Alex Beecroft ~ Writing the Historical Ghost Story

From that title you'd suppose I was some kind of expert on historical ghost stories, but that's very far from the truth. My qualifications to talk on the subject are that I have written one historical ghost story – 'The Wages of Sin', due to come out in time for Halloween 2009 in an anthology by ManLove Romance Press. But I very much enjoyed the process, to the extent that I'm hoping to write more. So, if you thought of this as 'writing the historical ghost story – for complete beginners', that would be more like it.

Although this was my first ghost story, I started out from a background of writing historical novels set in the 18th Century. So I already had a lot of historical information about the setting on hand, and a good idea where to go to find more.

I figured that if I was writing a historical novel about brewers, I would research into how brewing was done in the 18th Century and see if any ideas were sparked by the techniques or attitudes of the time towards brewing. So why should ghosts be any different?

I started off with an overview of how ghosts have been perceived throughout history:

http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00689/Pages/historyghosts.html

http://www.paralumun.com/ghosts.htm

http://www.discoverychannel.co.uk/paranormal/spirit_world/history/index.shtml

Those and many more websites, and a couple of books on the subject, seemed unanimous that ghosts linger in the world because of something left undone. Either an injustice done towards the person when they were alive, which they remain to avenge, or an injustice the ghost did to another, which they need somebody to right for them before they can move on. That, or the person's burial rites were not completed properly – they were buried in unconsecrated ground, or without the correct sacrifices etc.

This early conception of ghosts as being people who had a good reason to linger – people who were trying to put something right – carried on into the 18th Century. Once I'd got an overview, I concentrated on reading about the most famous ghost of the era – the Cock Lane ghost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_Lane_ghost

http://www.forteantimes.com/reviews/books/68/the_cock_lane_ghost.html



This ghost, which claimed to be the murdered wife of a man who had subsequently re-married and lived in a small lodging house in Cock Lane, was heard by hundreds of people in London. It became a bit of a fashion to go and listen to it answering questions by the famous 'one knock or two' method.

Eventually the 'ghost' was unmasked by a team of investigators, including Samuel Johnson of Dictionary fame. The knocks were being faked by the young daughter of the man's landlord.

What's most scary about this story is the way a whole family united in an attempt to get their lodger lynched by the mob for a murder he didn't actually commit. The ghost itself was a bit of a fairground sideshow.

But again, what's notable is that once the ghost identified itself as the lodger's first wife, everyone assumed that she must have returned in order to gain justice for herself. A ghost was assumed to be proof positive of murder.

Which, of course, makes it easy to tie a ghost story into a murder-mystery. What violent deed in the past created the ghost? How does that tie in with the events in the present? Who will see the ghost, and what will they need to do to right the wrong and allow the ghost to move on?

In the course of reviewing the evidence about ghosts through history, I came across a lot of 'real life stories' which were spine chilling, and quite a few – like the Cock Lane ghost – which were only scary from a perspective of human psychology. So naturally I paid a lot of attention to the elements of the scary ones, to see what was working on me and what wasn't. I soon decided that I found poltergeists, which can move objects and therefore harm you, more scary than the classic ghost which just walks along a corridor on windy nights. So I made mine a poltergeist.

I also came across some delightful evidence of early vampires. I wasn't sure whether vampires were around in the 18th Century, but it turns out that one of the things the 18th Century did for us was to introduce the Western world to the concept of the vampire.

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Vampire_-_Eighteenth_century_vampire_controversy/id/5570895

These were not your modern suave and sexy (even glittery) vampires, but the blood-sucking walking corpses of legend. As with the Cock Lane ghost in London, so many people believed these creatures existed that there was public hysteria in Prussia over them. Eventually official investigators were sent to make a scientific inquiry into whether vampires existed or not, and the investigation reported that they did not.


Newspaper reports spread the information all over Europe, so I feel no shame at making Jasper - one of my heroes – into an early 18th Century vampire hunter. But that's something for a different story, I hope!