Part of this project is writing a few different short stories based on the events/ghosts of a place in Lincoln. My original idea was to just write a more factual based story that focussed on the telling of the actual story, however, this proved to be rather boring, for both the listener/reader and also for me to write. So instead I focussed on creating a more interesting story that took the events’ main points and either putting it in first or third person and also adding things to the original ghost story to add more depth and a backstory.
The first story I drafted was for the area around Brown’s Pie Shop:
I have been stuck in this building for nearly two hundred years now. People come and go every day, but I have to stay here. I am so jealous of the other children that come here with their parents and get to leave as a happy family. I really miss my parents.
I tend not to bother the customers or the cooks that work here. But I sometimes make noises to see if they notice me, and most do. However, some of the cooks don’t acknowledge me…and I don’t like that. It’s not nice to be ignored.
Around fifty years ago there was a new cook hired at the shop and he didn’t believe I was real, so I started being louder than usual…but that didn’t seem to bother him. So I started moving things in the kitchen to try and spook him…but still nothing. I felt that the only way he would believe I was real is if he saw me…I scared him so much that he fell backwards into the sink, where there was a knife facing upwards…There was blood everywhere and his eyes were so lifeless... I never wanted to hurt him…I just wanted to be noticed.
The original ghost story does not specify anything about the boy in the story, just that he doesn’t like to be ignored and that he occasionally moves things around in the kitchen. The only thing that I find holding me back from adding more detail and going further with the story is my self-imposed word limit of 200 words (as this is around 1.5 minutes of talking).
Prior to writing, I set out a list of things that I could touch upon from the original source material and a list of things that are seen a lot in media so that I could see how I could incorporate them into a story:
- Ghost Child – Would be the main character/Perosn who’s experience I am writing about.
- Blood and Death – Used in a lot of horror movies and often has an effect on people.
- Being ignored – I used this as a plot device to get to the climax – also a problem that children can experience often.
- Emotions – In the first two parts, it discusses how he misses his parents and that he feels stuck in a single place, which explains why he doesn’t like to be ignored – as he doesn’t get much attention.
I tried to take as much of the source material as possible, but also add enough to make it interesting.
Source for the story: https://hauntedhistoryoflincolnshire.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/lincoln/browns-pie-shop-2/
Basic pointers on generating a story: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Horror-Story
Help with first person and the climax : http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative1/shortstory/#view
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