Why are we afraid of ghost stories?

Even in today's highly developed science and technology, there are still many strange phenomena in the world that are difficult to explain with normal logic, so literary works about ghost stories will not lose their own market. The reason why this kind of literary works have such great charm is that it can make readers have great fear to stimulate their nerves and add a little waves to the quiet life of the three-point line, which is essential for contemporary people. Moreover, with the changes of the times, the writing techniques of contemporary ghost stories have also undergone tremendous changes, and they no longer write absurd ghost stories to deceive ignorant "medieval humans" as before. On the contrary, the author began to create the effects of "realism", "mysticism" and "fear" for the story, so as to enhance the readers' fear when reading the works.

Before I start to demonstrate my point of view, I must emphasize the scope of the study. The carrier scope of the ghost story works we study here only includes text, excluding video and sound.

1. Fear of "realism"

Creating a "sense of reality" is the most prominent feature in the creation and design of contemporary ghost stories, and this method is the best means to make modern people fear. In other words, through specific writing techniques, readers can think that a series of horrible things told in ghost stories are completely happening in reality. In this way, readers will not think that the terrible "ghost" in the story only exists in the story, as they do in fairy tales, thus making them feel threatened by reality and fear arises spontaneously. There are three main ways for the author to create the "realism" of ghost stories: to strive for conciseness of language, to create an immersive feeling, and to quote the "scientific" theory.

The language (1) strives for simplicity.

To create the "realism" of ghost stories, people must first feel that there are no obstacles when reading, so excessively gorgeous and complicated language will make readers' hearts trapped between words and unable to enter the story. In this way, it is difficult for readers to "get into the play" in their hearts, and even worse, it will give readers the impression of "moaning without illness" and "pretending to be a ghost" Such ghost stories can only stay at the level of medieval fairy tales. Therefore, the language of contemporary ghost stories is basically simple, and only in this way can readers' thinking be introduced into the stories at the fastest speed.

Strive for concise language mainly in the following aspects:

Light environment, heavy details, that is to say, when writing ghost stories, the author seldom describes some environments but grasps some important details. For example, ghosts often appear in the public toilets in the story, but it is difficult for readers to see the description of the toilet environment in the works, and they often see such words as "a girl in white is staring at Xiao Ming with wide eyes". In fact, this is easy to understand, because literary works are different from film and television works, and it is difficult for readers to integrate into the story. The foreshadowing of many environmental descriptions will not leave a deep impression on readers, so the author must use details as a direct stimulus to make readers fear.

Light psychology, heavy plot, here refers to the excellent ghost story without too much pen and ink to describe the protagonist's fear, but through the description of some horror plots to make readers feel fear. If there are too many psychological descriptions in the text, it will leave an impression of "affectation" for readers, and at the same time, it will make readers psychologically prepared. When the horror plot really appears in the story, there will be a feeling of disapproval.

(2) Create an immersive feeling

The most direct and effective way to create a sense of reality is to bring readers into the story. This allows readers to "face" the direct threat, and the resulting fear effect is not comparable to "watching the fire from a distance". The main ways to create immersion are: writing in the first person and keeping the story scene as consistent as possible with real life.

The writing of the first person is that the name of the protagonist does not appear in the ghost story from beginning to end, and only "I" is used instead. The purpose of this writing is to hypnotize readers and make them subconsciously regard the protagonist as themselves. In fact, this writing is widely used in many novels, but the literary works of ghost stories are very urgent. If some plots of the works in the story are similar to the reader's experience, then the reader is directly threatened, and the fear in this case is self-evident.

Ghost story scenes in line with real life can easily make readers feel natural fear. For example, the scene that often appears in ghost stories is the toilet. There is a reason for the author's design, because most of the reasons why people can wake up in the middle of the night are nocturia, so people can easily enter opaque toilets. Therefore, when readers see such a ghost story, it is easy to worry that they will bump into the "ghost" in the story one day when they enter the toilet. There are also some common ghost story scenes, such as desolate night streets, which people often go to at night. It is of great significance to design this scene as a ghost story scene.

(3) quoting "scientific theory"

There is a trend in contemporary ghost stories, which is to demonstrate the "scientific nature" of the existence of "ghosts" intentionally or unintentionally. There is no need to discuss the correctness of ghost theory here, but it is easy for readers to think that ghosts really exist by using "scientific" methods to demonstrate the authenticity of "ghosts" in story works. Since there are such weak-willed readers, there is bound to be some fear. There are two main ways of this "scientific" argument, scientific argument and traditional theoretical argument.

Of course, the most popular scientific theory is brain wave theory, which holds that "ghosts" are biological brain waves. This theory is supported by impeccable current technology and some phenomena. So well-founded, weak-willed readers will naturally agree with the authenticity of the existence of "ghosts", so this is not far from the reader's fear.

Although most of the traditional theoretical arguments have been rejected by science, there are still some that today's science can't refute, so it still has a certain market. Then readers may still believe in the existence of "ghosts". Once they are so connected, fear is not far from them.

It can be seen that in ghost story literature, the author will do everything possible to create "realism", and under the express or implied of "realism", the reader's fear of facing "ghosts and gods" will arise.

2. Fear of "mystery"

Although the creative technique of creating "mystery" is common in ghost stories in the old days, the creation and design of contemporary ghost stories in this respect are quite different from them. With the changes of the times, if people's religious piety or superstition is still used to create a mysterious atmosphere, it will not only fail to achieve the expected terrorist effect, but also make people feel bored and disgusted. Nowadays, the mystery created by ghost stories no longer depends on some absurd myths and legends, but tends to the unknown side of life, and the unknown things in ghost stories always arouse people's fear. That's because readers have a psychological presupposition when reading ghost stories: the unknown must be related to ghosts, and readers must wait for the unknown fear to appear in their hearts, but waiting for the unknown fear itself is a terrible thing. This unknown thing is mainly divided into three aspects: mysterious places, mysterious people and mysterious relationships.

(1) Mystery

Mysterious scenes are easy to understand, that is, designing a mysterious place in ghost stories, such as medical college building, strange dormitory, abandoned room and so on. Readers can easily understand it as a "haunted house". The role of haunted houses in stories is often arranged in this way: first, the protagonist hears the sensational "haunted house" legend, then the protagonist will be connected with it out of curiosity or helplessness, and finally an earth-shattering ending will be staged in the "haunted house".

In this process, readers will gradually be attracted by it, especially in the second stage, the protagonist will be associated with the "haunted house", and seeing some strange phenomena inside will make readers puzzled. Although they know it is a haunted house, they will think about it, and the more they think about it, the more they are afraid. The best way to create a horror effect is to let the protagonist live in a haunted house, and the reader will have a super fear that the disaster is around him and he doesn't know it (provided that the author has successfully let the reader unconsciously integrate into the story). When the truth finally comes out, the "haunted house" will give a "reasonable" explanation to eliminate the reader's fear.

(2) Mysterious figures

In character design, the author often designs a mysterious character in a ghost story. This mysterious figure is either a ghost or a mage. It can be said that every time he appears, it will bring a huge turning point to the plot. Generally speaking, readers will pay great attention to him, pay attention to his words and deeds, and their fear of him will gradually increase with the progress of the story.

If this mysterious figure is a ghost, then in the climax, the protagonist's friends will definitely tell the protagonist the horror legend about ghosts, and the protagonist's experience must be exactly the same as that of the legendary person killed by ghosts. Readers will worry about whether the protagonist's ending will be killed by ghosts like his predecessors. Before the truth comes out, the reader's feeling of waiting for the ghost to kill the protagonist is the most unbearable, and the fear can be seen.

If this mysterious figure is a mage, then every time he appears, he will give the protagonist a certain hint, which will become more and more bizarre. Readers often have two doubts when reading: one is whether the mysterious figure is a ghost, and the other is to think hard about those hints. Doubting that the mysterious character is all right, readers will gradually realize that the mysterious character is helping the protagonist. However, it is an extremely psychological test for readers to guess those increasingly bizarre hints, which naturally makes readers feel afraid of waiting for disaster.

(3) the mysterious relationship

Most ghost stories deliberately hide some mysterious relationships, mainly referring to the connection between ghosts and a living person in the story. It is common for boys to change their minds and abandon girls, and girls become ghosts for revenge after committing suicide. This kind of story is basically a moral problem, which will constantly expose some stories of a villain and the ghost, making him gradually uneasy. The ending is basically that the villains are finally killed by ghosts.

This kind of story has two aspects of fear for readers:

On the one hand, "I don't do anything wrong, and I'm not afraid of ghosts knocking at the door in the middle of the night", but the problem is that no one is perfect, and no one can guarantee that I have done nothing wrong. I may not be as extreme as the villain in the story, but readers will inevitably be touched when reading. There are some ugly things in human nature that readers are most afraid of.

On the other hand, the slow revenge of the ghost in the plot is like waiting for the ghost to execute his trial, just like he is a condemned man. The fear caused by such a suffocating wait is beyond words.

It can be seen that in this kind of literary works, the mystery created by the author is mainly used to make readers have a special fear of the unknown, that is, the fear of waiting for fear.

1. Fear of "terror" effect

The story written by an excellent ghost story creator will not only make readers feel scared when reading, but more importantly, it will have a "fear" effect after reading the story. This kind of fear does not mean that the story is too horrible and does great harm to the reader's mind, but that when the reader recalls the story, he will have a new fear that has never been produced in reading. Only such ghost stories can be reflected in readers' minds.

Here, let me give a short example of ghost story to better illustrate the concept of terror I mentioned above.

"There lived a lazy man in a certain block. His greatest hobby is following young women. One day, he saw a young woman in white, but he didn't see the face behind her. But man's nature forces him to follow women all the way. When a woman entered an old house, she disappeared from the man's sight. The man didn't want to come to the door of the old house, but he was surprised to find a cat's eye on the door of the old house, so he looked into the house through the cat's eye. But unfortunately, he saw a piece of red in the cat's eye and returned disappointed with nothing.

When he came back, he asked people nearby for information about the old house. It is said that this place has long been deserted, but he often sees a red-eyed female ghost coming in and out of the old house. "

In this story, it is not difficult for us to understand that the woman that the man met was a female ghost. But not terrible. The most terrible thing is that the female ghost has a pair of red eyes. Recalling the red color that the man saw through the cat's eye, it is obvious that the female ghost's eyes are actually facing the man through the cat's eye. Once the reader thinks of this, a new fear suddenly arises. How can readers not be afraid of this? What's more frightening is that this fear is entirely his own experience. This is the "Scared" I mentioned above, and this is the story, which is a classic among classics.

It can be seen that the fear of "fear in the future" is very destructive to readers. In the past, the author created fear for readers, but this technique made readers create fear for themselves. This is extremely ingenious.

In short, in the literary works of ghost stories, the author will do everything possible to create a sense of reality. Under the explicit or implied sense of reality, the reader's psychological defense will collapse, and the mystery created will make the reader have a special fear of the unknown, that is, the fear of waiting for fear. Powerful writers will skillfully use the effect of "after fear" to let readers bring their own fears. In this creative process, the author grasps the reader's psychology, makes the reader face threats, waits for the unknown ending, and finally may create fear for himself. This is the whole process that ghost story writers skillfully use readers' minds.