I can’t remember which writer said it, but the gist is: ‘I write by inspiration, and inspiration comes at exactly 9 A.M. each morning’. I scowl when I think of this. I wish I could spew out great stories like that, but the truth is I do a lot of staring off into space with plenty of  thoughtful snacking. 

            I’m also subject to sudden onset similes and metaphors, so it occurs to me that my writing process resembles making stew: I toss in some great ideas, if I have them, and let them bubble away in the Instapot. In this particular simile, I think that my head is the Instapot, which is a sort of pressure cooker appliance that doubles as a slow cooker. Come to think of it, the slow cooker feature is a better image, given that my mind is at issue here.

            So I’ve got the main ideas cooking, and then I keep adding and stirring. You need a lot of ‘stuff’ in there for a fifty to seventy thousand word novel. 

            I have a cigar store scene in my current Requiem story and I’ve been looking up all sorts of fragrant details to bring it to life. This doesn’t come naturally because I’ve never used tobacco, and I’m not in the market for new vices at this time in my life. It’s not a culture in which I am at home. I vaguely recall the smell of my father’s pipe; Erinmore Flake, I think it was called, because pipe smoking was an RAF thing back then, but guys like Arnold Schwartzenegger grinning around a huge Cuban cigar and nursing a glass of bourbon are alien to me. So I read up on the subject.

            There’s a great scene in the Willam Hurt movie ‘Smoke’ which takes place in a cigar shop. (When I was a kid we used to call them ‘tobacconists’.) Hurt tells Harvey Keitel an anecdote about Sir Walter Raleigh weighing the smoke in a cigar. What you do is weigh the cigar, smoke it, tapping the ash onto the scale, and work out the difference in weight between the cigar and the ash. That’s the weight of the smoke.

            This brings me to an ingredients list for a typical ghost story. The Metaphysical Poets of the 17th Century called this sort of digression, ‘yoking by violence.’ Anyway, here are some common, off the shelf, ingredients for a traditional ghost story. Even though I’m conscious of working in a long established tradition, my stories aren’t typical of the genre, but having said that, I admit to using a couple of these ingredients. 

Stairs

The famous ghost in Borley Rectory was a lady in white who drifted down a staircase. Stairs are a nice device; they ensure that the ghost is elevated in a dramatic way. A good example is Tobe Hooper’s movie Poltergeist, in which a whole lot of ghosts elegantly descend the stairs in a sort of carnival light show, while the family gapes in awe. 

            In the movie ‘The Uninvited’ Ray Milland actually confronts a phantom lady by ascending the staircase with a candelabra, driving her back upstairs and ultimately vanquishing her. This is a nice inversion of expectations, since the ghost on the stairs is normally poised to descend on us.

            In the story I’m working on, Requiem for Parish, there is a staircase, and a lovely girl, but she appears to be coming up from the basement, and she triggers the motion sensor lights in a most unghostly way. I hope you get a chance to meet her, but watch out—she has issues.

Floors

You wouldn’t think floors were a useful stage prop, but I remember there was a time when so-called ‘ghost photographs’ were common. It’s a flimsy device, since photos are so easy to fake. Nevertheless, a couple of girls fooled Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with a few clever snapshots—and he was Sherlock Holmes, for gosh sake! 

            Hanz Holzer was famous for his ghost photographs, and I remember one in which some monks were apparently sunk into the floor of a monastery. It seems the original floor of the monastery was a couple of feet lower than the present one. That’s a nice idea, but frankly I wouldn’t be impressed by a ghost who only came up to my navel.

Doors

Doors, or portals as we like to call them, are a very powerful device. My favorite scene in the movie, The Haunting, by Robert Wise involves a ghostly presence pressing against the far side of a door while the houseguests stare on in horror, presumably wetting their drawers. I know I would have. The door bulges and creaks as though it was made of stiff rubber. Which it probably was.

Ceilings

My memory is fuzzy on this: I think it was one of the later Exorcist movies, but the scene made an impression on me. The apparition crept along the ceiling like a crazed bat, which sets off all kinds of evolutionary alarms in people. Ghosts that loom above us are powerful because they make us feel all the more vulnerable.

Windows 

Windows are an obvious device. I made extensive use of a window in Requiem for Thursday. I didn’t exactly have a ghost in the scene, but it was his window.

            In another type of story, perhaps we might glance outside and see the ghost peering in from the dark. 

            I’m always amused by my spell-checker, which thought I meant ‘peeing in from the dark’. It’s an interesting image that I would never have thought of on my own. I’m beginning to suspect that my spell-checker, or perhaps my whole computer, is haunted by a sprit with a sense of humour.