Who haunts - you?
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A good ghost story, according to Noel Carroll, uses a variation of "onset" (first manifestations of the unnatural), "discovery" (learning about the unnatural), "confirmation" (convincing of the unnatural) and "confrontation" (approaching the unnatural). These seem to be very useful starting points.
More crucial, I would say, and it is partly hidden in his suggestions, is the need to evade clichés and deal with the hesitation between the natural and the supernatural, because a reader will naturally struggle to belief. This way one can build up the uncanny, a term in the German language describing both the scary and the homely. A contradiction that has more in common than you might think.
How do you make the supernatural believable? Is it about setting, character or voice?
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demitrialunetta.blogspot.com
I think the writer has to believe it to convey belief - treat the supernatural like a character. Setting definitely plays into it.
I think voice and setting would play a huge role in creating believable supernatural.
Also, I think voice adds to it. Characterization, well, how can we believe in the surroundings when the character laughs and is so happy?
Great post!
♥.•*¨ Elizabeth ¨*•.♥
M Pax: That's great, seeing it as a character. I agree on that one.
Heather: cool, every year. Is it any different from the year before?
Talli: yeah that's also a way of doing it.
Elizabeth: I think it's easiest to use setting, but I have heard of a story set in sunlight and the way it used this made it even more creepy. It's all about how you describe things I guess.
I don't write horror, but there are unusual aspects about the characters in my books, and I've grounded their unique abilities with science. (Not technical details, just implied.) Not sure if that helps you or not...