A to Z Challenge 2014 - Ghosts - F is For Friend, Anatole France & Annie Farie

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Even plucky protagonists in ghost stories need friends :). Okay, maybe that's a bit flippant, but you'll get what I mean. My author of choice today is Anatole France, and my ghost is that of little Annie Farie.

F is for Friend | The Burning Web | Author Info | British Hauntings

F is for Friend

Friends come in all sorts of forms: good, bad, ruthless, jolly, patronising, even expendable! And, they're very useful characters to have around in a ghost story.

One of the standard formats for modern horror is the group of friends each getting bumped off one by one by the monster hiding in the shadows. One of the first types of these movies I ever saw was Evil Dead (the original, not the remake), where, one by one, each member of the party isolated in the woods is possessed by evil demons. It's very much on the gory side of horror, but it's not that which attracts me to the story, it's the parts that rely on psychological horror. One of the most unsettling parts for me is where Linda is possessed by the demon and sits on the floor curling her hair with her finger and giggling.

Friends aren't always there to be disposed of though. They are good foils for moving the plot along. Marley is both friend and ghost in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the reason Scrooge must accept the visits from the spirits to save his soul. They can also be voices of reason within the growing strangeness of a haunting, the doubter, the one grounding the protagonist (usually) in the wrong direction. Sam Daily plays this role in The Woman In Black, even though he already knows the story of the evil ghost killing children.

The provider of information can also be considered a friend in this context, and that is why, in my next part of The Burning Web, I am introducing you to a new character, someone to help put the events of the house into local perspective.

The Burning Web
Part 6

by Sophie Duncan

A to Z Challenge 2014 - Ghosts - E is For Endurance, Amelia Anne Blanford Edwards & The Enfield Poltergeist

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Amelia Edwards, lady Egyptologist and novelist is the subject of my author recommendation today. I'm also delving into a more modern haunting than those which I've discussed so far in the form of the 1970's Enfield Poltergeist. Plus, in my discussion of ghostly tales, I'm talking about endurance, the ability to continue beyond an initial scare.

E is for Endurance | The Burning Web | Author Info | British Hauntings

E is for Endurance

So, what do I mean when I say endurance and what does it have to do with ghost stories? Well, what I'm trying to encapsulate, somewhat clumsily, with my choice of word, is the capability of a character to go back, to carry on after an initial disturbance. Ghost stories are very rarely about one momentary encounter, if the plot is building the tension, usually there are hints, unnerving events, moments of disquiet that lead the way to the main event. Parts of this type of endurance, may be down to bravery, pig-headedness, even self-doubt at what is happening. Whatever is behind it, if characters did not brave these moments for their readers, then ghost stories would be very short! :)

In On Whistle, and I'll Come To You, My Lad, M R James builds the tension  and terror of Parkins, the professor who finds a whistle on the dunes where he is walking. On blowing it, he invokes a creature that makes its body from bedsheets, sightings and events growing more and more unnerving. It is Parkins' rational mind that stops him believing, that creates his endurance in the story, allowing him to be present in the hotel room when he comes face to sheet with the terrifying entity.

If you've read the previous parts of The Burning Web, you'll know that Tris, my protagonist, has already had his first scare. But was it real, or just a consequence of his brain injury? That's the thing, doubt of his own senses that leads this next section of the story.  

The Burning Web
Part 5

by Sophie Duncan

A to Z Challenge 2014 - Ghosts - D is For Disturbing, Dickens & Dean Castle

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Today we're visiting Scotland on my tour of British Hauntings, Dean Castle, to be precise. Plus I'll be waxing lyrical about Charles Dickens and what I think makes ghost stories wonderfully disturbing.

D is for Disturbing | The Burning Web | Author Info | British Hauntings

D is for Disturbing

The job of any good ghost story, in my opinion, is to give you shivers down your spine, to make you wonder if that movement in the corner of your vision was real; in short, a spooky story should disturb its reader. I don't know about anyone else, but I have to pick and choose when I read or watch ghost stories, because, if it's a good one, it leaves me with an over active imagination and the jitters. If I'm home alone, forget it, no ghost stories for me :).

Sadly, a lot of modern horror goes in for gore and shock value rather than a good, lasting scare, but one bunch of film makers who have held onto the ability to disturb is the Japanese. The likes of Ju-on: The Grudge, and Dark Water, use all the old tricks of camera angles, weird sounds and good story telling to create scares aplenty. I have to say, when in Ju-on, they broke the first rule of being scared at night, that when you're under the covers, nothing can get to you, I did freak out a little.;P These ghosts are not necessarily fast moving, in fact, once again, in The Grudge, the slow progress of the murdered woman down the stairs, slithering towards the terrified watcher, is exquisite in how it unsettles.

The Woman In Black, Hammer Horror's 2012 offering starring Daniel Radcliffe, make me hopeful for the future of British horror cinema as well. Where we see the mysterious ghost reflected in mirrors, gliding up on our unsuspecting hero and gradually increasing her presence. All very creepy and a movie I can go back to again and again, it never stops making me shiver.

On the page, we have no music, no camera angles, but we do have half-seen images, eerie sounds being described, and all the same tools of the film industry. Less is often more when it comes to disturbing the reader, dropping hints, leaving a trail of unease. And it is this kind of slow build up to terror that I relish when reading a ghost story.

The Burning Web
Part 4

by Sophie Duncan

Guest Post: Author Linzé Brandon - Anthology Publishing & Planning (The STORM Anthology)

Psst - before we start this post, a note to those looking for my A to Z post for today, it's here, but first, please take a look at what Linzé has to say :).

Today, I am happy to welcome author, Linzé Brandon, to my blog to talk about the STORM anthologies she is working on and how she managed the process of creating anthologies. So, over to Linzé.

I am one of those people who love to read anthologies. Full length novels are amazing,  but  anthologies have less impact on my time, and I get to read a whole story in one sitting.

In August 2013 I came up with the idea for our writers' group to do a joint project, and the STORM anthology was born. The brief was a simple one: Write a short story where a storm, whether physical, fantastical or otherwise, forms an integral part of the story. The only requirement was that it had to be aimed at adult audiences, and I had undertaken not to write any erotic stories. As the only erotica writer in the group I felt that it would limit the exposure of especially the début authors.

Unlike most anthologies, it only had a common theme, not a common genre. This created a conundrum. The majority of the group members write fantasy, while some of us cross the genre borders on a regular basis, there are some who stick to what they do best.

It became a more practical solution for each member to write two stories as far as possible. The additional story allowed the multi-genre authors some leeway in their creative thinking.

STORM then became STORM Volume I and Volume II, split into the type of genres appealing to the readers most likely to read them.

Volume I is made up of stories in science fiction, fantasy, supernatural and dystopia genres, whereas Volume II is for the contemporary genres - romance, drama, and crime. The cover had to be generic, but the theme made it not too difficult to settle on the design.

As the leader of the group, managing this whole process became my biggest challenge. Managing the technical aspects of the anthology was relatively easy: genres, cover, editing, formatting, printing and e-book publishing - check.

The challenge before me was getting everyone to submit their final drafts to the editor by the deadline.  Normally we have two editors in the group, but with Charmain Lines involved in a commissioned project, it was up to the members to help out. We beta-read for each other and gave feedback as far as possible to lighten the load on the final editing, now falling on the shoulders of a single person.

Since we ended up with 14 stories, between nine and twelve thousand words, it turned into a daunting task to allow Vanessa Wright enough time to edit and finish her own contributions to the anthology.

Another challenge facing me was the question of profit sharing. Since we decided on printed books as well as e-book publishing, the money question became an important one. Unfortunately for me, I left sorting out the details on this one way too late. Note to future indie anthology project leaders: Sort this out before you start writing.

A friend of mine's lawyer has a saying: "Money makes people funny, and lots of money makes people very funny."  I have no idea whether this is a famous quote, but it remains true nonetheless. Get the compensation sorted out before you even start. Do it in writing, and get an agreement signed by all the contributors in the project.

Printing is expensive and not everyone can contribute equally to the cost. This caused me a sleepless night or two. As a published author I know the incredible feeling of holding your own book in your hands. Nothing compares.  I wanted the younger authors in the group to experience this feeling and came up with a pre-launch marketing plan on the printed books.

Shortly after the deadline for the submissions, two of the authors withdrew their stories. A rethink on the publication of the paperback version was required, since we were now four stories short, two each in the two volume publication. The members rallied and decided to go ahead with the publication. The print version will now be published as a single book  with 10 stories, while the e-book will remain as two volumes.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat! Six authors stepped up to a challenge outside their comfort zones and the end result is something we are exceedingly proud of.

By the time this guest post goes live, STORM Volume I and Volume II are in final formatting for publication as both a printed paperback and e-books on Smashwords. The launch is planned for June 2014 in both formats.

Linzé Brandon Author Profile:

Teaching herself to read before she went to school; it was the start of her life long love affair with books. Trained as an engineer, Linzé has worked as an export consultant and is presently a project manager at a company that designs and manufactures products for the military industry. She also enjoys counted stitch embroidery, archery, fly fishing, painting abstracts, her husband's medal winning photographs and watching Manchester United play.

She is one of the moderators of the Google+ group, Writer's Rabbit Hole, and leads the Pretoria Writers' Group, consisting of nine members, six of whom are published authors in various genres.

Linzé Brandon lives in Pretoria, South Africa, with her engineer husband and German Shepherds who are convinced that the world revolves around them.

• Blog (Butterfly on a Broomstick) http://www.linzebrandon.blogspot.com
• FB author page http://www.facebook.com/LinzeBrandonAuthor
• Twitter http://www.twitter.com/LinzeBrandon
• Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6035313.Linze_Brandon
• Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/+LinzéBrandon

Find all my books
Smashwords  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LinzeBrandon

Storyboards of STORM, my books and other creative endeavours
Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/LinzeBrandon

A to Z Challenge 2014 - Ghosts - C is For Contrast, Wilkie Collins and Chilham

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The offerings I have for you today, brought to you by the letter C, are a varied bunch, but then that's a good thing, because in my writing subject today I'll be discussing contrast as a tool. My author is Wilkie Collins and I'll also be telling you about a village I called my home for 23 years, Chilham, near Canterbury in Kent (UK).

C is for Contrast | The Burning Web | Author Info | British Hauntings

C is for Contrast
So, contrast, the use of opposing somethings to increase the impact of one or both of those somethings, and in my case, being a writing, those somethings can be ideas of place, character, emotion among many others. And contrast can be used to staggering effect in a a ghost story. A common contrast in haunting stories is the use of the figure of a child, an innocent, helpless form juxtaposed with the fact that the child is appearing as a phantom, a source of supernatural fear. Add to that a dreadful death, which is common in many stories from the British Isles and we have tragedy coupled with terror, which can prove very dramatic.

The Lady in White, a spooky film telling the story of a schoolboy who encounters the ghost of a murdered little girl, uses this innocence mixed with horror to great effect. Frankie, played by Lukas Haas, is terrified when he first sees the apparition and witnesses her being strangled. The fact that he is her age, another child, makes the horror of her death all the more dramatic.

Ghost stories are often set against a backdrop of dark rooms, shadows and storms, all very scary and often doom-laden. Yet, without something to contrast this with, it can become very alien and separate from the reader, lessening the impact of the creepiness the author is trying to instil. We all need something to draw us into a story, whether it's the humanness of the protagonist, or a sweet little song that precedes the arrival of a ghost. Something to contradict the darkness, to increase our sense of foreboding, that really makes our hair stand on end when all is revealed. :)

The Burning Web
Part 3

by Sophie Duncan

A to Z Challenge 2014 - Ghosts - B is For Backdrop, Borley Rectory, and E. F. Benson

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So today, it's on to B, and, as part of my discussion on the aspects of a good ghost story, I'm going to be talking about backdrop. Plus there's the second part of my ghostly serial, The Burning Web. My featured author today is E. F. Benson and I'll be giving you some insight in the very haunted Borley Rectory on my tour of British Hauntings.

B is for Backdrop | The Burning Web | Author Info | British Hauntings

B is for Backdrop

Not every good ghost story, but most of them, and pretty much all the ones I really enjoy ;P, have to have an atmospheric canvas against which to paint their story. M R James was a master at creating atmosphere, from dark libraries stacked to the ceiling with books, isolating the lonely man within, to apparently mundane guest house bedrooms where bedsheets can become a terror that gives me the shudders just thinking about it. If you look closely at my banner, you'll see an illustration by James McBryde from the very first M R James publication, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, containing that terrifying story, Whistle & I'll Come To You. Dartmoor, too, is a great backdrop for the hell hound in Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles.

There are also more modern settings that have been put to good use as well. The empty mental asylum in movies like The House on Haunted Hill, and Boo!.  However, I think a writer can never go wrong with a good, old fashioned haunted house. :) We are fortunate in Britain to be surrounded by old buildings, castles, manor houses, cottages by the sea, and all of them could come with one or more tales of the supernatural. These can serve as great inspiration, none more so than the lonely house in the woods described in Walter de la Mare's, The Listeners.

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

Already in just two lines, he's told us it is night, and a lonely traveller is asking for shelter. The poem goes on, interspersing the phantoms of the darkness with descriptions of the echoingly empty house.

It is every writer's job to spin the backdrop for their story, but nowhere is it more important, I think, than in the ghost story, where the entire piece is dependent on atmosphere. When I began work on The Burning Web, I knew I wanted to write a haunted house story, and so came to life, Berwick House, a large, Victorian relic in need of repair and, just like any character, the house has to be introduced. :)

The Burning Web
Part 2

by Sophie Duncan

A to Z Challenge 2014 - Ghosts - A is For Apparition, Gertrude Atherton and Anne Griffiths a.k.a. Owd Nance

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So, welcome to my first post for the A to Z Challenge 2014. As you can see from my banner, my theme for this month is Ghosts, and in the next 26 posts, I'm going to be sharing with you my thoughts about spooks, ghoulies and everything that goes bump in the night! :)

Each post will contain my musings about the components of a good ghost story, because this wouldn't be a writer's blog otherwise, now would it? I'll also be sharing my serialised ghost story, The Burning Web, which I've written just for the A to Z. I'm a big fan of reading ghost stories as well (I have a library full of ghost books), so I'll be recommending some well known authors of ghostly fiction and non-fiction, and some not so well known ones that I've come across in my reading time. And finally, I live in the UK, we are surrounded by ghosts, there must be at least one per living person, if not more, so I'll be sharing some of my favourite ghosts and haunted places from the British Isles.

A is for Apparition | The Burning Web | Author Info | British Hauntings

A is for Apparition

I'm going to declare myself - I believe in ghosts. I've never seen one, but I know what I'd do it I did, I'd run a mile in the other direction :). I love being spooked by a good ghost story and I enjoy watching them as well, but I can scare myself stiff sometimes too, especially if I'm home alone. The human mind and the human eye are very good at playing tricks on us. I've caught lots of movement out of the corner of my eye, or in the mirror with a quick glance. Do I think they were caused by ghosts - well, no, but I have shared a house with a ghost. I'll go into that story in more detail in a later post. Today, I'm talking about apparitions, the unequivocal sighting of a ghost that is (usually) the pivotal part of any good ghost story.

As I mentioned before, if every story of haunting in the British Isles is to be believed, we are surrounded by phantoms, and, so too, is our literature. From Banquo's ghost in Shakespeare's Macbeth, through to the spirits visiting Scrooge in  Dickens' A Christmas Carol, classic literature is flooded with such appearances. They can be messengers, harbingers of doom, vindictive wraiths, revealers of secrets - anything the writer wants them to be, in fact. The visual impact is fantastic on film and stage, and the presence can be wonderfully eerie on the page.

No gothic horror is complete without an ethereal grey lady, or a headless horseman, but what of these spectres in our more modern, scientific age of literature? I think they still have their place. Our Victorian forebears, kings and queens of the gothic horror, maintained a good dose of scepticism in their stories, which we can carry through to our modern-day ghostly tales. The Sixth Sense uses disbelief to brilliant effect when ghosts are standing right there before us. In fact, I think that the rabid scepticism of our age can add to the terror of a ghost story, because the chances of a haunted protagonist being believed are so low.

When I was thinking about The Burning Web, I considered this type of witness isolation and how I could use it. When someone claims to be seeing things that aren't there in our modern world, what do we attribute that to? Delusion. Hallucinogenic compounds. Trick of the light. And that is where I started from.

The Burning Web
Part 1

by Sophie Duncan