"Edgar Allan Poe's" tips to make the perfect dark story, with a scintilla of insanity. They come in handy, young grasshoppers.

1) Employ an unreliable narrator, preferably one who doesn’t know he is insane and has no recollection of such events as digging into a grave to rip out the teeth of his recently departed lover.

2) Include a beautiful woman with raven locks and porcelain skin, preferably quite young, and let her die tragically of some unknown ailment.

3) Use grandiloquent words, such as heretofore, forthwith, and nevermore. A little Latin will also enhance the text.

4) Do not shy away from such grotesqueries as inebriation, imprisonment, insanity, and men costumed as orangutans being burned to death.

5) When in doubt, bury someone alive.

It works every time! :D