What makes a good ghost story?

Mark Heslop

10 Bass

A good ghost story needs a scary setting like a Castle, Monastery, graveyard or somewhere what is spooky. A good ghost story has too make you feel like you are there it needs to have suspense to make you want to keep reading. A good ghost story has to make you feel like you are there and know what the characters are feeling it also needs to build up the tension and suspension in the story. In a good gothic novel you might find a ghost, curse, witches, and superstitions deaths. Good gothic novels usually have settings like a cemetery, monastery, forest, old house or somewhere where no one usually goes.

The story ‘The Red Room’ is written in first person the good thing about it been written in first person is that you know what he is thinking and you know what he is thinking.

The story ‘The Red Room’ was written by H G Wells was written in the year 1894. The story is set in the great Red Room of Lorraine Castle. The writer makes you feel from the start that there is something supernatural happening by telling you about the death of a young duke at the castle.

The room is described of ‘Looked up the darkness of the wide chimney. At the beginning of the story the narrator is not scared because he does not believe in ghosts. There are no lights so he fills the room with candles he lights lots of candles all around the room. After a while the candles start to go out one by one he thinks the candles are coming alive ‘The black shadow sprung back to its place there’ Then for no reason at all the fire just goes out at this point the narrator thinks there is a supernatural ...

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At the begging of the story it tells you about the dukes death I think this add suspense to the story you think that something is going to happen to him and something does.

The story of ‘The Signalman’ was written by Charles Dickens in 1865. The story is set on a railway when the story was written the railway was a modern thing.

“I stood at the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head….. Down in the deep trench” this piece of text is taken from the first paragraph. It is important because it gives the idea of decent. The signalman was below and wanting the narrator to go down to this place.

“A rough zig zag descending path…..” “Cutting was extremely deep and unusually precipitous” This piece of text is on the top of page 106. “The ‘Rough’ zig zag descending path” This piece of text makes you thinks that it is dangerous and that if he fell he would seriously injure himself of even kill himself. It also seems a strange place to put the box underground where no one can see it. The setting adds suspense and mystery to the story.

In the story the signal man there are two main characters the signal man and the narrator. In the story when the signal man looks down the track he sees a figure which looks like it is waving at him. The narrator meets the signal man two times; the second time the meeting takes part at 11.00pm when the signal man tells the narrator about what he has been seeing. At the end of the story the signal man goes down the track to the tunnel and just stands in front of a train and gets ran over. Later on the narrator sees all the people there and goes to see what is happening. The train driver said that the signalman just stood there, with his hand over his eye just like he told the narrator what he had been seeing.

Comparing the signal man and the red room.

The red room happens in just a few hours, while the signal man happens over 2/3 Days. The red room is set in a haunted room in a castle; this kind of setting is scary. The railway man is set on a railway which is not a very scary setting but the red room has quite a scary setting. The Red room is experienced and then told by the narrator. The Signalman is told by the narrator but the narrator did not experience it he was told what happened by the signalman.

The Red room is set at midnight which is quite a scary time which is good for a gothic novel. The signalman is set in a mixture of daytime and nigh time. Most of it is set in the daytime which makes it not very scary. The signal man was writer in 1866, the Red Room was written in 1894.

Caption murderer

In this story caption murderer is a serial killer who marries young women and on the wedding night kills them chops them up into small pieces and bakes them in a pie and eats them. The caption is only caught when he meets two twins. One loves him but the other hates him. He decides to marry one of them on the wedding night the twin which hates him sneaks to the house and looks through the window, she sees the caption sharpening his sword an having his teeth filed. The next day her sister is dead.

She remembers what she seen and decides to marry him but on her wedding day before she is killed she takes poison and when he eats her he also eats the poison and dies.

I think that at the ending the sister wants to make sure she kills him that’s why she takes the poison instead of putting it in his drink or dinner.

I think that the story is a bit silly because the captions wife’s always die the wedding night and no one seems to notice this.