Writing About/With Ghosts
I’ve been collecting ghosts for a long time. Only recently have I externalized it. I keep buying cute ghost décor, scouring the shelves of Halloween items in Marshalls, Michaels, Joann Fabrics, thrift stores, local shops. Clicking buy on a ghost pillow I found online. I have a playlist full of ghost songs, which I add to whenever I find a song that mentions ghosts or hauntings. In a notebook, I’ve been jotting down any ghostly quote I come across in books and essays. Turns out a lot of us are writing about ghosts.
A few days ago, I attended a Samhain ritual workshop given by Pam Grossman and Janaka Stucky (I highly recommend taking any of their workshops—they are always fantastic). After Janaka led us through a beautiful meditation to connect us to the underworld, the group added the names of departed loved ones in the chat. I grew teary-eyed thinking of those I listed and reading the names shared by other attendees. It was a beautiful reminder of how much I think about the precious loved ones I’ve lost and how present they are with me when I create.
We think a lot about ghosts this time of year. For Halloween, we decorate with spooky or cute ghosts, watch movies about hauntings and possessions, tell and read ghost stories. The festivals of the dead that occur around this time honor loved ones and ancestors. But really, for writers, ghosts are ever-present. Our work is often informed by hauntings; we’re constantly trying to catch up to our ghosts to try and understand them. We may not recognize them as such, but I think it’s fair to speak for us all when I say—we’re riddled with ghosts.
This, of course, isn’t a new idea. Plenty of writers have written about ghosts—as metaphors, literal ghosts, unnamed ghosts, etc. But today I want to meander through some thoughts about writing about and writing with ghosts.
Writing With Ghosts: Your Ancestors
Working with your ancestors can be a wonderful addition to your creative practice. From a simple gratitude practice that gives thanks to your loved ones to elaborate rituals and altars, there are plenty of ways to work with them.
Turn to cultural traditions: Many cultures have long traditions around honoring and calling upon ancestors. Even if you personally haven’t followed them, learning about and trying out some traditions from your culture can be a great place to start.
Create ancestral altars: There are many ways to do this, so it’s worth spending some time learning about various practices (particularly those within your culture) and thinking about what you want to do. Once you have your altar, you can find a practice that works for you to use it—whether for inspiration and guidance, to give thanks, or as a means to connect you to your ancestors.
Incorporate family recipes, heirlooms, stories, etc.: Anything you have from your family or your culture can be incorporated into your practice. Make a family recipe and leave some on your altar, or consume mindfully as part of a ritual or creative practice. Bring keepsakes to your creative space or use them for meditation. Tell favorite stories to loved ones, or write or make art that takes inspiration from them.
Use divination to connect: Tarot cards, runes, bibliomancy, scrying—these are just a few methods you can use for ancestral divination. Find a quiet space to meditate. You might want to include pictures of your loved ones or special items that feel connected to them. When you’re ready, use your chosen divination method to receive messages from beyond.
What if you don’t know or want to connect with your blood ancestors? It’s important to note that your ancestors can be anyone. Maybe you have favorite artists who have passed and who you feel a deep connection to—they can be your ancestors. Anyone who have helped on your path can be your ancestor—even if you don’t know who they are. You can work with ancestors generally; for instance, your lineage might come from a particular country or culture and you might feel connected to the people—these can be the ancestors you work with.
Writing With Ghosts: Your Hauntings
Like many writers, I have subjects, periods, and people I return to in my work again and again. I feel haunted by them—these are my ghosts. Perhaps you, too, have ghosts that won’t leave you alone, whether they are in the form of stories or exes or trauma. One of the most important lessons to learn is not to fight these hauntings. You can ignore them all you want, but they’re unlikely to leave you alone until you deal with them.
A practice I’ve found useful is to honor these ghosts and hauntings. I can’t not write about them, and I can sense that I won’t be finished with them until they decide I’m done. But honoring them helps me stop resisting and empowers me to work with them on my own terms.
A great many writers create work that repeats the same themes over and over again. There is no law that says you can only tackle a subject once! Embrace your hauntings—don’t fight them. But how do we embrace them?
I think that, in addition to committing to the work that wants to come, you can find ways to invite in and honor these ghosts. You might create an altar, write letters to them, say hi when you feel them hanging around. This is really a kind of shadow work. However, if the ghosts and hauntings in question have to do with trauma or other difficult topics, please work with a therapist if you can. There’s only so much art can do, and while I do believe it’s important to create art about the tough stuff, it can be hard on your mental health, so doing so in the care of a mental health professional is crucial.
Perhaps your hauntings don’t stem from your lived experience—maybe they are stories you keep trying to tell, or characters you haven’t been able to finish writing. The suggestions here still apply. Embrace them, honor them, and keep writing.
Writing About Ghosts: The Dead and the Living
Writing about other people is a huge, huge subject. It’s a constant question in writing classes, workshops, and beyond, because there is no one way to do it right (and no definitive answer to the question if you should even do it at all). So, for this section, I’d like us to assume we’re talking about writing about others without the added baggage of publication. You can write about what and whomever you like for yourself. The question of what to do regarding putting the work out in the world is something you can address later. For now, let’s just talk about the process.
Your ghosts might be living or dead. If you’re haunted by them, chances are there are some difficult circumstances. So, how do we write about them? Here are some pointers to get you started.
Write for yourself: You (and your editor!) can tackle the ethical and legal implications later. For now, write for your eyes only. Let yourself get at the emotional truth, the circumstances as you remember them, and the story you want (need) to tell.
Invite them in: Return to the suggestions above around writing with ancestors. If you’re writing about your grandmother, perhaps an altar to her can help bring her spirit into your writing. Try automatic writing or other forms of divination to ask the questions you have or get inspiration or direction.
Try a different perspective: A useful exercise might be to switch up your point of view or even your narrator. Try writing to your ghost. Try writing about yourself in third person. Write as your ghost. Speculate on what another person might see about them. Get out of your own head for a bit.
Learn about them: If you’re writing about someone you cannot or do not speak to, learning about them might be helpful. This can be as intimate as asking other people about them or as broad as learning about where they come from—where they were born, what the world was like when they were young, whether they appear in old yearbooks or family albums.
Writing About Ghosts: Speculative Memoir, Horror, and Metaphors
Finally, I want to talk a little about writing about ghosts in other ways. I am an avid reader of horror, but I don’t write in that genre so I couldn’t tell you how to do it. Similarly, I’ve been very interested in speculative memoir—a subgenre that often includes ghosts. And I love a good ghost metaphor. But because this is outside my wheelhouse, I mostly want to encourage you (and maybe myself, too) to consider the other ways ghosts can haunt your writing.
Horror is the genre most commonly associated with ghosts, though they can appear in fantasy, sci fi, and the like. Ghosts in horror often represent something—like grief or trauma. I love a good ghost story—although the many fumbles in the many books I’ve read tell me that it’s hard to craft a good one—and ghosts make such excellent metaphors. My point here is that I would like to read more ghost stories, so if you’ve got an idea brewing, please write it. Also, if you tend to stay away from horror, I would also encourage you to dip your toe in and see how writers are handling ghosts these days. You might find yourself inspired.
Speculative memoir is a lesser-known subgenre that uses elements from fiction. This includes things like speculation, metaphors, imagined conversations or events, and—you guessed it—ghosts. If you are trying to write about your ghosts, trying your hand at speculative nonfiction might be a good exercise and allow you to actually write about your ghosts as actual ghosts. It’s an interesting genre that seems to be growing in popularity, and I recommend learning about it or trying some speculative memoirs if you are interested.
Finally, I just wanted to give a shout out to ghostly metaphors. My notebook of ghost and haunting quotes is mainly made up of beautiful metaphors. A couple recent favorites from Jennifer S. Cheng’s “Toward a Poetics of Phantom Limb, Or All the Shadows That Carry Us”: “What does it mean to translate a ghost over and over?” and “A mourning across time, then: this inheritance of ghosts.”
Oftentimes our ghosts represent something more than people—they carry the situations, emotions, and memories associated with the person. A haunting is understandable because we all know what it’s like to feel haunted by someone or something.
Whether you want to write alongside your ghosts or write about them from a distance, there is no shortage of ways you can blend your spiritual practice with your creative practice and exorcise them on the page.