GHOST STORY CONVENTIONS

I remember reading the ultra-scary "The Woman In Black" many years ago and then watching a TV version and then a stage-play.  All were equally frightening especially in terms of their "pay-offs".  I  would highly recommend all versions but the stage play really does have the capacity to connect on a visceral level.  

From the Telegraph:

Telegraph ghost story writing competition

Susan Hill, the celebrated author of haunting tales, invites Telegraph readers to enter an exclusive writing competition - and outlines the art of the ghost story

By Susan Hill
Published: 12:18PM BST 29 Oct 2010
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The ghost story is having a new lease of life. It was at its most popular in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, before being overtaken by the horror story, which began to thrive with the horror film. But think of coffin lids opened slowly by a skeleton hand and mummified corpses – and laugh. In piling it on so thick, horror quickly became comic.

A good ghost story is never funny. It is too near to us. Perhaps in order to find it convincing we must believe that it could possibly happen. I do not know of any “true” horror stories, but there are thousands of true ghost stories, beginning with those told by the flickering firelight in the caves of prehistoric man. Every region of the British Isles has its local ghost stories, and every country and culture has its repeated tales.

To be any good, a ghost story needs a structure, characters, a narrative line (dialogue is optional). Above all, the ghost must have a purpose. It may be revenge for harm suffered. It may be to explain some past incident. It may be to protest, to offer information – the whereabouts or contents of a will, a murdered body or the identity of a killer.
I have never written a ghost story merely to evoke a shudder. I cannot see the point in simply making people afraid. I want to do more. I want the reader to ask questions, to ponder, to be intrigued and to create an atmosphere from which the story will emerge.
Atmosphere is essential to a ghost story. How does it come about? By evocative description and a sense of place – perhaps the traditional empty, haunted house at night. Buildings are important. But a deserted office block at night in an empty city centre could be a place full of ghosts.
One of the finest ghost stories ever written, M R James’s “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”, is set in a small Suffolk seaside town – supposed to be Aldeburgh – to which a university scholar has gone for a holiday. His hotel is old and half empty but he is asked to take a room with twin beds. He walks along the shingle beach at twilight. There have been archeological excavations during which graves have been uncovered and ancient bones disturbed. And so it begins. After reading it you may never be able to sleep alone in a room with twin beds again.
The other James – Henry – was also a master of the ghost story. He wrote several short ones and one long masterpiece, The Turn of the Screw. The title indicates what the form needs to do – ratchet up the tension almost unbearably slowly.
Weather is the writer’s best friend. The sudden chill breeze whistling down the chimney or a howling storm are wonderful tools to help one establish atmosphere. Time of day is important too – twilight is as good as midnight.
Yet a ghost story can take place on a brilliantly sunny day, or a calm evening. Kipling’s great story about ghostly children in a garden is set at the end of a summer’s day; several of Edith Wharton’s magnificent short ghost stories take place in fine English summer weather.
One of the best modern ghost stories I know breaks every rule, in that it is not, and is not intended to be, frightening: A S Byatt’s “The July Ghost” is profoundly moving and sad, and it raises many questions.
The ghost story is alive and in better shape than it has been for a long time. I hope many of our finest writers may be challenged to take it up. There is plenty of room.
* We are delighted that the novelist Susan Hill, Andrew Franklin, Managing Director of Profile Books, and Lorna Bradbury, Deputy Literary Editor of The Daily Telegraph, will be the judges of this ghost story competition.
* The winner will have his or her story published and illustrated in The Daily Telegraph Saturday Review, and will receive a unique specially bound copy of The Small Hand by Susan Hill.
* All entries must be 2,000 words or fewer, and the deadline for entries is November 20. A shortlist of six stories will then be selected and published on telegraph.co.uk on December 4, and the winning story will be published in The Daily Telegraph on December 11.
* Please post your 2,000-word story to Lorna Bradbury at The Daily Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT. The envelope should clearly be marked “Ghost Story Competition”. Alternatively entries can be emailed to lorna.bradbury@telegraph.co.uk. Please paste your story into the body of the email, and clearly mark your email “Ghost Story Competition” in the subject line.

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