IWSG: Three Favourite Ghost Stories; Using Grammarly

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop. In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. 

I wish I could get started on a better note with this blog hop, this being the month of one of my favourite holidays--Halloween. In fact, I was going to answer the IWSG optional question of the month (see below) with not just one favourite ghost story but a list of thirteen of them that includes both film and prose. However, someone who I'm very close to has been very sick and so not only do I not have the time to make that long of a list but, even more so, I am just not in the mood. So, I’m going to have to keep it to three. Maybe I'll come out with a longer list as it gets closer to Halloween. The problem I mentioned above has also put me behind in my writing projects although I've still kept at them the best I can and the grammar checking programme, Grammerly, has helped 

3 of My Favourite Ghost Stories

For now, let’s start with the optional question of the month: 

Ghost stories fit right in during this month [of October]. What's your favorite classic ghostly tale? Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine. As you may have guessed, I don't have a favourite. I’m a horror writer and so have been a longtime fan of ghost stories and other types of horror. However, here are three of my favourites: 

1) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Book): There have been several movie adaptations of this one, none that I like enough to talk that much about. However, I’ve been fascinated with this story ever since I was 7 via the movie adaptations such as the Disney animated feature from 1949. The plot, for those who aren't familiar with it: Ichabod Crane comes to the little town of Sleepy Hollow to take up the job of school master. He soon discovers through the town’s people’s talk, the legend of the horse-riding ghost that’s said to pursue travelers on the roads outside the town to lop off a head as a replacement for his own that’s been missing since his death in the Revolutionary War. 

Why I've loved this story so much is that the ambiguity of the ending makes the reader wonder what really happens to the main character. This questionable conclusion is what makes the story so creepy. So, ambiguity for a story’s ending can be done really good in a horror story if it's done right, and Irving definitely did it right!

2) The Changeling (Movie): Released in theaters in 1980, this Gothic film stars George C. Scott as a music professor who moves into a mansion and discovers that it's haunted by a poltergeist, particularly the ghost of a young boy who was murdered. For me, this beats Steven Speilberg's "Poltergeist" anytime (which I never really liked, at least not the first one). What makes this movie so creepy is the vast size of the dark labyrinthine mansion, the small hauntings gradually growing into larger ones, and the tragic story behind the ghost shown in a flashback. 

3) The Shining (Novel and film): I had to put this one on this short list for sure because this is one that had creeped the hell out of me so much that I couldn't watch the 1980 movie adaptation all the way through until I was almost thirty! (The made-for-TV one was not around yet, which I didn’t like that one.) Eventually, I bought a used copy of the book and read it (all the way through). The story: Jack Torrence (played by Jack Nicholson in the original film) takes the job as caretaker of a hotel that closes for the winter that he, his wife (played by the late Shelley Duvall in the movie) and young son discover that an evil presence is trying to doom them all, particularly through Jack. I go into more details about the book and 1980 movie in the above link. 

Using Grammarly

For the first time ever, I used Grammarly to edit one of my stories for my upcoming book of short fiction, "Bad Apps". Just yesterday, I finished noting the edits suggested by the Grammarly report, and I was really impressed with the program! I found it very helpful in editing for grammar, making editing stories a lot easier than trying to find the mistakes on your own. 

However, I wouldn't suggest relying on this programme alone for editing your work. As I found out in the case of my own story, Grammarly can misinterpret the writing when it comes to grammar rules that are debatable (such as using a comma before the last item of a list in a sentence) or when the writer breaks certain grammar rules for purposes of style (such as using a fragment sentence as a means of emphasis or suspense). So, I would suggest editing your work using Grammarly first, take note of all the editing suggestions given by the report, and then proofread the work on your own. I didn't do it in that way and so it took me more time to edit for the grammar than it would have if I had put it through the Grammarly check first. 

I'm going to take next Monday off. I'll be back here the week after depending on how things go with my family issue. What is your favourite ghost story? Do you use Grammarly to assist in editing your writing?

Today’s IWSG is brought to you by these super co-hosts: Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre! IWSG was founded by awesome author Alex Cavanaugh, writer of the Cassa Series of novels! 

Until next time . . .