Talk:Ghost story

Large edits
As explanation for the large edits I just made - many assertions here relied on weasel words, and also many ghost stories and authors are not notable enough to deserve a spot in the Introduction section, See Also section, etc. If we mention them there, then too many ghost stories and authors will be allowed to slip in. Before a revert, please ask me for an explanation, as this draft is still not so great, but it is a step in the right direction. Or just be bold and go to work. Mojei (talk) 23:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Nothing's changed in a while, and everything's got a reference assigned to it now. I think I can safely take away the "citations needed" flag. Mojei (talk) 01:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Is the Types stuff from Jack Sullivan?
I'm putting this snippet here because I think the uncited stuff in the Types section is from that Jack Sullivan source at the bottom. Notice all the references to Fanu. Mojei (talk) 23:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There is an extensive critical analysis of the work of several English ghost story writers in Jack Sullivan's 1978 book Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to Blackwood.


 * Looks like it . I put it in as the reference. The other citations needed might come from it, but it's hard to be sure without reading it, so I'll leave those. Mojei (talk) 23:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the merits of Sullivan's book or whether it is being cited here correctly, but to place Le Fanu as a "traditional" writer and not as a "psychological" writer is absurd; the story cited in the article, "Green Tea," exactly fits the "psychological" story's definition. The "ghost" does virtually nothing while the protagonist's mental decay is recorded in detail by a proto-psychologist--typical for Le Fanu's work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.229.114 (talk) 23:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

WorldCat Genres
Maximilianklein (talk) 23:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

An addition to the Ghost story article
It is worth adding that one of today's best-known ghost story writers is Jonathan Aycliffe, a British author who has written nine full-length novels in the genre. His books include Naomi's Room, which has been optioned for a film in Hollywood, the Matrix, which has been broadcast twice on BBC Radio, and the forthcoming The Silence of Ghosts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Denis MacEoin (talk • contribs) 23:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Expanding to include other works
As it's currently written, the article seems to only talk about written works. Keeping with the same sort of structure as Spy fiction, I'm going to add sections for film and television. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 05:46, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Integrate Around the World section into History section?
Should specific works be separated by culture/country, or would this be better placed chronologically in the history section? -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 05:56, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Campfire stories
Campfire stories often involve ghost stories, using either the colloquial 'any scary story' definition or more specifically involving ghosts. Here's one ref (there's probably more out there but most search results are actual stories), but I'm not sure where to put this info – maybe a new ==In culture== section is needed, or can it fit into one of the existing sections? - Evad37 &#91;talk] 06:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * , is currently in an ==Oral storytelling== section. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 11:42, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Article scope and title
I am wondering if this page should be moved to Ghosts in fiction or something similar, with "ghost story" being one of the bolded alternative titles in the lede. The article currently puts a lot of weight to novels and stories, but ghost stories are certainly not limited to written works. I suspect a broader title might encourage expansion on these other types of ghost stories, at the possible expense of lower quality additions. I would suspect (without certainty) that the vast majority of ghost stories produced today are in film and television. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 19:55, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion as an example
As I read through the list of works featuring ghosts, I wonder what kind of criteria we should use to determine what examples to use or delete. Any ideas? -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 03:36, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I would suggest sticking to examples which have had the most notable influence on the genre as opposed to simple one off's, regardless of popularity. And thereto, influential examples should be able to connect the various sections together to improve the flow of the overall article. David Condrey (talk) 22:15, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Examples??
Ping, since you both were one of the major contributors. I saw someone placed example farm in the article. I'm not able to find any guidelines on when examples become "excessive". Any idea??  Jim Car ter  10:44, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I remember that that part was copied here from the article Ghost. That's probably why it reads more like a 'farm' of examples. I read the template differently: It doesn't say that there are too many examples, but that there isn't enough theoretical background that ties the examples together to a well-flowing text on ghost stories. --Melody Lavender (talk) 12:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with Melody, we should stitch them together so they form a coherent overview of the literature. The list is mostly copied from Ghost, and aside from being long and disjointed, I also find it to be mostly about Western literature. For example, Japanese ghost stories has it's own article, along with the various "Ghosts in CultureX" articles in the By Culture section of the Ghost template. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 13:00, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually looking at it more closely, the structure is focused on (western European) time periods rather than literary eras. The rise and creation of new genres/subgenres would allow for the easier exploration of the topic, rather than just a bare list of examples that appeared between this date and that date. In this light, I have created subsections for Gothic fiction, and Kaidan, and we should focus on our expansion in this manner. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 13:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. Currently it's mostly a description of how the appearance of the ghost changes from chains and armor to white sheet ghost. --Melody Lavender (talk) 14:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Possible sources
Starting a collection of sources:--Melody Lavender (talk) 14:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

by Maria Purves in an online journal for the psychological study of the arts Jill Galvan, From: Victorian Studies, Volume 56, Number 2, Winter 2014, pp. 325-327 | 10.1353/vic.2014.0023 Published: 1927, Author: H. P. Lovecraft CHILDREN’S LITERATURE By Anastasia Maria Ulanowicz, B.A. in English and History, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, 1997, M.A. in English, University of Pittsburgh, 2000 to Sidereal Spectres: Contexts for Reading Ghosts in Harry Potter
 * http://www.psyartjournal.com/article/show/purves-a_warning_to_the_curious_the_nicely_mana A Warning to the Curious' The 'Nicely Managed' Mind of M. R. James
 * http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/victorian_studies/v056/56.2.galvan.html A History of the Modern British Ghost Story by Simon Hay, and: Literary Ghosts from the Victorians to Modernism: The Haunting Interval by Luke Thurston (review),
 * http://netpanel.netstant.com/user_files/pack_lite_ebooks_gallery_attach132.pdf Supernatural Horror in Literature,
 * http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/9829/1/aulanowicz.pdf GHOST IMAGES: REPRESENTATIONS OF SECOND-GENERATION MEMORY IN CONTEMPORARY
 * http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1252&context=srhonors_theses Evolution of Effect: The Numinous in Gothic and Post-Gothic Ghost Experience Literature Ryan P. Kennedy, Thesis, April 2012 Storrs, Connecticut
 * http://accio.zymurgy.org/proc/AccioProceedings/johnnewton.pdf From Folkloric Phantoms

Literature Template
I have created a section on the talk page of to discuss the possible inclusion of this article on that template. CSJJ104 (talk) 20:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

"Professional parapsychologists and “ghosts hunters”" -shouldn't be here?
This article is about ghost stories that are works of fiction. Works by spiritualists, parapsycholgists, and other people that argue ghosts are real phenomena shouldn't be included. Also, writers such as Chris Baldick (in the Oxford Book of Gothic Tales) have argued that Gothic fiction is explicitly different from the ghost story, so this should be pointed out in the article. 176.61.97.121 (talk) 11:23, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

There are other problems with this entry-there are three unrelated mentions of M. R. James which could be placed in a single section, and James' ideas about the ghost story are the only ones discussed in detail (don't get me wrong, James was a superb GS writer, but other GS writers, such as Algernon Blackwood, have had different ideas about GS writing to James).

Also, the chronology of this article is all over the place. M. R. James, who wrote GS after Charles Dickens, yet is discussed before Dickens, and the "Modern era (1920 to present)" section begins with 19th century writers such as F. Marion Crawford and Edith Wharton. 176.61.97.121 (talk) 15:52, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

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