In an 1810 satire, C.L. Pitt noted that “a novel may be made out of a romance, or a romance out of a novel with the greatest ease, by scratching out a few terms, and inserting others.” The steps below will, “like machinery in factories,” convert a Gothic romance into a sentimental novel:

Where you find:              Put:

A castle                     An house
A cavern                     A bower
A groan                      A sigh
A giant                      A father
A bloodstained dagger        A fan
Howling blasts               Zephyrs
A knight                     A gentleman without whiskers
A lady who is the heroine    Need not be changed, being versatile
Assassins                    Telling glances
A monk                       An old steward
Skeletons, skulls, etc.      Compliments, sentiments etc.
A gliding ghost              A usurer, or an attorney
A witch                      An old housekeeper
A wound                      A kiss
A midnight murder            A marriage

“The same table of course answers for transmuting a novel into a romance.”

(From a footnote in Pitt’s The Age: A Poem, Moral, Political, and Metaphysical, With Illustrative Annotations, 1810.)