Mind and Spirit: Challenge #2
(New to this Asylum? Start at the beginning!)
You’ve had some witting or unwitting visitors to your haunted house encounter your ghost. Perhaps they survived it; perhaps they did not. Now let’s talk about the consequences of that visit.
Someone is convinced that the ghost in the building is real, and that something must be done about it. Perhaps this person is a survivor from the first challenge, or perhaps it is someone connected to those who went inside. Either way, they’re looking for answers, particularly The Answer to the ghost problem.
This driven person decides that a good place to start might be someone who believes in and knows about ghosts. They look for a medium, and it’s up to you how easy such a person might be to find. Would this person go to a spiritual shop on a high street, or to a friend with the right connections, or answer an ad in the newspaper? Might they know a medium already? Or would they look up a ritual in a book, get some friends and try it out?
Whatever their method, this person winds up sitting in on a seance. Perhaps to witness such things for themself, or specifically to contact the ghost they are interested in; either way, this ghost is going to come knocking. But when the medium and group of ghost-contactors settle to form the circle, they don’t know it, not for sure.
Think about this medium for a moment. Who are they? How stereotypical are they, and how commercial? Is being a medium their work or something they keep to themselves usually? If it’s an ad-hoc, amateur medium or group, who is taking the lead? What methods do they use to talk to the dead?
Build a picture of the room where the seance is being held in your mind. Think about the type of chairs they are using – if the circle is seated – and what the lighting is like. Consider the symbology of the ritual and any required items that might be there, ready to use. Think about the tone and ambience of the room.
Consider how the person seeking your ghost is feeling as silence falls and the ritual is about to begin. Consider their doubts and hopes, and the questions they truly want answered. Then, close their eyes as the medium gets to work.
Your next challenge is to write this seance, where your ghost is given a borrowed voice.
This challenge’s caveat is that you must primarily use aural sensory information, and no visual information at all. There is no light or dark here, only sound.
Mind and Spirit: Challenge #1
(New to this Asylum? Start at the beginning!)
You have some ideas about the ghost and the building it is haunting. This building is an open secret the locals talk about sometimes, prompting fear or ridicule, or both.
Right now, some people are going into the building. They might have permission from the building’s earthly owners or they might not; they might know about the stories of this place, or they might not. Whatever the case, they’re going inside.
Consider who these people are. Build a group of two or more in your mind. How old are they? What are the relationships in this group: friendships, or professional relationships, or romantic? Positive or antagonistic? A mixture of all of those?
Why have they come to this building? Are they here by accident or on purpose? Are they breaking in for a laugh or a challenge or a dare, or for a more serious reason? Are they believers looking for ghosts or scientists looking to debunk ridiculous stories? Are they teenagers doing something reckless, or lovers looking for somewhere private to hook up?
How do they get inside the building? What obstacles must they overcome before they can get inside – fences, gates, security? Boarded-up windows with tetanus-laden nails? Webs spun by many, many spiders?
Once inside, what’s the first indication that maybe, just maybe, this ghost is more than just a story?
Your first challenge is to tell the story of this mortal invasion into the ghost’s domain.
The caveat for this challenge is that it must not contain any spoken dialogue. No spoken words written out at all.
Good luck!
Mind and Spirit: Prologue
Welcome to the Asylum! Come in, take a seat, but don’t get too comfortable. Today, we’re going to get our spirits unsettled, look into the disturbed, and maybe, just maybe, solve a mystery from the wrong side.
We’ve got a lot ahead of us: five hour-long challenges, each a different piece of the puzzle, each exercising a different writing muscle. In this Asylum, we also have an extra level to our challenges to keep you on your toes. We’re going to dive into the supernatural, so you’d better be wearing your best ectoplasm-proof pants.
Before our first challenge, let’s get familiar with the landscape of the story ahead of us.
To get started, close your eyes and think of a world. Perhaps it’s like ours; perhaps it’s alien and strange, or in a disconnected time.
In this world, some believe the spirits of the dead can linger. Some think it’s rubbish, tales to scare children or the inventions of feverish minds. Others believe they can talk to those who are gone. In this way, this world of yours is a lot like ours.
Choose a location somewhere in this world. A town or city. A spacestation or a remote village. Somewhere people live and breed and die. Think about what type of place this is, its chief characteristics, its weather, its people.
In this location, there is a building that the locals say is haunted. Focus on this building. What sort of structure is it? A home or a business or something else? How big is it, and what does it look like? When did it first become haunted? Is it still in use, or has it been abandoned? What are the stories that people tell about it, even the ones that can’t possibly be true?
Now think about the spirit that clings to this place. Who was the person it used to belong to? How did they die? Something powerful or important is holding them to this world beyond death – what is it? Is it to do with the person they were, how they died, or some kind of external agency? What sort of ghost have they become?
Open your eyes. You have five minutes to note down the ideas swirling in your brains. Capture them in words: the building, the ghost, the reason. Five minutes, and then we will start to tell our stories.
Writing Spark #49
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This week, our prompt is a challenge:
Write the story of a character missing one of their senses.
Which sense will you choose? What effect will it have on the character or their story? How obvious will it be, if you don’t mention it explicitly? Go forth and find out!
Writing Spark #48
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This week, here’s a curious question:
“If I stare at you hard enough, will you spontaneously combust?”
Haven’t we all wished that at some point? What would happen if it was actually possible? So many options, go write them!
Writing Spark #47
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Here’s an idea to get you started:
The difference between an angel or a demon is mostly a matter of perspective.
Perspective is so much fun to play with. Explore all sides of it! Have fun. And work out just how different – or not – they are when it all comes down.
Writing Spark #46
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This week, we have a fragment of dialogue to inspire you:
“You look like death.”
“Funny you should say that…”
Why is it funny? Why and how does this person resemble death? Is it going to end well for either party in this conversation?
Writing Spark #45
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This week, here’s a little something to get you started:
It all fell apart while no-one was looking.
What’s it? What impact does it have? And why was no-one watching it? Who notices its collapse first? So many places to take this one! Choose yours and go for it.
Writing Spark #44
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Science and facts can be fun to use as inspiration for a story. Like this:
It is possible for a noise to be so annoying that the urge to murder the source becomes overwhelming.
How true is it? What kind of noise is so annoying that it would drive someone to desperate measures to be free of it? What is causing it?
It’s all up to you, so have fun with it!
Writing Spark #43
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Let’s go back to some dialogue to put us in a situation.
“That’s not mine.”
What is ‘that’? Whose is it, and why is it here? Why is it important who the object belongs to? Is this the start of a conversation, or the middle, or the end? Perhaps this question is never answered, and they’re interrupted right away.
So many options. Where will it take you?