IWSG - October

 

It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for the Insecure Writers Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the October 2 posting of the IWSG are Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre!

This month's question has me scratching my head...

Ghost stories fit right in during this month. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

I don't really read ghost stories.  I mean, I know I have in the past, but other than A Christmas Carol, I can't remember any that have really chilled me.  Maybe The Woman in Black? I remember being quite creeped out by that when I read it many, many years ago.

Most of the ghost stories I've read aren't really chilling in the sense of being scary - the ghosts tend to be in the story more as a literary device than to scare.  I mean, you could call The Lovely Bones a ghost story in that the narrator is dead, but it's not the first thing I think of when someone wants me to recommend a ghost story.  Nor is Beloved, which could also be considered a ghost story.

I guess The Shining is a ghost story although I tend to think about it more as a story about a child with supernatural gifts.  But at its heart, it is a ghost story.  The hotel is definitely haunted and that's what makes the people trapped in it go mad.  

I read The Shining when I was about twelve and probably way too young to read it, but back then, there wasn't much in the way of YA books available, so once I'd read my way through the children's section of the library, I started trawling through the adult section.  And horror was what I gravitated to at that age.  I read a lot of horror for a few years there consuming all of Stephen King's books and a whole lot by an author called John Saul and books by Graeme Masterton, George R R Martin (before he wrote the Game of Thrones books), Peter Straub, Dean Koontz and others.

Yet amongst all those books, I don't remember there being many ghost stories.  But it was almost 40 years ago, so I may have forgotten... And even if they were ghost stories, I don't really remember ever being truly scared by them.  Maybe by Christine...  I know my friends and I watched the film of that one for my 13th birthday and then terrified ourselves by going outside and watching cars go by, certain they'd leave the road and come to slaughter us.

Kids!

What's your favourite ghost story?  I could use some recommendations for the spooky season.