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.