Whether you
tell a known ghost story, adapt one to your needs or
create a completely original story, it
should be believable and
able to hold the interest of its listeners.
Tell important
aspects of the story in enough detail so that they
can visualize the events taking place, but not so much as to
slow down the flow of the story.
Ghost
stories are usually told as a though is were a
historical event or sometimes as something that is
currently taking place. Provide a basic setting that
includes the time period of the event, the location
where it happened, any fabricated historical facts.
Do a
little research and find stories that are fairly short
and believable.
There are
plenty of real or at least possibly real "scary" stories
and urban legends out there that you can use. Some would
be the "Haunted Railroad Tracks" in San Antonio, Texas,
or the "Mothman" of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, or
the "Chupacabra" along the American-Mexican boarder and
local "Big Foot", sightings, which are always good for a
scare. The
Halloween Ghost Stories
website has a great collection of ghost stories!
If the
story that center around a place it should contain vivid
details so that listeners can visualize it in their
minds and possibly relate to a place they've been to or
know about. Stories that revolve around a person or
group of people should have characters that are
believable. Make the characters real by giving some
information about them. Don't do this all at once, but
over the course of the story.
Adapt the stories as needed, but most
importantly, learn the story by heart. If you sound like you
yourself believe the story to be true, everyone else will.
If you sound like you are making it up as you go along,
no one will believe you.
If a story is
to long or doesn't get to a scary fairly soon, your
listeners will get restless and then bored.
Remember,
a scary story doesn't have to be gruesome to
frighten people. While many of these stories are bloody and
horrific, others are simply creepy and shocking. If one or more
people become very scared, tone down the story. If young children are present, keep the
stories more on the light hearted side and not too scary.
Needless to say, you shouldn't tell extremely scary stories to young children.
A fun game, particularly at a
Halloween party where there is a group of
people, is for each person to take three minutes to tell part
of a story, and then the next person has three minutes to
add on to it, and so on.
Whether its
on Halloween night
or simply sitting around the campfire, telling ghost stories is an age-old tradition. The
idea of course is to tell a story that frightens the listeners in a fun,
frightening and entertaining way.