Author: ajmaguire

Under normal circumstances I would never write anything like this here.

Actually, under normal circumstances I would never write this anywhere but in my fiction. It goes against what I’ve been trained to do with my “writer’s blog” with focusing on all things story, structure, or otherwise craft.

However, I simply cannot take it anymore.

With tragedies occurring worldwide (yes, I speak of the incidents in France) and the influx of hate being spouted off through social media, every instinct I have screams to just turn off the computer and bury myself in a book.

It’s a pattern I see all too often; something happens, people get angry, people start pointing fingers at different agencies/factions/whatever, someone voices that we need to calm down, and people start to get angry about people being angry.

Eventually things die down until, lo and behold, tragedy strikes again and the cycle gets repeated.

Now, I’m not saying we need to start ignoring tragedy when it happens. One of the most beautiful things about human beings is our capacity to feel empathy and to come alongside those who are hurting and in need with the effort to help.

Keep doing that.

Always do that.

But there is a moment when our compassion turns ugly. We want to hunt for someone to blame and, inevitably, our fear begins to dictate our actions. We paint complete strangers as terrorists when we know nothing about them. We see a threat on every street corner and nurse the notion that our way of living is the only right way to live, so anyone living outside of that notion becomes an enemy.

We become a people defined by our fears.

And we attack people out of that fear, giving them labels so that it is easier to dismiss the fact that they are human beings as well. “Muslim”, “Christian”, “Terrorist”, “Refugee”,”Liberal”, “Republican”, “Democrat” … We group everything together rather than looking at the individual person as someone to be valued, respected, and even heard.

This needs to change.

Our world is ugly and ugly things happen in it. Don’t add to it.

Let me put it this way …

During the Roman era a group of radicals began meeting in secret. Their religion was mostly comprised of women and the very poor, and they kept their dealings very, very close to the vest. They never hurt anyone and for the most part they submitted to every law that was demanded of them, but an atmosphere of fear still grew in society.

In Greece particularly this group was a curiosity. Rumors began to spread about them and what they must do in their secret meetings. Some said they drank blood as an initiation into their ranks. Others said they baked babies into loaves of bread, tricking unsuspecting people into eating it and thus forcing more people into their little cult.

Fear grew between society and the group of radicals, who were shunned and poorly treated because of their faith. It did not matter that the rumors were not true, what mattered was how deeply that fear penetrated the hearts and minds of people. To be a Christian was to be labeled a weird religious vampire and much, much worse.

And all because people were too afraid to sit down and really try to understand each other.

Scrape away the labels and really look. Come alongside the people in need and push your energy into helping them rather than pinning blame.

Woo! It’s time for another Round Robin conversation! This month the topic is …

Do you believe in angels, spirits, ghosts, demons or other ethereal beings or locations?

Why yes … yes I do believe in angels, spirits, ghosts, demons and all that jazz. I sort of have to because it comes with the territory of being a Christian. In other words, if I believe in a God that I cannot see, it stands to reason that there are other elements at play in and around the world that I also cannot see.

What do you think when they appear in stories?

That being said, fiction does get carried away with the paranormal at times. But then, fiction has been using ghosts since before Shakespeare and certainly Shakespeare himself used the incorporeal at times to drive his story forward – Macbeth, Hamlet, etc.

I can get all technical and dive into the debate about what our superstitions surrounding ghosts and the supernatural say about us as humans – like our desire to know and understand what comes after death, or our deep-seeded need to take control of something we obviously have no control over – but when push comes to shove that’s not what I’m looking at when I see a ghost pop up in a story.

Nah. When I see a ghosts show up in a story and it’s been done right, I get the chills and shiver and absolutely love it. (Sadly, I cannot go see Crimson Peak because my son is too young for that and I’m pretty sure it would scare him the way Rose Red scared me.)

Have you used them in your own stories?

Yes! Often!

Sedition has a fallen knight sort of guiding Nelek and Trenna at different spots in the book. Saboteur doesn’t have a ghost in the traditional sense of the word, but Trenna often sees her son, who hasn’t been born yet.

Witch-Born has the boy-ghost haunting Witch-Eater Lake and … yeah, he’s still one of my favorites. He shows up again in Dead Magic, but he’s a little … changed … which was fun to write.

Residual Haunting is … if you couldn’t tell by the title … absolutely FULL of ghosts. It takes place inside the Residual Haunting Museum, which puts ghosts on display. I’ll have the finished draft of this book done before the year is out.

And, finally, Tapped has a ghost. Granted, it’s an unorthodox use of a ghost since I have it sort of stuck inside someone else, but it is there and believe me, he’s causing all sorts of trouble in the sequel; Dead Weight. (I am particularly proud of that title. It works on so many different levels for this book.)

I’ll probably continue to use ghosts because they’re one of my favorite mediums. They remind you of the fragile nature of life, add an element of insecurity to the characters on the page, and if they’re done correctly can be downright creepy.

Check out what some of my fellow authors have to say about ghosts and spooky things in fiction!

Marci Baun   http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Margaret Fieland   http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Diane Bator   http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Beverley Bateman   http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire   https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/ (YOU ARE HERE)
Fiona McGier   http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Heather Haven   http://heatherhavenstories.com
Bob Rich   http://wp.me/p3Xihq-wU
Anne Stenhouse   http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Helena Fairfax   http://helenafairfax.com/
Hollie Glover   http://www.hollieglover.co.uk
Rachael Kosinski   http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Connie Vines   http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Rhobin Courtright   http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/