What I’ve Learned from Writing about Ghosts

Although I’ve never encountered one, the possibility of seeing or sensing a ghost has intrigued me since I was a child. After my father died, I could swear I’d just seen him on a crowded sidewalk. Or I’d think I recognized him in a store or on a street, talking to someone or briefly looking at me before disappearing around a corner.  For several years I truly believed he was still around, somewhere, and that he was trying to find a way to come home.  

Most of us have heard a bump in the night or glimpsed movement in our periphery that couldn’t readily be explained.  These brief phenomena aren’t proof that an actual ghost has crept into our domain, yet I wonder about all the reported ghost sightings that fill magazines and books, both large and small. Are these stories popular because so many people cling to the idea of an afterlife that includes briefly returning to this one? 

Maybe so.  Who hasn’t wanted to be swept away from this dull, mundane world to a magical place? Supernatural concepts have hung on for generations because they can be fun to contemplate.

But even without empirical evidence that any of these reported sightings of ghosts are credible, about a dozen years ago I started writing ghost stories. 

My ghosts don’t rattle chains, slam doors, howl, scream, cause automobile accidents, or pull people out of their beds. The ghost stories that come to me involve persons who have passed on, yet cannot rest because of their compulsion to ‘fix’ something. They are desperate to be heard, to right a wrong, to clear up a mystery, or to convince a person still alive that they shouldn’t feel guilty.

This theme works for me. Perhaps it’s because I’m familiar with that strong need to convey a message to someone who has rarely, if ever, listened to my concerns.  That old frustration sympathizes with anyone who has felt the same, whether in this realm or another.

The incorporeal beings in this most recent group of stories I’ve written are totally driven by emotions. Their feelings of urgency and longing prompt them to move, act, or appear in their attempts to be heard. I understand why books that might have an interesting plot but lack emotional pull often don’t sell well.  Emotions are paramount for most of us. Writing stories about these desperate and frustrated spirits has given me a path for expressing similar feelings, but without sounding like a whiny or pettish wimp.  Most readers would quickly tire of a timid, vulnerable character, but they might cut some slack for a ghost with good intentions and limited resources.

An intriguing facet about these ghostly stories is the way they come to me. Whether by muse or whimsy, the protagonist ghost simply visits me while I’m dusting bookshelves, walking to the mailbox, or driving through the deserts of Utah and Colorado. From out of nowhere I’ll get another idea for a ghostly form that longs to communicate with the living. So far, I haven’t been their target; I’ve just been the storyteller.

Now that I’ve written half a dozen of these stories, I plan to publish them separately before their release as an anthology.  What puzzles me is how to title the collection without the word ‘ghost’.  No way would I want potential readers to think these stories are about poltergeists.  Speaking of which, after viewing the movie Poltergeist in 1982, a reviewer for Time magazine wrote that the movie would scare the peanuts out of your M&Ms. I have to agree. For me, that was definitely the most terrifying movie to date.

I do know how to write haunted ghost tales, but these particular stories about visitors from ‘the other side’ are supposed to be revealing, not scary. After all, Casper wasn’t scary.