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Ghosts, Ghouls and the Supernatural
Activities
Before Viewing
Share your reader expectations of horror stories. Consider typical plots, characters, dress, dialogue and settings. What emotions do such stories arouse in readers?
- In groups, write the following story in the horror style or genre. Think particularly about typical situations, characters, body language, appearance, speech and settings.
THE PLOT:
Character 1 has a happy life until Creature 1 decides to upset everything. By the end of the story, either all ends well or everything is destroyed.
After each story has been read aloud to the class, identify the typical genre conventions (the ingredients common to all horror stories) which were used.
Since horror novels share similar plots, characters, etc., why read more than one? Why read the same kind of book over and over again? Is there anything more to it than just wanting to feel scared? Are all horror stories exactly the same?
An author's narrative technique can be highlighted by comparing (and contrasting) how printed text might be transformed to moving image. Explore how television could convey the following:
It had found them. Since Eleanor would not open the door, it was going to make its own way in. Little pattings came from around the doorframe...small, seeking sounds...feeling the edges of the door, trying to sneak a way in. The little sticky sounds moved on around the doorframe and then, as though a fury caught whatever was outside, the crashing came again. And Eleanor and Theodora saw the wood of the door tremble and shake and the door move against its hinges.
Extract from The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Print out and photocopy the above passage. Students should consider the action (underline verbs); add notes about how the story is written: sound, pace, point of view, atmosphere. Pool ideas and report back to the class. [Also see: 'After Viewing'.]
After Viewing
Compare/contrast your initial ideas about 'Hill House' with how the scene was treated in the programme [at 04.08]. A printed text needs to be transformed for (rather than transferred to) the screen. What differences did you observe? Why have changes been made? Would other changes be made for a cinema film? How successful was the visual medium in conveying the printed text?
- Try writing a text version for the film clip Nightmare on Elm Street [at 10.06]. Consider which adjectives and verbs could enhance your writing.
- Describing the physical exterior of a building can be an effective way of indicating the mood of narration and character. What impression can you convey, in a paragraph, of the scene shown here?
- Copy (and save) the following extract to a word processor. Examine closely how deleting any words/phrases that do not seem to be absolutely essential helps to show how atmosphere was created; press the 'Enter' (or ‘Return’) key and repeat the process throughout the passage.
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. Even larks are supposed by some to dream. Hill House - not sane - stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within. It had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House and whatever walked there, walked alone.
[The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson]
For example, perhaps the following key words are identified:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. Even larks are supposed by some to dream. Hill House - not sane - stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within. It had stood sofor eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House and whatever walked there, walked alone.
This exercise can reveal a word-list of key elements in creating the sense of an old, deserted, empty and lonely setting. One discovery may be that the house has long 'stood' solidly but it is being 'walked' by something:
Hill House
stood by itself
against its hills,
darkness within.
stood eighty years
might stand eighty more.
walls upright,
bricks met neatly,
floors firm,
doors shut.
silence.
whatever walked
walked alone.
Students may like to apply this technique to their own writing (and become an instant poet?) or, by reversing the process, 'flesh out' any definite, central idea of their own.
- In the programme, Simon Marsden drew attention to 'the sound you're not quite sure you heard': a key element in creating atmosphere in ghost stories. 'What's frightening in the ghost story,' agreed Jonathan Aycliffe, are the 'little sounds that you can't quite hear but are there and which gradually build until you realise there's something there.' Celia Rees, in The Vanished, wondered if an 'indistinct mutter like the voices of many children' might not be 'a trick of the ears'? In the extract from The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson wrote about 'little pattings around the doorframe. . .small seeking sounds. . .trying to find a way in. The little sticky sounds moved all around the doorframe. Then the crashing came!' The clip from Nightmare on Elm Street began with a mixture of quiet electronic music and blowing wind but climaxed, as a storm grew, with a sudden loud chord to accompany the shadow's appearance.
The atmosphere of any story you read or write will be generated, in part, by its soundtrack. How many sounds can you think of between a whisper and a scream? Are any sounds softer than a whisper or louder than a scream? Create a list of 'little sounds' and another of deafening noises; what sounds will fit between the two lists? Use similar progressions of sounds in your own story writing.
- 'Phantom beings - spindly matchstick creatures. . . we know they don't exist, really. There are no ghosts. But there's a part of us underneath that says: "Yes there are!" ' Did you agree with that statement during the programme? Debate, in groups or as a whole class, whether ghosts can really exist (outside the imagination of people).
- Tell a ghost story to a group or your class. Can the room be darkened? Play soft, appropriate music as a background to your story. (Do not choose well-known music as your audience may start to listen to the music instead of the story!)
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