How to tell a ghost story and scare your friends

Every Halloween, I get into the spirit by watching horror movies, reading up on haunted locations, listening to eerie film scores and mixing up creepy cocktails. But this year, I'm looking to level up! My goal? To perfect the art of telling a spine-tingling ghost story. I want to get together with friends to enjoy snacks and drinks and wear silly costumes — but also scare the sh-t out of them.

There's something irresistible about the unknown and supernatural. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, tales of spectral encounters have a way of drawing us in — if you tell them right.

To learn how to craft a truly chilling ghost story, I chatted with two award-winning horror and speculative-fiction writers, Ai Jiang and Ian Rogers. We talked about their own fascination with things that go bump in the night, and they shared some great tips on how to tell a spooky story that leaves everyone in the room feeling just a little bit haunted — and where to find inspiration for your supernatural tales.

What makes ghost stories so compelling?

You might be surprised to learn that neither Jiang nor Rogers actually believe in ghosts despite writing about them. Both say they need to see it to believe it.

"It's like [how] some people don't believe in certain places existing until they actually go and visit that place themselves," explained Jiang, whose debut novel, Linghun, is a modern gothic ghost story about how the living grieve the dead and cling to their spirits. 

Rogers, whose family is from Nova Scotia, grew up surrounded by storytellers, and everyone had a ghost story they swore was real. Regardless, he's still a skeptic.

"I used to joke that I started off as kind of a Mulder [from The X-Files], but I've grown into a Scully," he said. "I still have the interest, and I'm still willing to be convinced, but you got to have the proof for me."

So, what is it about spooky stories that make them so appealing, even if you don't believe in ghosts? And what makes them the perfect mood-setters for around a campfire or at a Halloween gathering?  

"I like to think that a good ghost story is rooted in the natural world," Rogers said. "I think the more that you're able to sell the natural, [the more] you're able to convince someone of the supernatural."

His 2012 anthology, Every House Is Haunted, includes The House on Ashley Avenue, a short story about an extremely haunted house that is too dangerous to sell to the public (as if the housing market wasn't scary enough!). The story has been optioned by director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spider-Man) for a Netflix film adaptation, currently in development.

Jiang notes that ghost stories in movies or books often focus on past or intergenerational trauma. She points to the 2022 horror film Umma, starring Canadian actor Sandra Oh, about a woman haunted by her estranged mother's spirit — and grappling with fears of turning into her.

"A good ghost story will have characters who are undergoing some kind of struggle," Jiang said. "[They] are experiencing some kind of personal growth or perhaps even personal recession."

Her novel Linghun flips the script: "In terms of my book," she said, "we have the living haunting the ghosts."

Setting the mood

When telling a ghost story, do you want to leave your audience scared or haunted? 

Jiang says there's a big difference. She has a strong physical and visceral emotion that feels more like a primal survival instinct when she's scared, whereas, with hauntings, it's "more like a slow burn or a simmer rather than a boil."

She definitely has her preference: "I [try] to go for the eerie, the haunting and the uncanny," she said. "Take the mundane and twist it so it seems slightly off from what you would expect it to be."

Another tip she shared was leaving some things to the imagination. "I often think about what is not said in the story and what is withheld from the readers, specifically to create a sense of tension or mystery around the story," she said.

When you leave things unexplained, Jiang said, those questions can drive paranoia in people's minds, which can be more unsettling than any jump scare.

For Rogers, setting the tone is a matter of misdirection and disarming people. One way to do that, he says, is to mix genres, by introducing some romance or throwing in humour, for example.

"Anything that you can use to wind people up before you hit them with the scary."

He also added, "You don't need to be gimmicky. If you start with a really great setting or a really compelling character, and then you draw them into a ghostly encounter or experience, you're also drawing in [your audience] at the same time."

Some inspo and recos

Jiang suggested some viewing and reading material that might inspire your spooky storytelling. 

She was quick to recommend Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, an animated film about a 10-year-old girl who stumbles into a world full of gods, spirits and witches after her parents are turned into pigs. "It gives you a sense of haunting, but also gives you a sense of terror and horror and the unknown all at once."

She also suggests reading The Shadow Book of Ji Yun, a collection of paranormal and spiritual accounts from Chinese folklore, and Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, a series of classical Chinese stories that dive into the supernatural.

Rogers found inspiration for The House on Ashley Avenue when he spotted a particular house during a walk around Toronto's Rosedale neighbourhood.

"All the ideas from that story just sort of poured out [of it]," he said. "Like, if this house was empty, what if it was empty on purpose? And this company kept it empty because it was so haunted [that] people couldn't live in it."

"I feel like inspiration is all around you," he said. "There's just a million stories waiting to be told." 

Crafting a ghost story

During our conversation, Rogers came up with several prompts for ghost stories on the fly — like noticing a mysterious cat in his home or hearing about a black rainstorm on the radio. Inspired, I decided to give both his and Jiang's pointers a try.

I found myself looking at my surroundings a little differently. The junk drawer I never touch, my cat just staring back at me or the framed mirror in the doorway of my home, which became the inspiration for this:

Did I scare you? Are you eyeing your mirrors suspiciously now? Either way, I hope you feel inspired to share some chills and thrills with your friends this Halloween!