels
- Stories rooted in place, memory, mystery, and the supernatural
You do not need to be an experienced author to take this course. You only need curiosity, a love of haunted stories, and a willingness to dig beneath the surface.
M. L. Bullock is the bestselling author of the Seven Sisters, Gulf Coast Paranormal, Idlewood, Summerleigh, and other haunted Southern series. Known for her atmospheric storytelling, ghostly mysteries, family secrets, and deep love of the Gulf Coast, she has spent years creating stories where the past is never truly dead.
In this course, she shares her creative process for building Southern Gothic stories that are eerie, emotional, beautiful, and unforgettable.
If you have ever wanted to write a story about an old house with secrets, a ghost who refuses to rest, a family curse, a crumbling town, a woman haunted by the past, or a beautiful place with something rotten underneath, this course is for you.
Join M. L. Bullock for six weeks of ghosts, grace, secrets, atmosphere, and Southern Gothic storytelling.
Step into the shadows and learn how to write Southern Gothic fiction that lingers.
In this six-week prerecorded course, bestselling Southern Gothic author M. L. Bullock will guide you through the essential ingredients of haunting, atmospheric storytelling: decaying houses, family secrets, restless ghosts, buried grief, complicated characters, and the strange beauty of the South.
This is not a dry literary lecture. This is a practical, creative course for writers who want to build stories with mood, mystery, emotional weight, and supernatural tension.
Whether you are writing a ghost story, a haunted family saga, a Gothic romance, a mystery with dark roots, or your first Southern Gothic novella, this course will help you shape a story that feels rich, eerie, and unforgettable.
Each weekly lesson includes a practical homework assignment so you can build your own Southern Gothic story step by step as you move through the course.
By the end of the six weeks, you won’t just understand Southern Gothic storytelling.
You’ll have the bones of your own haunted story ready to write.