What makes a Ghost?

[ElliotWyndwryght]

What do you guys think makes a good ghost? Forever bleeding wounds? The tragic back stories? Their other worldliness? Their ability to walk through walls?

I was raised a strict conservative Baptist, ghosts were evil, as was dancing and loud music. I'm getting over that, but never having read fiction with ghosts in it (besides Harry Potter) I'm not sure what makes a good ghost. What do you think?

Other questions: Do you think there's a way for a ghost to 'die' or 'live' maybe? What makes a person become a ghost instead of just dying? Can a ghost do things besides looking creepy and making scary noises?

Any ideas are appreciated.

 

[Chilari]

I think traditionally, ghosts are believed to become ghosts rather than passing over to the other side properly because of some trauma or tragedy in their deaths - execution by beheading being a popular one. The ancient Greeks believed that the ghosts of those who died in battle, or very young, would haunt their graves and if a written curse was buried in their graves they would be compelled to carry it out.

I guess it depends what you want from your ghost.

 

[Ireth]

I have a ghost in one of my WIPs. She's the spirit of a young woman who was murdered by a vampire; she's utterly traumatized by her murder, and on top of that, after 145 years of being alone in the castle she used to actually live in, she's gone completely insane. She'll be interesting to have my vampire protagonist react to.

 

[Endymion]

I like the "even after her death, she still waits for him to come back" back story. I also like the ghost that scares the waffles out of everybody.
A way for a ghost to die? He is finally allowed to enter Heaven or hell
( allowed to enter hell? There might be some persons that would rather go to hell but were to good for the devil?).
In some places the roosters shout kills the ghosts.

 

[Saigonnus]

I think of them as restless spirits, ones that left this life with unfinished business, or were killed in a particularly brutal fashion before their time. They can't rest until whatever happened to them is made right. They typically haunt places they knew in life, but mostly wherever they killed. They can manipulate objects; open doors/drawers/cabinets, make things float, whisper things in the wind, snuff candles and make a room cold... also animals like cats and dogs can actually detect their presence and will bark or meow at them. (A friend of mine lived in a house that was rumored to be haunted and the dog would always stare at the stairs and bark at nothing when he'd never done that before). I think these are all fairly common "manifestations" of ghosts though.

 

[Sheilawisz]

I love ghosts and ghost stories of all kinds- In my opinion, ghosts stay in Earth instead of "moving on" to somewhere else for several reasons that could be useful in a Fantasy story:

1- They left unfinished goals or businesses in their lives.
2- Sometimes, they died in some terrifying, painful or unfair way, usually before their time.
3- Some ghosts even enjoy being ghosts.

4- It can also happen that they are afraid of "moving on", because of fear of punishment and horror stories about burning forever and things like that.

My theory is that ghosts exist in a state of consciousness similar to a dreams world, or more exactly, a lucid dream =)

 

[Robert Donnell]

In Harry Potter you have a body, a seperate soul which can be split and a horrific death can create a shadow of you, a ghost which has nothing to do with your body or soul.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

One thing I liked about the Harry Potter ghosts was that they all were prisoners of their personalities. Moaning Myrtle was sad in life, but became endlessly sad, forever, and nothing could ever change that. It was permanent. She was still able to help out the heroes once in a while (mostly by passing on information), which was handy.

I've never been a big fan of ghosts in fiction, but when I do like them, it tends to be because they represent a sort of sentient manifestation of a structure; ghosts being cursed to haunt a particular place, but serving some function or purpose there. Not necessarily negative; I don't really like ghosts as strict antagonists.

 

[Chime85]

With ghosts in literature, you have a great chance to define them however you see fit. Of course, we know ghosts to be disembodied replicas of a once living person, often attached with a grim story (moaning Mertle being a great example). However, ghosts don't need to be limited to just that.

Ghosts could also be an intelligent haunting of emotions. No body or voice, but will give particular people certain feelings in particular places. This could be closely described as possetion, but it goes away when a character does something or leaves an area.

Another idea could be an echo through time. Yes they could be spirits of people long departed, but they may not be aware of current events around them. The reason for this, they are not intelligent spirits, but infact a glimpse to the past in the same loacation. An example of this could be an old abadoned mine, suddenly fog like figures appear to be digging. These are not lost souls, but a simple repitition of actual events.

You also have the chance to spice things up by adding a combination of the above. To give yet another example; Abandoned mine with shapes of miners digging as they were. They are not aware of present day changes but are actually spirits doomed to repeat their lives.

Although a clear and precice explanation is helpful for the writer, the reader may appreciate some mystery and room reach their own conclusions on the subject of ghosts.

x

 

[SeverinR]

Different types of Ghosts I have read or heard of:
1. the dead person that doesn't know they are dead. Killed quickly so they didn't have time to realize.
2. The ghost with a purpose, to avenge their death, to complete some task, etc.
3. The tormented soul, can't rest until someone releases them.
4. The living ghost, a person dreaming or in a coma, their spirit leaves their body to roam distant lands, returning when the person awakes.
5. The reverse, the MC is the ghost and discovers this when the person that was thought to be the ghost finally sees the MC, in some horrific fashion. ("The others")
6. The summoned spirit: Magic drags a spirit back to the real world to serve the mage. Probably a stepping stone before summoning a devil or demon to serve.

Forgot the most important:
7. The writer that doesn't want to be known. (Ghost writer)

 

[Robert Donnell]

Some Writers say a ghost is a soul that has not crossed over yet.

 

[Queshire]

Hmmm.... I've had different types of ghosts in different settings that I've thought up.

In the setting where most of my examples come from, ghosts are basically scratched souls. In this setting, your soul is a spiritual organ which records your entire being throughout your life. It serves as an emergency reserve of power and strengthens your defense against magic designed to change your very being such as mind control or transmutation. Once you die the soul gets drawn to a river of souls where it'll eventually dissolve naturally or get harnessed as a power source by one of the various underworlds built along the banks of the river.

Ghosts are damaged souls. They either play out a fragement of their memories over and over again, or continue existing and affecting the world in ghostly form, however since they don't have a mortal form to continue adding to the soul, they have to rewrite their new memories over their old ones.

The other type of ghost I've thought of is the ghost of a young girl possessing the kitchen knife that killed her. She's pretty cheerful for a ghost. In that particular setting, ghosts are just like everybody else, though they don't consider themselves to be dead, merely corpally challenged

 

[JCFarnham]

There are two distinct versions of spirit beings in my Faebound setting:

1) for the first type (ghosts) I have taken the electromagnetic imprint route, strong emotions burned into the fabric of reality and forced to replay the last moments or strongest memory. They can't effect reality in a real sense, its like watching a tv show, only they can effect surroundings in the sense of making the area more compatible with their "play".

2) the second are spirits. They are true intelligent beings unlike ghosts. There are a number of competing theories surrounding the creation of spirits; extra powerful death emotion. magical power keeping the deceased essence from passing on. A third theory even states they are beings from the Otherside, and only appear as ghostly presences because of the limits of "crossing over".

Those are the umbrella terms with all other types you can think of from mythology and folklore fitting depending on the above criteria. Poltergiests for example are "spirits" because of their malicious effect on our world. Whereas the "Grey lady"-type wandering spirit is a harmless "ghost".

Those definitions work for me and my story, and I think that's what you need to figure out. Make them work for you rather than taking anything wholesale.