What Makes a Good Ghost Story?

Who doesn't love a good ghost story? One of my favorite books when I was young was Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful (Random House, 1961 and subsequent editions), in which the master of creepy supernatural thrillers introduced nine spooky stories by a variety of authors. My beloved copy had belonged to my brothers before me, and at around age 10, I snapped it up. I loved it so much that I recently hunted down a used copy on the Internet and have it before me now.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," was Mr. Hitchcock's characteristic opening. He went on to say that he'd compiled these particular stories "to provide reading for young people who are at the awkward age. Children who are too lazy to walk but still too young to drive. Here are nine stories carefully compiled to furnish reading material in Life's great waiting room where we while away the hours until our driver's license is issued."

Further on he wrote, "[One] reason I am not addressing this book to adults is (and believe me, this hurts) they insist they don't believe in ghosts. [Emphasis in the original.] It's shocking, really. After all, these are the people who write our country's laws and pay our allowances. I don't know how they could become so confused. Perhaps you are partly to blame. You have not watched them closely enough and they have fallen in with bad company."

I loved these stories, which included selections by such august authors as Mark Twain and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But my favorite of the collection was The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall by John Kendrick Bangs, which contained all the elements that my prepubescent mind thought a good ghost story should have:  a creaky old house, strange midnight appearances, unfinished business,  a clever solution, and a quirk of amusement.

I don't believe in ghosts. But I did write one ghost story back in my student days, which I'm still rather proud of after all these decades. If you care to read it, it's posted here.

What about you? Do you have a favorite ghost story? What, to you, make up the essential elements of a good ghost story?

The Smoking Gun: Writers Who Inhaled

Anne Sexton

This week marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the landmark Surgeon General's report that stated exactly how terrible smoking is for one's health and why the government should get involved in putting an end to it. Some readers may be old enough to remember those ancient days, when blue-gray clouds of smoke hung everywhere in the air and practically every flat surface sported an ashtray. While my own parents weren't smokers and forbade us from doing so, it seemed as if all the Cool People smoked. Seeing other adults smoking cigarettes was no more alarming than seeing them pop a breath mint into their mouths--which the smart ones did, since smoking stank. I tried it once and that was more than enough.

John Steinbeck

Half a century on, smoking is heavily restricted, with good reason. Most of the Cool People no longer light up, anyway. Or do they? A recent Associated Press article reported that, while the U. S. smoking rate has fallen by more than half to 18 percent [since 1964], "that still translates to more than 43 million smokers."

I stumbled upon an older yet interesting post about famous writers who smoked. Writers, the author states states, are the occupational group "most closely associated with the practice of smoking in particular, as if, in the general consensus, the scribe could find inspiration in a tobacco pouch or pry the muse from her hiding-places with a few puffs of poisonous fumes." The post goes on to name such prodigious smokers as Colette, Steinbeck, Wilde, and Moliere.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain wrote, "Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times."

David Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed in Flames) wrote about various cigarette brands, "Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't."

Ian Fleming, the James Bond guy, wrote, “Smoking I find the most ridiculous of all the varieties of human behavior and practically the only one that is entirely against nature. Can you imagine a cow or any animal taking a mouthful of smoldering straw than breathing in the smoke and blowing it out through its nostrils?” Pretty clever observation, coming from a lifelong smoker.

What do you think? Setting health concerns aside for a moment, do you think that nicotine helps or hampers the muse?

Bon mots ('bon mo', from French meaning witty saying) about writing

NEW CONTEST! GET READY TO EXERCISE YOUR CREATIVITY.

Writing North Idaho will announce another writing contest on Friday, May 10, 2013. Read this blog Friday to find out details about this fun contest challenging our creatives talents. 

                                                          Prizes awarded.

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These posters are from Pinterest.com, subject: writing. If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, it offers wonderful boards you can follow regularly or just browse for twenty minutes to, um, three or four hours. My rational is that it is inspiring even when I look at knitting projects, perusing gifts for my writer friends or travel pictures rather than writing my book.