Ghost stories - we've all heard them and we've all been scared by them at one time or another. They can be terribly scary or simply funny, but either way they have been an attention-grabbing form of storytelling for centuries and leave people wondering whether what they've heard is fact or fiction!
If you would like to have a go at writing a ghost story so frightful that it would have Stephen King shaking in his boots, or so funny you could give Scary Movie a run for its money, then send it in to our ghost story competition. All successful stories will be published in a book alongside other spooky tales from budding storytellers! An overall winner in each publication will win a fabulous
family ticket to either the Edinburgh,London or York Dungeons and two runners-up will each receive a superb reading and writing goodie bag which will include a selection of books and a Staedtler writing set!
Example Story: 'IT'
The children huddled together beneath the sheet, living by the old adage that if you couldn't see It, It couldn't see you. But It knew. They didn't dare to whisper to each other, hardly dared to breathe, the rise and fall of their chests giving away their position that was otherwise protected by the all encompassing dark.
It waited.
They had been there for hours, so it seemed, and no one dared to get out and switch the light on even though that was the only thing that would make It go away, the only thing that would dispel the evil that lurked in their bedroom.
How It had come to be there, none of them knew. All they knew was that It arrived every night, silent as the creeping dark, and the only way to get rid of It was to cover yourself with a sheet and make sure nothing was exposed, nothing It could grab onto. Because once it got hold of you, it enveloped you, swallowed you whole. And then you were lost. Where It took you, no one knew; did you just die? Did It send you to Hell? Or was it true, as the old folk tales said, that once it caught you, you simply became part of It, doomed to forever haunt the sleep of other children, children who one day you in turn would capture and force to join you in your deadly quest?
In the dark, It waited.
Katy Hawkins
RULES
(Please note: to be able to download our competition resources you will need to have Adobe Reader installed onto your computer. If you do not have this facility please
download it first.)
