The ingredients of a ghost story

Opening Activity

1. Divide the class into groups.

2. Give each group a copy of the following lines, introducing them as indicated:

A man is telling two companions at a seaside hotel how he has managed to make a fascinating archaeological discovery. He has unearthed an Anglo-Saxon crown.

3. Ask each group to work out what the rest of the man's speech could be. Ask them to keep it secret and write it out in capital letters underneath.

4. Collect in the various slips, and add one containing the correct solution, which you have written out previously:

5. Now, read out each of the solutions including the correct one. It is important to give each one equal emphasis.

6. Ask each group to vote for the one that seems to be most genuine. Any group that has their version selected by another group gets a point. Any group that selects the true version also gets a point.

7. Ask students to explain their choice. This should be an opportunity to unpack the diction and grammar of the supplied quotation, and the expectations it raises.

• Some groups may not have spotted the need to continue with direct speech and this might be an opportunity to reinforce the purpose of this punctuation.
• The adjective "rueful" is crucial and it may be necessary to define the word when setting up the exercise.
• The interest and concerns of the characters suggests they may well be educated - something that is reinforced by the formality of the modifying phrase "and the worst of it is"'.
• The fact that the speaker, Mr Paxton, refers to the crown using the pronoun "it" might be suggestive.
• It is also interesting to see how the author seeks to contrast the enthusiasm of the listeners with the speaker's anti-climactic response - a response that then goes on to raise all sorts of further expectations of the ensuing story.

Activity 2 - ingredients of a ghost story 1

1. Ask students in groups to discuss what they think the key ingredients of a ghost story should be.

2. Each group should feedback their ideas, which can then be listed on a whiteboard. Students should also be encouraged to take notes.

The following questions may help stimulate discussion:

• When should the ghost story occur?
• Where should it be set?
• Who should be haunted?
• What prompts the haunting?
• What should the ghost be like?

Activity 3 - ingredients of a ghost story 2

In the mid-19th century there was an explosion of ghost story writing - brought about mainly by the removal of a tax on newspapers and magazines. The increase in the number of periodicals encouraged the publication of increasingly sensational stories - including tales of spooks and mystery. In an essay entitled 'A Christmas Tree' published in Household Words - the magazine he formed and edited from 1856, Charles Dickens mocked the lack of originality in these melodramatic and clich--ridden tales. In 1924, M R James applauded Dickens' analysis in an introduction to a collection of stories called Ghosts and Marvels.

1. Divide the class into small groups.

2. Give each group the handout, which contains some of the main ingredients of ghost stories that Dickens identified, and ask them to grade how scary they might find each ingredient by listing them 1-11 in the middle column - with '1' being the least scary and '11' the scariest.

3. Groups should feedback to the whole class. Ask them to explain why each of the elements is more, or less, scary. Discuss whether any patterns emerge.

While many of the ingredients are old-fashioned and seem idiotic, there are some that MR James has included in his tales and which continue to crop up in suspenseful fiction.

One of the biggest problems students may come across in this activity, is the difficulty of empathising with the protagonist, his circumstances and his responses. This is particularly damaging in a ghostly tale, which needs to encourage us to identify strongly with the principal characters, in order for us to believe, as James himself puts it in the preface to his second collection of tales More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, that 'if I'm not careful, something of this kind might happen to me!'. It is over 130 years since Dickens wrote The Signalman, and nearly a century since M R James wrote his greatest tales, and some of the elements they include are far removed from modern readers' immediate experience. That said, these notes explore why both stories by Dickens and James still pack a spooky punch. In addition, the film versions of these stories include interesting departures from the original, designed to increase our empathy with those that find themselves haunted.

Another consideration is that, for a tale to be truly alarming, there needs to be enough mystery at the end for the reader to be left with unanswered questions. James felt that such stories should have 'a tiny chink of rational explanation', but certainly not large enough to save readers entirely from disquieting feelings. The kind of pat solutions offered in a long piece of exposition by the nobleman's host in the Dickens pastiche above is partly what he had in mind.; James also believed ghost stories should avoid 'the technical terms of occultism' because the 'quasi-scientific' element they introduce, unless handled carefully, detracts from the potency of the ghost to scare.Beds, corridors, and lonely narrators in isolated, unfamiliar circumstances are all common features of both the James and Dickens tales and are also exploited to the full by the film versions of these three stories. The continuing value of such ingredients to the writer or filmmaker concerned with suspenseful subjects derives from the way they are handled. Dickens' pastiche is an example of what not to do if you want to terrify your audience.