Ghost Story by Peter Straub
This is a copy of a writing journal from my first semester at Seton Hill University.
Peter Straub wrote Ghost Story over thirty years ago during a time when horror writing lay in a shallow grave. His story about ghouls shook up the genre. The story takes the typical paradigms of horror and turns them on their ears. He took on the pillars of horror, the vampire, the ghost, the werewolf, and the zombie and changed them into something new and interesting.
The story, itself, is structured as a frame story of sorts. It starts in the seedy side of Panama City Beach (A place I just happen to have been and imagined vividly.). The main character of the story at this point is with a little girl he has kidnapped and plans to kill.
The whole start of the story is a distraction from what is going on. Straub does not reveal much about the happenings to that point. The main character seems to be schizophrenic or sociopathic. His reasons for kidnapping the little girl and planning her death seem to be delusional or at least twisted by a disturbed mind. Straub, however, has just set his readers up and as the story unfolds, we learn that there is a logical reason for everything.
The story switches point of view often across the various protagonist, and even some minor characters. At times this becomes a bit hard to follow, distracting, and bothersome. Although it gives the story part of its richness, the shifting points of view often required flipping back to previous pages or even chapters to see who is telling the story or to re-familiarize with the character, especially when the point of view character was little more than a town person who gets mentioned a few times. In writing, I have tried to avoid the excessive use of switching point of view for this reason. It put a blemish on this otherwise excellent story, so I can only imagine what it would do to a story that was not of the same quality. I actually don’t have to do that because another reading from this semester showed me that all too well.
For the strong points of this book, Straub knows his tale and keeps a very multifaceted plot going in a good direction. Everything falls into place and follows the same course. The tangential lines of the plot fit neatly together at the end, and gives the reader a great “aha” moment. The writing toward this end was excellent. Although the shifting points of view did muddy the waters of these diverging and converging plotlines, the characterization of the protagonists and antagonist helped to keep things straight. His strong characterization is something that I tried to learn from after reading this story. Characterization is one of the areas I have difficulty with. The subtle differences between otherwise psychologically similar characters help to make the difference between characters more evident.
The thing that I take away more from this story in regards to writing is how the author turned the old horror standbys if not clichés into a new vital creature. The way the vampire, ghost, zombie, and werewolf were mixed into one creature. One of the problems with horror is that so much of our writing is dependant on the cut by numbers characters. Even the serial killer or other creature type stories have suffered from this. Mixing the unexpected qualities of stock and standard horror characters is a great way to remodel the “classic” story. At the time this was written, not many authors had tried this technique. Another issue related to the writing was the ease of reading the story. So often, writers write to the highest denominator. They try to compensate for being genre writers by aiming high with the vocabulary. It distracts from the story as it showcases $5 words. Straub kept the story easy to read. The story was not simple but was still simple to read. Being able to write a story that is as complex as this story was in a reader friendly way is the object of all writers.
Writing a good story can depend on many things. Ghost Story is a good story, a good scary story. The use of villain melding and reader friendly writing shows a wonderful way for writers, starting out or not, to pen a good story to. Even the title adds so much to how to write. Sometimes the best title is the short and sweet one that sums everything up. Ghost Story, what a great title for this story. It takes into account not only the ghostly characters but the society that tells ghost stories. It also simplifies the story and gives the reader something she may not expect. It is not a straight spook tale. It was more complex. In writing, a title should be able to do that. I am a writer who believes in a good title. There are many authors who do not put much thought or consideration into a title. The same is true of editors who title stories as well. So much can get lost from a poor story title. Straub or his editor, whoever titled it, did a good job.
So what can be taken away from this story that I can use in the story. One is the simplicity of the writing of the complicated story. The writing was not simple but was so reader friendly it makes someone jealous of another’s talent. I have striven to work on this in my writing. The bending of the characters is not something that can be done well in my thesis, but I do plan on looking at using this in future writings. Finally is the title. I love a good tricky title. I try my hardest to work on making good titles and I am often disappointed by a title more than any other part of writing.
The best thing that I can take away from this story is not anything that is written in the text by Straub. I read an edition of this book that had a forward by Stephen King. In this forward, King tells the story of Straub and Ghost Story. It seems that this book was not the first one Straub wrote or published. It did end up being his first success. This is a great thing to think about while writing. Not everyone’s first published book is a runaway success nor is the second or beyond. Writers can still publish and not have blockbusters. Although this cannot be incorporated into writing, it can be the platform that writing is done from.
There were many things that I have taken from Ghost Story to use in my own writing. The simplicity of writing a complex story is the one I most hope to use and get better at. Also the strong sense of characterization is another area that the book has shown me how to improve on.
