Fifty Horror Clichés That Need to Die in a Fire

#25: Hauntings

Note:  I was inspired to do this part thanks to a recent visit I took to The Old Jail Museum.  It was on the tour that I learned of the constant reports of ghost sightings there, most likely from the wrongly condemned Molly Maguires and those forced to be put into solitary confinement.  It was with this tour that I started thinking about ghosts in fiction and went around writing this part.

  Even if you are not one to believe in ghosts, the formerly human entities can be universally agreed on to be a staple in horror fiction.  When you think of a scary story, one of the first ideas that comes to most people's minds are the titular rundown haunted mansions, filled to the brim with dozens of angry spirits.  After all, fictional ghost stories are one of the oldest forms of horror, dating back hundreds of years ago in the past.  We wouldn't have great horror stories such as The Haunting of Hill House, The Turn of the Screw, or The Shining without the presence of ghost related media.  With that in mind, ghost stories can be seen as a foundation for modern horror fiction.

  However, that does not mean stories involving some type of haunting do not have their fair share of issues.  Ghost stories due to their concrete structures fall easily into the cliché of being too predictable, with almost every story seemingly acting nearly identical in execution. 

  Almost all ghost stories start with the main cast being forced to live in a rundown house or a place above an ancient burial ground for a certain said amount of time.  Weird occurrences follow, with some characters seeing the threat right away while others have their doubts at first.  Things heat up, and suddenly the haunting in question becomes life threatening, with the cast being forced into action despite some initial doubts.  Some type of supernatural solution will present itself to spare some if not all the main characters, bringing the ghosts to rest or more typically getting the heck out of the haunted house.  Then the characters go on with their lives unless a sequel is pitched, with obvious counseling needed for the nightmare fuel they just got out of.

  A great example of this concrete structure in ghost stories is in the film Poltergeist.  Despite the film delivering a well developed storyline, it falls headfirst into the typical plot structure of most ghost related stories.  The Freeling family lives in a property previously the source of an ancient burial ground that the real estate company Cuesta Verde built over without the family's knowledge.  Over time, the spirits of the ghosts there get understandably pissed off at the lack of decency on their part, and slowly start haunting the house.  At first, small things occur, such as a glass breaking and silverware bending.  However, things get worse fast when a tree's branches nearly drag the son Robbie out of his bedroom and the youngest daughter Carol Anne is sucked into a portal.  The family is forced to hire parapsychologists who determine the house is experiencing a poltergeist and ask Tangina Barrons, a spiritual medium, for extra assistance.  After freeing Carol Anne from her other dimensional prison, the ghosts force the family out and basically tear the place apart in the most violent way possible.  The Freeling Family escapes, but are definitely at least a little bit scarred from the experience.  As you read the description for the story, you probably noticed that all the bullet points mentioned previously fit almost perfectly into the narrative, proving the storyline is pretty much just as concrete as most ghost stories.

It is not even an understatement that ghost stories for the most part are trapped in a structural plot prison.  Every story involving a haunting, whether you like it or not, follows the same plot line time and time again.  The only way this problem can truly be eradicated for good is by doing perhaps the most simple advice I have given in this editorial; be original.  Instead of doing the plot the same as every other haunted house story, try adding new unexplored elements to the plot.  Maybe a few of the ghosts are actually friendly and try to communicate with the main characters in order to create a more peaceful living arrangement for both parties.  Perhaps one of the ghosts hesitantly sides with the main characters and a fight between the living and the dead can ensue for control over the property in question.  Heck, you could even add some sort of romantic subplot with a ghost and a living character if you really wanted to.  The choices are unlimited.

  Choose whatever you wish whenever writing some type of haunting-related story.  Creativity is key to mastering the horror genre, and taking a more unconventional route in the plot may just help your story rise above all the rest.