Make believe
Make your readers understand what your characters believe, says Helen M Walters as she explores a spooky Victorian ghost story
Helen M Walters
This month’s story is a ghost story fitting for the dark winter nights. The Phantom Coach by Amelia Edwards is, in many ways, typical of a Victorian ghost story, but I think there are two aspects in particular that make it interesting and worthy of study. One is the way that the story hinges on belief systems and ideas and the other is the way the story is structured. As we will see, the two aspects are linked. As always, you will benefit most if you read the story for yourself: writ.rs/thephantomcoach
The two main characters in the story are James Murray, a young barrister who finds himself lost on the moors in the snow, and a man in whose house he takes shelter. Notice how in the very first sentence of the story the narrator, Murray, assures the reader that his story has ‘truth’ to recommend it. His insistence that he’s had to overcome his reluctance to share it, and that he doesn’t want it explained away, further highlight the claim to veracity.
Continuing with the emphasis on the account being factual, the second paragraph gives us a lot of supporting detail to set the scene. We learn that the events took place twenty years before, that the moor on which Murray is lost is in the far north of England, that the month was December, and that the wind was due east.