Haunted is a show that taps into the primal fear of what lies beneath the surface. It plays with confirmation bias where our minds are predisposed to find evidence of the supernatural and ignore evidence that proves otherwise. This is a great way to create tension and excitement for your audience and it’s something you can use in your own writing.
The first step to making a great haunted story is to decide who you want to focus on and develop their character. This will be the main character who is going to act as a link into the supernatural world of your story and it’s essential that you know their qualities, history and motivations before putting them in an uncertain situation.
Then you need to start thinking about the environment in which your ghost will inhabit. This doesn’t necessarily need to be a scary place, but it does need to have some sort of history or connection that could make a ghost manifest.
This can be as simple as an old house or it could be a location such as a former psychiatric ward that has had a lot of deaths. Some ghosts can also be triggered by specific people such as friends or lovers who are still alive. They may have unfinished business with these people and decide to haunt them to try and resolve their issues. This type of haunting is often referred to as a poltergeist and it can present classic demonic elements such as claw marks, shadow figures and the sound of phantom footsteps or doors banging.