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To make a great ghost story, you must first make your readers believe in ghosts or at least a reason to consider the option of ghosts. In the Bible, when Jesus was walking on the water toward the boat in the storm, Peter declared Him to be a ghost. Peter was not rebuked for calling him a ghost but for his non-belief. When Jesus rose from the dead, the disciples feared him to be a ghost. Again they were not rebuked but Thomas was allowed to feel Him and His wounds. The reason to believe, or question at least, has been set.

A really great ghost story is one that can be documented if chosen. When telling the story, the more detail that is put into it, the better it becomes. For instance, what was happening before this person died, who killed this person, how was the person killed, when did the ghost first appear, and where did this take place.

Sarah Good was the first woman hung in the Salem Witchcraft Killings and her ghost roams around in Salem. There is a Voodoo Queen who walks the cemetery in New Orleans. Frank Sinatra is said to haunt a hotel in California. In Houghton, NY, at night, girls can be seen looking in the windows at the seminary. They had been killed in a fire there. And there are many, many references to choose from. Haunted houses are all over.

The White House is said to be haunted by Mary Lincoln. Alcatraz which was first a Civil War prison and then a regular prison is said to be haunted. There is a television program called Ghost Hunters that checks out houses and other buildings, even ships, for sights, sounds, and temperature changes of paranormal activity.

I once lived in a haunted house. We had to move and had gone by this house before and it was a long way from the road but it still made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Time ran out and it was the only house we could get. My kids were the first ones to pick up on the ghosts that walked around upstairs. I would find cupboard doors opened and my dishes moved around so I figured it was a she and she didn't like the way I kept her kitchen!

For little kids, it can be big monsters that do scary things but for older children and adults, the more real it is, the scarier it is because the chance is so great for it to happen to them. The greatest ghost stories for me are usually on the Biography Channel. But my all time favorites are the ones that give a good background and means for the ghost to be there in the first place. Truth can be stranger than fiction and scarier.

Learn more about this author, Linda Steinbiser.
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