Time for another writing-related post! This time, I’d like to share a bit more about THE most helpful thing I’ve learned about writing characters: the ghost.

Nope, I’m not talking about the transparent dude lurking around the local cemetery. I’m talking about the creepy f*cker haunting our thoughts and feelings and dreams – the ghost that lives inside us all. Sounds awful? I think not! Well, at least not in the context of my writing…

The Theoretical Ghost

In The Anatomy of Story, John Truby explains the concept of the ghost: it’s an emotional injury from the past that still haunts a character today. It’s an internal scar that has never fully healed, like an unhappy childhood, the crash and burn of a relationship, the death of a loved one, or maybe even words that were better left unsaid.

A character’s ghost usually relates to guilt or shame about something that happened, grief about a death or a loss, or an injustice that has happened to the character, leading to resentment or a quest for vengeance. The ghost can even be a combination of one or more of these things, and it can tell you A LOT about your character.

The Ghost = Past, Present, and Future

The events that took place in your character’s past affect who they become. Identifying a character’s ghost helps you understand their personalities, emotions, values, and motivations. The ghost also feeds into the lie the character believes: the falsehood that prevents them from being happy, which needs to be addressed and overcome to find inner peace – the falsehood that forms the basis of the character’s inner transformation throughout the book. 

In that transformation, the ghost is the character’s internal opponent. It informs the fear that makes them believe the lie. It holds them back and prevents them from taking action. In other words: the ghost creates conflict.

This conflict is mostly internal in nature, but it can also take an external form through words and actions. So, the ghost shapes the character’s present AND future.

The Gamechanger

I’ve found that creating my character’s ghost first, helps me figure out many other things about them: their want/desire, their moral and psychological need, the lie they believe, their fear, their weaknesses, and the change they need to make throughout the story.

I’ve also discovered that the ghost helps drive the plot: by knowing my character’s ghost, I also know the nature and shape of the conflict the character must overcome. Where I used to start with the plot and tried to fit my characters into the story, I now start with character (specifically: ghost) and then I build the plot around that.

For me, this works super well – it feels like I’m building my story more organically (thank you, creepy f*cker).