Normally my ideas tend to be on the sci-fi or fantasy side. But lately I've been working on another idea. Here's the synopsis: The story starts off with one girl who has an older brother. The brother is in his room, having been smoking, playing truth or dare with his friends. One of them gets dared to use an ouiji board(or something similar; I need to do research). The girl walks in while they are using it, and she doesn't really know what's going on, so she runs out. She doesn't close the door behind her, but something else does. Now some back story on the spirits/demons: They are from the 19th and 20th centuries. Their ultimate goal is to get as close to actual life as they can; they also can't remember anything f their lives...I'm thinking of them having dealt something with Satan to let them roam on Earth and be malicious rather than stay in Hell. They also *might* feed off of people's bad energy/fear, but I'm not sure if that's too similar to dememtors in Harry Potter. Their...victims use to resist them because of their faith in their religion and belief that there was a higher entity than all other things. But now, atheism is spreading and existent faiths are weakening due to the circumstances of the age. They sense this and try to hurt people, but just as with religion, their belief in the otherworldly isn't much there. The ghosts realize that they need to figure out how people's mind and souls work. When the girl's brother summons the demons, they realize that children really have the best, simplest, and easiest to understand view on things. They also realize that to get in touch with their views, they need to use a more personal connection. Thus far I think they will possess a teacher and ask them, very directly, to write something on how *they* work. The kids try to resist....somehow. This is pretty much as far as I've gotten. I was thinking of writing in 3rd person, and switching between POV of the children and the ghosts. hell was telling me I shouldn't though. What do you think? Also, I was thinking of maybe just intermittently putting poems from the ghosts into the story, starting with the prologue. The thing is, I've never touched the paranormal genre, at least not this type. I've read a couple of vampire novels, but I'm kinda surprised those are even considered the same as say, ghost novels. Anyway, I'm not really sure how this should end. I'm thinking about having one spirit gain an almost-life form, then doing a sequel about how he causes havoc in a human body. But I'm not sure. If you've read any stories with ghosts or spirits, how is the plot normally structured, events-wise? Also, sorry to ask so much, but for the poems I'll use, they'll need to be more poetic and have older language, since the ghosts are from the 19th and 20th centuries. Any tips on the poetry?
He told me that the spirits should be kept vague to be more frightening...but I'm not aiming for this to be a horror type thing anyway, so I think I might do it.
Interesting setup. I plan to deal with demons in the later stages of my own story (maybe the sequel to the first one, which I'm still writing!). From what I can gather the ideas aren't entirely original, but don't be turned off by that, especially the Dementor part, as JK's Dementors do what I've always thought demons do (the part about feeding on bad feelings). Also, the bit about demons getting stronger with bad feelings and thoughts is common sense to many religions, though sometimes you aren't dealing with demons but "evil spirits" or whatever name they call the entities. I've seen poems inserted into a story with good effect. If you want, you can put them between chapters (this is the way I've seen done BTW), with the poem setting the tone of the following chapter. If you're skilled at poetry you may even come up with poems yourself, which would be very nice.
I've written some short stories with creepy paranormal things. I'd recommend to build up tension. Be as detailed as possible, but not in a way that explicitly gives away what the "thing" is. Examples of what I mean: - dark shadowy figures sitting in corners, only seen for a quick instant when the light flickers on and then off again - phone rings despite loss of phone signal, disturbing guttural voice/noises on other end - all the food in the house rots suddenly, even the fresh stuff - vaguley seen (in the dark, at a distance) shapes of odd creatures...humanoid but disturbingly not quite so, too-large animals, unnatural posture/walks etc - animals act weird - weird evolution of some kind (i.e. something like a strange growth: at first it's no big, but it gets more and more obtrusive and disturbing as time goes on) Remember: the reader's imagination will be scarier than anything you could feed them as writer/director, but it's your job to get their mental gears spinning in whatever direction they as an individual find creepiest.
Crazy idea: Start in third person external. Stay impersonal, describing what the MC does. Once the character "contacts with a spirit" have the impersonal narrator reply in first person. Like this: - He was bla bla bla... - They did blablabla - They put their hands in the board blabla... And then: - They had never seen a ghost before. I could tell, because as soon as I manifested they all started to scream.
What if you were to tell the whole story from a ghost's POV? It wouldn't be scary, but it would be a really interesting story.
I think the plot sounds good. It's something I would probably read. I don't write much on the paranormal but I'm an amateur ghost hunter and have traveled around the country doing paranormal investigations, so I find stuff like this very interesting. Just a few points to keep in mind... There is a difference between ghosts/spirits and demons. Ghosts, who prefer to be called spirits by the way, are the spirits of people who were once living human beings. They can be good or they can be evil, just like people in life. Demons, on the other hand, are not and never were human. They are strictly evil entities, typically with powers far beyond those of spirits. Both feed off of energy and use the energy to manifest themselves and do the things they do. Fear is a very intense emotion and produces a lot of energy, which is why spirits and demons are drawn to people who are afraid.
That's a REALLY cool idea! So basically, it would all be from the POV of the ghosts, but you wouldn't really know it? That's what I gathered...correct me if I'm wrong . But I've never read or written third person external either...I'm a bit new as a writer. So I'm not quite sure how to write it successfully. But it is a really interesting idea, I may try it!
Your demons sound a bit like Lord Loss from the Demonata in that they "feed off of people's bad energy/fear". Unlike the Dementors in Harry Potter, LL's feeding has no effect on the 'food'.
