The Red Room was set in a one room in a massive house. This already seems scary as there is a big house but one room which is very weird and strange. And the only 3 people who live there, does not want anything to do with the red room.
The man in the story is given a long list of directions to reach the red room, which involves going "going down the long corridor", which already gives you a scary feeling. This always happens when someone has to go somewhere dark and they are always alone.
In The Signalman the narrator climbs down to speak with the signalman. The Signalman is set in a "dark black tunnel", this makes it scary as it is dark and black.
The Old Nurse's Story gives the idea to the readers that life after death is real. Hester and Lord Furnival suggests that dead people are waking up and entering into this world and walking the Earth. This would’ve spooked readers quite a bit as it the thought of it scared me.
All of the stories use their scary settings to give you a little picture in the head and makes you start thinking about what will happen in this story. The Red Room creates fear by using words and phrases that explain the weather or their feeling inside like, "the draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty" This line is not scaring the reader straight away but making the reader feel as he was in the story feeling cold in the passage.
The Signalman also uses cold to show fear, "so much cold rushed through it that it struck chill to me". It is trying to do the same thing so you can imagine you are feeling cold.
For a good scary story, a lot of things will be described in detail, and they will use words which are connected to fear somehow. In these three stories, they use the description of the light and dark or colour to add tension and fear.
The Signalman for example is set on a railroad next to "a black tunnel". Also it tells us about where the signalman's box is, "So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot". This is trying to make us feel that it is extremely dark down there.
The Red room also does this by describing corners as shadowy and the "blackness of the wide chimney". These intense descriptions could make you imagine if something is within the shadowy corners.
The description of sound and smells are used in stories to create atmosphere as well. In the red room sound is described with, "the door creaked on its hinges" this shows that the building is old and it is not looked after. This sets the atmosphere so the reader can think of it as a scary old building.
In The Old Nurse’s story uses the description of shadows which also try and scare you. “I turned the east comer, and there a black shadow fell on the snow”
In The Signalman the tracks are described as having "an earthly deadly smell". The word deadly is very effective and fits in with horror. This hints killings and murder, these are scary things and so this sets the location as being scary as well.
So the setting of a story is very important as it starts giving pictures in the readers mind about where it is and what kind of things could happen.
So in conclusion I think a successful ghost story should start off with describing the setting with words that connect to fear or just mentioning some specific colours like red or black, that might also work. And then describe the atmosphere by mentioning how the weather is the smell of the place as well. Then start adding the feelings of the characters as something intense happens or is about to happen. And you can end it in a cliff hanger which would play with the readers mind, making them think about what happened.
By Zakir Md. Hussain 10TR