I have a protagonist who pretends to hunt ghosts, but is actually a fraud. He goes to purportedly haunted places, makes a show of searching around (EMF meter and all) and then assures his clients that the spirit(s) is/are gone. He believes that ghosts don't exist and supposes that he is actually hunting the "ghosts" inside people's minds. That's how he justifies what he is doing. Does all that sound plausible? If not, possible alterations? And why would the people he duped not contact him after he's left? Any concrete reason you can fabricate? If it's important: in the story, he would come across a real ghost. Thanks.
All seems reasonably plausible to me. As to how he stops people contacting him. - well obviously some people won't because they believe he's solved the problem if it was all in the mind. Sometimes he may have found a true cause of some mysterious bangs and fixed them. Some people may guess they've been duped, but if he gets his business by for example an advert in local newspapers with a contact e-mail address, it might be hard to track down where he actually lives. They might try contacting him by the e-mail, but he doesn't need to respond to persistent complainers. He can change business name, e-mail address, even the town he's operating in if he starts to get a bad name. All are fairly common practice for dodgy business practitioners. You can of course consider the option of a subplot where a disgruntled customer does manage to track him down if you want to give your protagonist some more complications and conflict.
To me, this doesn't seem plausible for someone to just decide hunting ghosts that he knows aren't there but can justify charging people for the services. However, I could believe MC started doing this by accident. For example, he created a fictitious blog about hunting ghosts. all meant in good fun. But someone contacted him via his blog and offered a substantial amount of money to hunt ghosts for him/her. He thinks he should tell the person that the blog was a fake but the sum of money was too large to turn down. During this first job he realized that the ghosts were inside their minds. After the first client, he retooled the blog and got another client requested his services. He came to the same conclusion with the second client. No actual ghosts, but he is providing a meaningful service.
One thing you can do is to type into google phrases such as "Hire an exorcist" to find examples of the real life people who do this sort of thing
Your premise sounds perfectly plausible, most people involved in ghost hunting, speaking with the dead etc, are just conmen who know they are conning people. But they do it 'nicely' and if they don't charge too much and give people a peace of mind, then the backlash isn't usually a problem. In my experience, such fraudsters are successful because people want to believe. The story sounds interesting, I want to know what happens next. Good luck writing it.
I wouldn't try to make him justify charging people for fake ghost hunts at all. Maybe someone who hunts ghosts for real could find out about his fraud and call him out on it. He could use the line of hunting ghosts inside people's minds as justification to get the real ghost hunter off his back, but I don't see the MC actually believing it. If he's a fraud, let him be a fraud.
Folks, thanks so much for replying. And sorry for not thanking you good souls earlier. Been a bit busy of late. A lot of useful advice there. plothog, kind of relieved find someone who finds it plausible too. I was just worried that it would look too ridiculous. pappy, I actually do have for a decent reason for him to begin hunting paranormal stuff. jazzabel, So happy you found the story interesting. The compliment means a lot to me. jaebird, I was also thinking if I could drop the justification thing...
