Horror: Transgressive - Echoes of Self

Echoes of Self: A Mirror That Reflects the Unthinkable

Story Dossier + Outline

Premise:

Artist Megan Harlow finds a cursed sketchbook that brings her self-portraits to life, but each creation demands she mutilate her own body to fuel the art, pitting her creative ambition against the agony of self-preservation in a bid for immortality.

✨ Genre: Breaking Taboos Transgressive Horror

✨ Tropes/Themes: Reader Complicity, Provocative Premise, Forced Identification, Ethical Discomfort, Narrative Punishment, No Safe Distance, Ending That Accuses, Self-Inflicted Horrors

✨ POV & Structure: 1st Person Past Tense from a Single Unreliable Narrator, built on a 4-Act structure that intensifies from subtle impulses to catastrophic breakdowns.

✨ Vibe: Intensely claustrophobic and self-loathing, with raw portrayals of bodily harm that evoke revulsion and reluctant empathy. The content vibe is grim and accusatory, stripping away illusions of control to expose raw human fragility.

✨ Book Size: Short Novel (40,000-60,000 words)

✨ Chapter Count: 28 Chapters

✨ Word Count: target 1800-2200 per chapter

✨ Heat Level: No Romance (plot-focused, no romantic elements)

What you get:

✅ Complete Premise with core concepts and Narrative Physics Architecture

✅ Complete Story Dossier — including detailed characters, relationship arcs, locations and objects, world rules and histories, multiple subplots, and market researched genre and style guides.

✅ A detailed 28 chapter outline.