Theory of a Good Ghost Walk

Finally my design and innovation project is over. Now the only things for me to do is play games, write ghost walk script (in our hall we called it mystery walk), play games and play games... Actually now I'm kinda sick of play games, so now only left writing ghost walk script. =P

 

Hmmm... Seems that I've been writing the script for ghost walk for months now and yet nothing has come out of it. Well well, writing a good ghost walk story is not easy business. Let me share with you guys the 'Good Ghost Walk' theory - my idea of a good ghost walk.

 

Firstly, a ghost walk is a... ghost walk. It is not (just) a ghost story or a ghost movie. The people are going through this. So, what does this means? It means there's opportunity for the 'walkers' to interact with the things and characters, unlike the audience of a horror movie. And this is the key - INTERACTIVITY.

 

For example, a typical ghost walk in NTU is about a murder, and the walkers are required to solve the murder. Well, there are interactivity, true. The walkers have to talk to the characters/ ghosts to get clues. But in my opinion, this kind of ghost walk is a under-usage of the opportunity for interactivity provided by a ghost walk. You either solve or didn't solve the murder, but nothing has changed. The murder happened.

 

However I was thinking, why not make the walkers part of the characters in the story? Why not if they solve or do something, the murder won't happen?? Multiple endings will be a good idea.

 

Secondly, a ghost walk must be scary. Let me ask a question: You see a ghost going to murder someone else who you don't know scarier? Or you see a ghost going to murder you (or your friends who are going through the walk with you) scarier? This is the second key - IMMERSITY. 

 

Thirdly, I found a problem with traditional murder mystery ghost walks. There is one killer, there is one victim, so there is supposedly only one ghost. Why the hell when I walk the walk I saw so many ghosts poping out from nowhere? WTF?! It is not LOGICAL! And talking about being logical, unless you can write as good as 佐藤文也  (金田一 's author), there is no point writing detective/ murder story for your ghost walk. (And I can't write as well as him.)

 

Lastly, another question: which is the scariest? A) a killer B) the ghost of a victim or C) a evil spirit/ demon which has already killed alot of people. Lets think about the protagonist in a very very scary horror movie you have watched. 真子 came to your mind?

 

With these ideas in mind I wrote a script that is, I won't say revolutionary, but I would say it's different. So I took my scripts and let my friends read, and they gave lots of constructive comments, like I failed make my story for suitable for local audience by writing about demon - LOCALITY. And the script kinda lack emotions - ya know, when people kill another people there's lots of emotions involved, but since my story is about demon... I more or less didn't emphacize too much on the HUMAN FACTORS. I admit these are good comments, and I will make changes accordingly. 

 

However what makes me abit 心灰意冷 is that got people wants me to cut down on what they called Game elements (which is actually increased Interactivity) and die die want one ending instead of multiple endings. Then they told me there is a reason why typical ghost walks remain as what they are. Then there is another group of friends that tell me that a ghost walk being scary is all that matters. People don't heck care about the story.

 

Well, all I can say is, different people have different ideologies for what constitude a good ghost walk. I can't possibly reconcile everyone's wishes, though I'll try my best, really. Actually I don't mind people don't like my story, but if people don't like my style, I must say there're some ideas I don't wish to compromise. If I'm going to do it, I am going to try out my ideas.

 

If not, I'm not going to do it.