Think atmosphereĪtmosphere is really important in a ghost story. Setting can be a character in its own right in any story, but in a ghost story, it can add a lot of depth and intrigue to what’s happening. I’ve read others where it’s easier for ghosts to use a door than float through it. I’ve read some books/watched some shows where ghosts can’t do anything. How easy is it for them to be corporeal and move objects? Does it change based on where they are? How could you play with those settings?Ĭonsider how ghosts interact with their surroundings. There are lots of settings which are common in ghost stories, from haunted houses to ghost ships. You could even turn your notes into extra content for your readers who want to find out more about your ghost story and the world it’s set in. You want to make sure that they do that in a consistent way, otherwise avid readers will comment on it-and may even give you negative reviews. There’ll be some things that come up later in the series that you didn’t know you needed to know, and they may impact or otherwise reflect earlier books. Knowing your lore is particularly important if you’re writing a series. Die-hard fans of the genre are unlikely to be on your side. Just be careful you don’t create the ghost equivalent of sparkly vampires. If you want to, that’s totally up to you. Some of the basics most authors don’t change. It’s up to you how close you want to base your writing on existing ghost lore, and how much you want to make up. It really helps to have it written down somewhere safe so that you can’t forget it. You need to know your ghost lore and be consistent with it. I once worked with someone who was so scared of clowns he wouldn’t even talk about Stephen King’s IT, while I know others who laugh through horror films. Some tropes with their roots in horror will always be perceived as scary, even if you don’t intend your usage of it to be that way.Įveryone finds different things scary. Which meant it has tension, but isn’t designed to give you nightmares.Ī couple of people did comment on finding the concept of possessed children creepy, even though I didn’t intentionally make it so. I chose to make The Ghost’s Call on par with my influences-TV shows like Charmed and Lost Girl. Kind of the same way that you know your audience’s steam level when writing romance. What’s important is you know what your audience expects and can tolerate. It’s totally up to you if you decide to write a scary or non-scary ghost story. Then, at the other end of the scale, you have the super-scary, such as The Nun from The Conjuring Universe. There are also lots of films and TV shows that have done non-scary ghosts, such as Charmed. But there are plenty of successful books out there that contain ghosts which aren’t scary, such as Robyn Peterman’s Good to the Last Death series. Obviously the concept of ghosts is, in itself, scary. Sure, you’re writing a story with ghosts in. So, if you want to capitalise on this trend, how do you write a ghost story? Here are some tips to get you started: Choose your scare level That’s not to say you have to write to trend, but, as someone who was lucky enough to have several books out in a series when her genre took off, I can confirm the difference these trends make to your sales. Which gives you a bigger potential audience.Įvery trend will always have their die-hard fans, but most people follow trends and get bored once a market is saturated. We all have slightly different computers - but they are all classed as workstations and we are running Windows XP.Fantasy trends come and go, and right now, one of the trends in fantasy is ghosts.įrom The Conjuring Universe to The Haunting Anthology on our screens, to the influx of new ghost stories being published online, it’s hard to avoid dearly departed characters right now.Ĭapitalising on popular trends will always be beneficial for your book sales. My colleagues and I are all have this problem. I have to produce PDFs of my layouts for reports for my work and this is a serious issue for us. This outlining issue is still present but this time even on PDFs. I have recently been upgraded to Map 3D and Raster 2008 (we're always a bit behind the times). However, this ghost outlining was still visible when plotting to an actual printer. It could be got around by installing RasterDesign 2007 and plotting to PDF. I was then moved on to AutoCAD Map 3D 2007 and this problem first became apparent. When I had AutoCAD 2004 I didn't have this problem. This line is never particularly sharp or continuous (as a frame is when it is plotted), but it is visible, and noticeable and not acceptable for my work products. When the frames are turned off (imageframe set to 0 or 2) and I plot a layout containing raster images then a partial outline around the image (where the frame would be) also gets printed. I am having a problem plotting raster images.
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