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My stay at a lakeside cabin left me with a ghost story idea. Any prompts to build on it?
I spent last month at a small cabin near Lake Superior. The fog would roll in every morning, and the old pier creaked with the waves. One night, I heard footsteps on the dock when no one was there. It got me thinking about a story where the lake itself has a memory. I want to write about a person who finds hints of past visitors in the mist. But I'm not sure how to start or what problems to add. Has anyone used a similar setting for horror or mystery? I'd love some prompts to kick my writing into gear.
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laurat267mo ago
That fog and the creaking pier are perfect mood setters. What worked for me was having my character find a single, very old item washed up on that dock, like a rusted key. The problem became figuring out what it opened, and each wrong guess made the footsteps at night come closer up the shore.
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terryw837mo ago
Man, I always figured you needed big scary monsters right away. But that "wrong guess makes it come closer" thing... yeah I'm stealing that for my next draft.
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karen4057mo ago
Totally agree about the power of small details! What really gets me is when the scary thing is tied to a normal, everyday sound. Like, the monster isn't a roar, it's just the specific squeak of a floorboard in an empty house. That way the character (and the reader!) starts jumping at every normal noise.
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