Topic Research: The Haunted Man and Ghost's Bargain, Time of the Ghost, and Beyond the Wall.

After last week I realized that I have the most interest in writing Horror stories. This doesn't necessarily mean Ghosts for now but then again ghosts allow a wide dimension for me to work with. After doing more research on different Ghost stories, I've come to the realization that if I want to write a good ghost story than I'm going to have to base it loosely off another one. The stories I write might even just be completely original but have some slight ties or references to another one. I might possibly do a story inspired by one of these even if there is no resemblance. This is only being said for now but I feel for me to truly enjoy this project then I must try to be as original as possible. That being said I did take some notes on some stories that interested me in my research this week.

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain

This story is the last of Charles Dicken's Christmas stories, and it really got my attention in the sense that it is kind of like a realization story. The tale is about a man named Redlaw who is given the ability to forget all of the wrongful things he has done in his life. He is given this opportunity by his phantom twin but it ends up making him angered along with it spreading to other people. In the end things are returned to normal after a realization of the way he should act. 

The reason I like this is because I was thinking I could base a story off this idea of realization but maybe in modern times. I might be able to use the ghost to show him two different routes of events that could occur in his life, kind of like a Christmas Carol. 

The Time of the Ghost

This story I truly didn't get that much from in terms of liking the plot but what I did really enjoy from this story was the aspect of time. I think this story I could slightly base one of my own off of because I want to do a modern type story and this one actually involves someone from the future. In this ghost story it is a girl observing her family seven years after an accident in which she has no recollection of what has happened since then. In this I was thinking I could possibly have this ghost story be changed to a suicide instance where a character sees how people reacted to the death. I know this sounds slightly like the Christmas Carol thing again, but I was thinking I could add the twist of her seeing how much happier people were that she was gone and being able to get revenge. 

This is an image of Ebenezer Scrooge from Loren Javier on Flickr. This picture expresses my interest in writing a  "come to realization" type story. 

Beyond the Wall 

In this story it is a man narrating a story to his friend about how him and another woman would exchange knocks on a wall. The man was attracted to this woman and enjoyed knocking until it stopped for a long time despite him continuing to knock for some time. Without receiving a response for some time, he stopped only to hear one knock a long time in between which he found out was the lady on her death bed. The reason I enjoyed this stories plot was because I felt I could do something in my stories along the lines of mystery. In this story there is mystery why the knocking stopped or why the lady wanted to knock before she died. I was thinking I could possibly do a ghost story in which there is not haunting involved but rather a ghost just showing its presence. I couldn't tell you exactly why this story inspired me of this but possibly it was the casualness about it. I think I could copy the casualness into giving a chilling story that creeps up on you or even leaving the ghost's intentions not understood at all. 

Topic Brainstorm: Ghosts, Nursery Rhymes, The Odyssey, Dante's Inferno

Ghost Story

I have always enjoyed a good ghost story when sitting around talking with friends or family. This is probably due to the adrenaline that one feels when listening to a ghost story or watching a horror film. I love watching a horror film with a good story especially about ghosts and spirits. Some of my favorite ghost or spirit movies are Paranormal Activity, The Conjuring, and Insidious. I really don't have any past knowledge about ghost stories in terms of their history and what not. All I know is the excitement I get from the mystery of whether there is afterlife in the form of ghosts and whether they can be scary or happy spirits. I would like to learn more about some different ghost stories here in the states as those seem more applicable to me. I think the ghost stories that I would like to tell would not be violent or possessing but rather more of a mystery type. I would like to have my stories be up to time and believable to a reader. I want the mystery of whether this could be real or not and have the reader thinking "ghosts have to be real" by the end of the story. I think this makes it more fun if the story seems applicable to ones daily life because we have all had a moment where we are scared thinking "is there something in the house" and what not. I want to retell stories or make up my own stories based on the idea behind something for example the The Man in the Picture. I think I could possibly retell this in a different way or just base my story off of the premise of a haunted picture. I also like the idea of the Dead Children's Playground where I could possibly add a sensory aspect.

Animated Ghost from Pixabay

Nursery Rhymes

When I was a child my mother used to read me nursery rhymes and even make me read them as well with her. Everyone enjoys a simple rhyming pattern especially one that tells a simple story. I think the little kid in me is coming out in making me interested in having my project involve a nursery rhyme. Other than the readings I used to do with my mother over the simple stories like Jack and Jill, but I do think they are a great way to get kids excited about learning to read and write. I think I would like to start researching more nursery rhymes that are more recent than the traditional ones. I think the way I would like to write some nursery rhymes would be linking them to a musical strategy such as rap. In my research the The Nursery Rhyme Book helped me read some of the old ones I recognized like Simple Simon met a Pieman and Little Bo peep. Overall I think this topic would be entertaining in forming more applicable nursery rhymes for kids.

The Odyssey

I have had a love with Greek and Roman mythology ever since the sixth grade where I started taking Latin. Since then I have read plenty of stories about the gods and heroes but the one that always was my favorite was the one about Odysseus. There is something incredibly entertaining about this character's wittiness in traveling for ten years facing all types of struggles to return home to his kingdom. In researching this topic I refreshed my memory by reading about him facing the Sirens, Cyclops, and Circe. I think that it would be fun to research more about the villains he faced and possibly tell a story based on them or maybe in their viewpoint facing Odysseus. I find the stories already amazing so I don't think I could do them justice in recreating them but rather adding my own input or taking the different angle about it. Since the story is from way back I could even possibly do it in a space sense since we haven't truly traveled space yet. All of these are ideas which I would like to narrow down eventually.

Dante's Inferno

I truly have little knowledge about the stories from Dante's inferno other than discussing it some in my English class freshman year of high school. I know that it is about the purgatory state of entering the 7 different levels of hell but other than that I just don't have much knowledge. The reason however I am interested in this is because of the allusions made to it in The Count of Monte Cristo. That story is probably my favorite book (although it is extremely long) and I love the idea of revenge vs. karma. Honestly I'm not sure how I would approach this other than maybe telling a version of The Count of Monte Cristo where Dante ( the main character) would himself go into the depths of hell to face his future starting with the Gate of Hell like that in Dante's Inferno. I also thought about making this one modern as well taking a possible celebrity from today and making that person go through the struggles like those in the story. This one I mainly chose as a possible topic because I thought it would be something I could make totally new unlike other topics.