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This article was selected as the article for improvement on 11 August 2014 for a period of one week.

As explanation for the large edits I just made - many assertions here relied on weasel words, and also many ghost stories and authors are not notable enough to deserve a spot in the Introduction section, See Also section, etc. If we mention them there, then too many ghost stories and authors will be allowed to slip in. Before a revert, please ask me for an explanation, as this draft is still not so great, but it is a step in the right direction. Or just be bold and go to work. Mojei ( talk) 23:07, 25 March 2009 (UTC) reply

Nothing's changed in a while, and everything's got a reference assigned to it now. I think I can safely take away the "citations needed" flag. Mojei ( talk) 01:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC) reply

I'm putting this snippet here because I think the uncited stuff in the Types section is from that Jack Sullivan source at the bottom. Notice all the references to Fanu. Mojei ( talk) 23:34, 25 March 2009 (UTC) reply

• There is an extensive critical analysis of the work of several English ghost story writers in Jack Sullivan's 1978 book Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from Le Fanu to Blackwood.

Looks like it [1]. I put it in as the reference. The other citations needed might come from it, but it's hard to be sure without reading it, so I'll leave those. Mojei ( talk) 23:54, 25 March 2009 (UTC) reply

I don't know the merits of Sullivan's book or whether it is being cited here correctly, but to place Le Fanu as a "traditional" writer and not as a "psychological" writer is absurd; the story cited in the article, "Green Tea," exactly fits the "psychological" story's definition. The "ghost" does virtually nothing while the protagonist's mental decay is recorded in detail by a proto-psychologist--typical for Le Fanu's work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.229.114 ( talk) 23:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC) reply

Hello, I'm working with OCLC, and we are algorithmically generating data about different Genres, like notable Authors, Book, Movies, Subjects, Characters and Places. We have determined that this Wikipedia page has a close affintity to our detected Genere of ghost-stories. It might be useful to look at [2] for more information. Thanks. Maximilianklein ( talk) 23:29, 5 December 2012 (UTC) reply

It is worth adding that one of today's best-known ghost story writers is Jonathan Aycliffe, a British author who has written nine full-length novels in the genre. His books include Naomi's Room, which has been optioned for a film in Hollywood, the Matrix, which has been broadcast twice on BBC Radio, and the forthcoming The Silence of Ghosts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Denis MacEoin ( talk • contribs) 23:25, 14 April 2013 (UTC) reply

This article needs more references to the overall history and development of the ghost story. There's a lot of unreferenced material here that needs citations. 176.61.97.121 ( talk) 19:35, 23 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Also, the M.R. James article quoted seems to refer to James' own model for writing fiction (" some remarks that delineate the Jamesian criteria for ghostly fiction") rather than detailing the British ghost story as a whole, which is how it is quoted here. 176.61.97.121 ( talk) 22:57, 23 November 2013 (UTC) reply

As it's currently written, the article seems to only talk about written works. Keeping with the same sort of structure as Spy fiction, I'm going to add sections for film and television. -- Nick Penguin_{( contribs)} 05:46, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Should specific works be separated by culture/country, or would this be better placed chronologically in the history section? -- Nick Penguin_{( contribs)} 05:56, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Campfire stories often involve ghost stories, using either the colloquial 'any scary story' definition or more specifically involving ghosts. Here's one ref [3] (there's probably more out there but most search results are actual stories), but I'm not sure where to put this info – maybe a new ==In culture== section is needed, or can it fit into one of the existing sections? - Evad37 [ talk 06:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply

 Resolved, is currently in an ==Oral storytelling== section. - Evad37 [ talk 11:42, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

I am wondering if this page should be moved to Ghosts in fiction or something similar, with "ghost story" being one of the bolded alternative titles in the lede. The article currently puts a lot of weight to novels and stories, but ghost stories are certainly not limited to written works. I suspect a broader title might encourage expansion on these other types of ghost stories, at the possible expense of lower quality additions. I would suspect (without certainty) that the vast majority of ghost stories produced today are in film and television. -- Nick Penguin_{( contribs)} 19:55, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply

As I read through the list of works featuring ghosts, I wonder what kind of criteria we should use to determine what examples to use or delete. Any ideas? -- Nick Penguin_{( contribs)} 03:36, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

I would suggest sticking to examples which have had the most notable influence on the genre as opposed to simple one off's, regardless of popularity. And thereto, influential examples should be able to connect the various sections together to improve the flow of the overall article. David Condrey ( talk) 22:15, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Ping NickPenguin, Northamerica1000 since you both were one of the major contributors. I saw someone placed {{ example farm}} in the article. I'm not able to find any guidelines on when examples become "excessive". Any idea?? Jim Carter 10:44, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

I think I remember that that part was copied here from the article Ghost. That's probably why it reads more like a 'farm' of examples. I read the template differently: It doesn't say that there are too many examples, but that there isn't enough theoretical background that ties the examples together to a well-flowing text on ghost stories. -- Melody Lavender ( talk) 12:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

I agree with Melody, we should stitch them together so they form a coherent overview of the literature. The list is mostly copied from Ghost, and aside from being long and disjointed, I also find it to be mostly about Western literature. For example, Japanese ghost stories has it's own article, along with the various "Ghosts in CultureX" articles in the By Culture section of the Ghost template. -- Nick Penguin_{( contribs)} 13:00, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Actually looking at it more closely, the structure is focused on (western European) time periods rather than literary eras. The rise and creation of new genres/subgenres would allow for the easier exploration of the topic, rather than just a bare list of examples that appeared between this date and that date. In this light, I have created subsections for Gothic fiction, and Kaidan, and we should focus on our expansion in this manner. -- Nick Penguin_{( contribs)} 13:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

I agree. Currently it's mostly a description of how the appearance of the ghost changes from chains and armor to white sheet ghost. -- Melody Lavender ( talk) 14:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Starting a collection of sources:-- Melody Lavender ( talk) 14:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

• http://www.psyartjournal.com/article/show/purves-a_warning_to_the_curious_the_nicely_mana A Warning to the Curious' The 'Nicely Managed' Mind of M. R. James

by Maria Purves in an online journal for the psychological study of the arts

• http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/victorian_studies/v056/56.2.galvan.html A History of the Modern British Ghost Story by Simon Hay, and: Literary Ghosts from the Victorians to Modernism: The Haunting Interval by Luke Thurston (review),

Jill Galvan, From: Victorian Studies, Volume 56, Number 2, Winter 2014, pp. 325-327 | 10.1353/vic.2014.0023

• http://netpanel.netstant.com/user_files/pack_lite_ebooks_gallery_attach132.pdf Supernatural Horror in Literature,

Published: 1927, Author: H. P. Lovecraft

• http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/9829/1/aulanowicz.pdf GHOST IMAGES: REPRESENTATIONS OF SECOND-GENERATION MEMORY IN CONTEMPORARY

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE By Anastasia Maria Ulanowicz, B.A. in English and History, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, 1997, M.A. in English, University of Pittsburgh, 2000

• http://digitalcommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1252&context=srhonors_theses Evolution of Effect: The Numinous in Gothic and Post-Gothic Ghost Experience Literature Ryan P. Kennedy, Thesis, April 2012 Storrs, Connecticut
• http://accio.zymurgy.org/proc/AccioProceedings/johnnewton.pdf From Folkloric Phantoms

to Sidereal Spectres: Contexts for Reading Ghosts in Harry Potter

I have created a section on the talk page of {{ Literature}} to discuss the possible inclusion of this article on that template. CSJJ104 ( talk) 20:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply

This article is about ghost stories that are works of fiction. Works by spiritualists, parapsycholgists, and other people that argue ghosts are real phenomena shouldn't be included. Also, writers such as Chris Baldick (in the Oxford Book of Gothic Tales) have argued that Gothic fiction is explicitly different from the ghost story, so this should be pointed out in the article. 176.61.97.121 ( talk) 11:23, 9 October 2014 (UTC) reply

There are other problems with this entry-there are three unrelated mentions of M. R. James which could be placed in a single section, and James' ideas about the ghost story are the only ones discussed in detail (don't get me wrong, James was a superb GS writer, but other GS writers, such as Algernon Blackwood, have had different ideas about GS writing to James).

Also, the chronology of this article is all over the place. M. R. James, who wrote GS after Charles Dickens, yet is discussed before Dickens, and the "Modern era (1920 to present)" section begins with 19th century writers such as F. Marion Crawford and Edith Wharton. 176.61.97.121 ( talk) 15:52, 10 October 2014 (UTC) reply

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