BE SCARED. BE VERY SCARED. Daily Telegraph Ghost Story winner

In early November I reported that the Daily Telegraph were running a free Ghost Story competition. They received nearly 2000 stories and are so pleased with the high quality of the writing that they've decided to publish the short list as an ebook.
 One of the things judge Susan Hill wanted to see was a ghost who had a motive for making an appearance. In fiction everything is connected, she argued. Things happen for a reason in stories while real life is allowed to be a lot more random. 

The winning entry came from Richard Crompton and there is definitely a strong internal logic dominating his contemporary story, set within the world of interactive social media.
Click on the title of this post and you can read the story in full. Here's the opening lines to whet your appetite...

For an unpopular guy, Lake sure had a lot of friends.

Thousands, according to his profile. Intrigued, I sent him a friend request. He declined.

 

THREE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS IN A GHOST STORY

1) You need a ghost. Ok, that one is easy, but remember that it's not a sprite or devil from the underworld or a monster from outer space. It can be an animal, but it is far more likely to be human. The crucial thing is that it is something that was once alive and is now dead.

2) There is one big difference between 'real life' accounts of  ghostly appearances and stories crafted for the big screen or the printed page. In fiction the ghost has to have a purpose

A ghost story only works if the ghost has a reason to appear. The ghost may be seeking revenge for what happened to it in life, it might be intent on dishing out punishment to the descendants of a wrong doer. Some ghosts may want the truth to be uncovered or justice done, some may be altruistic and want to alert the living to a secret. They may even want to bring comfort and consolation. It doesn't matter what it is - evil or benign - as long as it is something they want to do, say or make happen. Without that you may have a ghost but you haven't got a story.

3) Ghost stories are about creating atmosphere. This is a real test of a writer's skill. Without spooky music or special effects, with words as your only tool you have to create tension and suspense. You have to convince your reader to see with your eyes and hear with your ears, to be afraid of the thing that's scaring you...

Weather can play a big part. There's a lot of it about today, so it's a good research day. Here's some pages from the notebook...

...Heavy clouds hanging over a crazy sea, frothing in anger. Cold thin rain, needle sharp, carried by an east wind with the chill of the Alps on its back...relief to be home but it's a cold house that greets me, the boiler refuses to co-operate, and I am still twiddling knobs and swearing when the lights go out ....and I can feel...

....a bony dead finger on my neck...

 

GHOST STORY competition

SUSAN HILL -- author of The Woman in Black (among many things) -- is judging The Daily Telegraph 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.

Closing date: November 20th

Word Count  2,000 words or fewer.

Email or postal entries are accepted - click on the title of this post for more details.

Last week I set one of my classes the task of reading Edgar Allen Poe's classic story The Tell-Tale Heart. For homework they had to come up with a contemporary version of the story and the opening paragraph. A lot of strong, interesting ideas came out of the exercise - there wasn't a dud among them - but it was the ones set in the most ordinary surroundings that made the hair on the back of the next stand to attention.

Here's a trailer for my all time favourite film ghost story. Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro (who went on to make Pan's Labyrinth and is currently filming The Hobbit), The Devil's Backbone is set at the end of the Spanish Civil War when the fascists have won and the living are more scary than the dead. Watch it and be inspired and very, very scared...(Warning: the trailer has none of the poetry of the film or its subtlety. It's a taster in the same way as a fish finger is a taster for line caught plaice...)