October Round Robin: Ghosts, Spirits, and the Paranormal

Woo! It’s time for another Round Robin conversation! This month the topic is …

Do you believe in angels, spirits, ghosts, demons or other ethereal beings or locations?

Why yes … yes I do believe in angels, spirits, ghosts, demons and all that jazz. I sort of have to because it comes with the territory of being a Christian. In other words, if I believe in a God that I cannot see, it stands to reason that there are other elements at play in and around the world that I also cannot see.

What do you think when they appear in stories?

That being said, fiction does get carried away with the paranormal at times. But then, fiction has been using ghosts since before Shakespeare and certainly Shakespeare himself used the incorporeal at times to drive his story forward – Macbeth, Hamlet, etc.

I can get all technical and dive into the debate about what our superstitions surrounding ghosts and the supernatural say about us as humans – like our desire to know and understand what comes after death, or our deep-seeded need to take control of something we obviously have no control over – but when push comes to shove that’s not what I’m looking at when I see a ghost pop up in a story.

Nah. When I see a ghosts show up in a story and it’s been done right, I get the chills and shiver and absolutely love it. (Sadly, I cannot go see Crimson Peak because my son is too young for that and I’m pretty sure it would scare him the way Rose Red scared me.)

Have you used them in your own stories?

Yes! Often!

Sedition has a fallen knight sort of guiding Nelek and Trenna at different spots in the book. Saboteur doesn’t have a ghost in the traditional sense of the word, but Trenna often sees her son, who hasn’t been born yet.

Witch-Born has the boy-ghost haunting Witch-Eater Lake and … yeah, he’s still one of my favorites. He shows up again in Dead Magic, but he’s a little … changed … which was fun to write.

Residual Haunting is … if you couldn’t tell by the title … absolutely FULL of ghosts. It takes place inside the Residual Haunting Museum, which puts ghosts on display. I’ll have the finished draft of this book done before the year is out.

And, finally, Tapped has a ghost. Granted, it’s an unorthodox use of a ghost since I have it sort of stuck inside someone else, but it is there and believe me, he’s causing all sorts of trouble in the sequel; Dead Weight. (I am particularly proud of that title. It works on so many different levels for this book.)

I’ll probably continue to use ghosts because they’re one of my favorite mediums. They remind you of the fragile nature of life, add an element of insecurity to the characters on the page, and if they’re done correctly can be downright creepy.

Check out what some of my fellow authors have to say about ghosts and spooky things in fiction!

Marci Baun   http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Margaret Fieland   http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Diane Bator   http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Beverley Bateman   http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire   https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ (YOU ARE HERE)
Fiona McGier   http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Heather Haven   http://heatherhavenstories.com
Bob Rich   http://wp.me/p3Xihq-wU
Anne Stenhouse   http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Helena Fairfax   http://helenafairfax.com/
Hollie Glover   http://www.hollieglover.co.uk
Rachael Kosinski   http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Connie Vines   http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Rhobin Courtright   http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/