How to write ghost stories

As darkness falls ever earlier here in the English winter, my thoughts turn  to ghost stories and how to write them.   
In “Some Remarks on Ghost Stories" (1929), the great M R James identifies five key features of the ghost story:

·         The pretence of truth (The fact that you believe, that it could happen, so your reader might believe it)

·         "A pleasing terror"  (Your readers want to be frightened)

·         No gratuitous bloodshed or sex (Self-explanatory: sometimes a hint of gore is more effective)

·         No "explanation of the machinery (Don’t explain how it happened, just that it did)

·         Setting - (Create a sense of place, the reader needs to be there)

I would add that this is about subtlety, this is about making the ordinary scary - my grandmother was not scary but she would be if she walked into my living room because she had been dead 20 years

Bear these hints in mind:

* You have to understand the psychology of the reader, what scares them? With me it’s mirrors and open curtains at night

* Good ghost stories begin with normality, and gradually things develop

* Put people we do not expect in places we do not expect them - I am not scary but if you went home and found me staring at you from your front garden I would be!

* Less is very much more when it comes to writing ghost stories. You are teasing the reader - drop hints in gradually, build the tension. Hint at something horrible to come

* Use weather  and time of day- as long as you do not overdo it, fog, rain, creaking doors and dead of night can be very effective

 * Take heed of the words of the writer Susan Hill, who said: “The ghost story is a test of the writer’s ability to create atmosphere. When I was planning The Woman in Black, I made a list of essential ingredients of the classic ghost story and after “a ghost” came “atmosphere” – under that heading came “weather” and “place”. Haunted houses? Yes, and for house read “mansion”, preferably old, isolated and in a dark and dismal spot. An ancient chapel, abbey ruins – haunted cloisters are especially frightening. A house with a forest behind it, or a brooding cliff, a cataract, a moor across which the night winds howl – all are a gift to the writer wanting atmosphere. Not all ghosts are Goths and a Gothic tale need not include a ghostly apparition.”

* Think about the impact of media - what scared once does not scare now, in a world of ‘Saw’ we are less scared - except by what goes in our heads. So get inside our heads!

 

John Dean