Stick to your theme

By Bill Kirton

Not long ago, I wrote and recorded yet another story for Richard Wood’s excellent Word Count Podcast. One of the things I like about it is that Richard sets a theme and, since I tend to be reactive in most things, I like the challenge of responding to something I might never have thought of. Anyone can send in a story, poem, song (although it’s mostly stories) and if it’s good enough it’ll be included. The intention is to support the short story form as well as authors by giving them another way to attract new readers.

The reason I mention it now, though, is because of the process I went through with this story. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of writing a ghost story. Part of Richard’s prompt is a photo taken by Matthew Munson (that’s it above), and it struck me immediately that it had a sort of scary setting. The trouble is I’m not really a fan of ghost stories, nor am I a believer in the supernatural, so the idea of having some apparition wander down the dark street, however atmospheric the lighting, dressed in Elizabethan gear and vaguely wailing, didn’t attract me.

So the first half (maybe more) of what I wrote has nothing remotely ghostly about it. It’s only when the narrator walks under the arch that the supernatural (if that’s what it is), creeps in. But I only decided on the nature of that supernatural (so to speak), as I was reading a piece about the film Gravity in which Alfonso Cuarón, the director, said ‘Before the story, you start with the theme’. Their theme was ‘adversity’ so they started thinking about survival scenarios and there was no mention of a space setting.

So, going from his sublime (it’s a great film), to my ridiculous… I’d already written the first half, I knew the narrator had to go through the arch and I knew the sort of experience I had in mind for him when he did. But I wasn’t sure how to make the ‘reality’ of it acceptable – not necessarily to the reader, but to me. I had no idea what to write. So I tried applying Cuarón’s technique, decided what the story’s theme (or perhaps main image), would be and gradually teased out how it might work. I then rewrote the first half and that made the second half much easier. I think it works, although, of course, listeners might well – and probably will – disagree, but I think the important point to make is that, whatever genre you’re using, stick with a consistent theme so that, however far from ‘reality’ it may be, its internal coherence is consistent.

It just showed me yet again that, however much we’ve written before, we’re still always learning how to write.

Ghosts From My Past

By Jackie King

I was about four when my older cousins started scaring the crap out of me with ghost stories. These were told in the bright sunshine, but at night I had to creep up creaking stairs to get to my bedroom at Grandma’s house. These monsters lurked along the way to terrify me. I can still remember the dread and the sick empty feeling in my belly.

The Good Old Days
Grandchildren weren’t pampered in those days, at least not by my grandma. She married at 14 so I doubt she ever had a childhood, at least not as we think of it these days. I realize now that she wasn’t a cruel woman, just one who had endured hardships, and in her declining years had received me on her doorstep while my mother trained to be a teacher. She did the best she could.

The Million Mile Stairs
There was no electricity to illuminate the steep stairs, so I was given a lighted candle and told to blow it out after I was in bed.
 

But what waited at the top?
 

Was it the murdered man looking for his golden arm? Would he chop off my head with his ax when he learned I didn’t have it, as he had with two dozen other children?
 

And the candle was sputtering.
 

Terrified of having no light, I’d put one foot in front of the other, knowing that I had no other choice. And finally I’d reach the landing. The soft glow of the candle lighted only a small circle, and each step into the blackness seemed almost certain death.
 

Finally, I reached my bed, set the candle on an orange-crate used for a bedside table and climbed in. It was summertime and hot, but I still pulled the dusty smelling bedspread over me. After a quick puff to blow out the candle the room was black as a witch’s hat. The counterpane (as Grandma called it) was the only protection between me and the evil ghost. I’d lie stiff as a board until I finally fell asleep.
 

The next morning when my cousins came to visit, I’d beg them for another ghost story.

My one and only ghost story set in 1889 Oklahoma Territory

What Do You Write or Read Besides Mystery?

June Shaw

If you normally write and/or read mysteries, do you ever read or write in other areas? If so, what would that be?

I've been lucky enough to sell a series with three humorous mysteries. Currently, I'm trying something else. I'm writing a picture book with my granddaughter.

A few months ago eight-year-old Claire (who's adorable) asked if I'd hurry and finish my third mystery so I could get back to writing the book with her. I had gotten the idea for this book and asked her for suggestions. Then I purchased two books about writing for children. I read a number of articles about it, too, and borrowed a lot of Claire's books so I'd feel more competent to write a book (or two or more) with her.

Now it's almost ready! And I do hope you'll be looking for it soon for your own children or grandchildren or just because you love the idea.

HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR PET GHOST by June Shaw & Claire Naquin should be out soon.

Claire is so excited. So am I. We're making a list of people who'll want to buy a copy once it comes out. Anybody want your name added? : )

And no, I won't stop writing and reading mysteries.

Hauntings at The Hermitage

The Hermitage

By Chester Campbell

I got a different slant on Halloween Saturday night when my wife, Sarah, and I took our grandson to the 8th Annual Hauntings at The Hermitage. If you aren’t familiar with The Hermitage, it’s the restored 1,000-acre plantation home of Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh President. It was my first visit there in over forty years, and the place had really changed.

You arrive at an attractive, modern Visitor Center complete with Museum Store, Auditorium and Garden Gate Café. After paying for admission, you walk through the grounds to the Mansion, originally built between 1821 and 1831 and enlarged to its present size in 1834. Jackson bought the property in 1804 for $3,400 and lived in a two-story log cabin with his wife, Rachel, until building the Mansion. He was living in the cabin when he became the hero of the Battle of New Orleans.

After General Jackson’s death in 1845, following two terms as President, his adopted son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., took over. Junior sold the core 500 acres to the State of Tennessee in 1855. In 1889, the state turned over the Mansion and 25 acres to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association, a group modeled after the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union that bought George Washington’s estate. Over the years, the state or LHA acquired the remainder of the original plantation where Jackson grew cotton and other crops and ran various businesse enterprises.

Plopped down in the midst of a suburban residential community only twenty minutes from downtown Nashville, this is a large project. It has similarities to the Presidential Libraries and Museums dedicated to those since Herbert Hoover, but The Hermitage has no library, only a small number of documents. Jackson’s papers are at the National Archives, the Library of Congress and various university and private collections. The Papers of Andrew Jackson project at the University of Tennessee has cataloged them over the past several years and is compiling them in printed volumes.

End of history lesson. Just thought that would help set the stage.

It was getting dark when we started our Hauntings venture. There was no moon. The pathway winding through trees and lawns was lighted by lanterns placed every 100 feet or so. Somewhere back on the propery a canon fired now and then. The first thing we encountered was a group of Confederate soldiers gathered around their tents. (Historical note: the Civil War was ten years after Jackson's death, and no battles were fought around The Hermitage.) Our grandson, Justin, wore a ghoulish costume. They commented on how fierce he looked.

“We’d better let him pass,” said the sergeant.

When we strolled by a large shrub, a character who looked like he’d been spray-painted silver jumped out and screamed. We glanced back as we walked on and he stood stiff as a statue, awaiting his next victim.

We toured the mansion, where period-dressed women described how each room was used. We saw bedrooms with elaborate canopied beds, General Jackson’s office, dining rooms, sitting rooms, etc. A bluegrass ensemble played lively music next to the back porch.

After that, we headed down another lighted path to a barn where we boarded a haywagon pulled by a tractor. Sitting on bales of straw, we rode through the dark along a narrow road that wound around the farm. Every few hundred feet, ghosts and goblins jumped up from the roadside screaming like banshees.

As we passed one of them, Justin shouted, “You didn’t scare me.”

To which came the ghoulish reply, “Yes I did.”

We rode under the overhanging roof of a hay barn, where lights flashed and the demons were particularly noisy. Along the way we saw other figures beside the road that didn’t move, so we decided they were dummies.

Afterward, there were ghost stories in a candlelit cabin, pumpkin decorating in another area, and palm reading in the fortune telling tent. I skipped the latter, figuring my palms were too worn to have anything of value left to read. They should have bought one of my mystery books. Now that would have been worth reading.

Sending Justin off with a friend to do two more hayrides and visit the cemetery, Sarah and I retreated to the café for pie and coffee. The temperature had dropped considerably outside. We heard that General Jackson normally appeared along the haunting tour, but the impersonator who played the part wasn’t available that night. Too bad. I read that in his early days, the future President had a propensity for pulling pranks, cursing, and fighting. Might have made for a livelier evening.