Ghost Stories from Japan: Styles Brainstorm

Topic: My Storybook will be about ghost stories from Japan. My goal is to find four different types of ghosts from Japanese folklore. I kind of want to focus on the ones that are the most dramatic because I feel like those are the ones that are the most interesting to write about. I want to try to find stories that have different backgrounds or maybe even different point of views and then kind of "blend" them. There are definitely lots of ghost stories floating around in Japanese cultures, so I don't think there will be much trouble finding one. I think the biggest issue will be choosing one. Two stories that I think I would like to include is The Kakemono Ghost of Aki Province and Ghost Story of the Flute's Tomb.

Bibliography
1. The Kakemono Ghost of Aki Province, from Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan, by Richard Gordon Smith (1918).
2. Ghost Story of the Flute's Tomb, from Ancient Tales and Folk-lore of Japan, by Richard Gordon Smith (1918).

Possible Styles

The Ghosts as storytellers. I think this would be a pretty simple way to telling the story. Most ghost stories are told from the point of view of an observer or from the person who is being haunted. I have yet to read a story where you find out the motives of the ghost. What I could do is write about why they became a ghost and their motivations for not moving on to the next cycle of life.

Reincarnation. This idea really appeals to me because, like I mentioned before, I'm really into the idea of reincarnation. I think something I could work with is gather some stories and find one thing that links them all together that could make reincarnation work. For example, I could have the person who always dies and becomes a ghost reincarnate through various lifetimes. I really like this idea, but I just need to work out some details of how to put them all together.

Therapist. This is a spin off of what I suggested for week 2's project. Except this time, I want to write about a therapist's account of what is happening to his patient. The patient will be the one who is haunted, but the therapist doesn't believe the story, so he just writes off his observations about how crazy he thinks the patient is. Something like the patient is having hallucinations. For example, there could be a part where the patient has scratch marks on his back, but it turns out that he scratches. himself when he is asleep at night.

Observer. I could also write the story from a third person point of view where there is this character who just sees what is happening to the person being haunted, but they don't see the ghost. Only the person who is haunted sees it.

Website. Another really interesting one that just popped into my head is something like a website that is something of an advertisement for people who are looking for exorcists. I could tell the stories using "testimonials" of people who have been haunted.

Painting of "Japanese Yokai Ghost Scrolls" by ColinMartinPWherman.

Source: DeviantArt.