Ghost Stories: Supernatural, Paranormal, or Something Else?

[cmhbob]

And the followup question: wordcount.

And this post may be a little brainstormy, but I'm trying to take the strategic view, so I put it in Roundtable.

So the MC and his friends are ghosts. He's been executed. Most of his friends in the story are victims of a serial killer.

What I'm running into is trying to decide if this is a supernatural story, or a paranormal? Then again, does it matter? At it's heart, it's really a mystery/thriller. Will Keith identify the serial killer? Will he clear his name? So in this case, is the super/para question one of genre or subgenre?

The real reason this came up is I'm trying to figure out how long this is going to be. I'm at 87.6K words. I could easily hit 100k before closing both main story arcs, if not a little longer. That feels long for what is essentially mystery/thriller. My first three thrillers all came in around 90k, and this one will scoot right on past that.

So what genre are ghost stories, and how long should that genre be?

Side note: I found Wordcounters.com, which has word counts and ranges for lots of titles and genres.

 

[Maryn]

I'd class ghosts and other spiritual, non-corporeal beings as supernatural. There will never be a scientific explanation for their existence or capabilities.

Paranormal, to me anyway, is known creatures, most often humans but not limited to them, who are able to do things other humans cannot, whether it's shapeshift, teleport, move objects with their mind, etc.

If I felt the need to put a label on what you're describing (which I would totally read, BTW), I'd call it a supernatural thriller if the focus is saving future victims, or a supernatural mystery if the focus is on IDing the bad guy so the cops can nab him.

 

[Brigid Barry]

Ghosts are paranormal in that they defy rational explanation. My haunted house tale is paranormal horror.

You can absolutely have a paranormal thriller because it classifies an element rather than the genre. Paranormal romance, paranormal mystery, blah blah.

Sorry to disagree with Maryn.

 

[CMBright]

I have to agree with Brigid. Paranormal + generic genre. If this is a thriller, paranormal thriller. Unless an agent says different. Then nine times out of ten, go with the agent.

 

[Maryn]

Okay if I stand corrected--but if that's the case, then what exactly is supernatural?

 

[CMBright]

Okay if I stand corrected--but if that's the case, then what exactly is supernatural?

I'd think that the dividing line between paranormal and supernatural is a sharp one. It would not surprise me if asking ten experts got you twelve answers on where the dividing line is.

I don't really have a good definition of which is which. Like that judge's quote on p***. I see it, I put in one category or the other. If I had to give a definition, there are things I firmly believe do not exist. Those go in supernatural. There are things I think are about as likely as getting hit by a meteor with a winning superball lottery ticket in my pocket but I'm not willing to completely dismiss. Those go in paranormal.

Very scientific, I know.

 

[Brigid Barry]

+1 to CM Bright about what a gray area it is.

I've seen shifters, vampires, banshees, and ghosts go in either. I just have a marketing thingy insisting ghosts = paranormal (and lots of ghosts hunting teams have the name "paranormal").

To-may-to to-mah-to.

 

[cmhbob]

Thanks everyone for the perspective. After reading responses, I feel like I'm getting too hung up on labels, which is a big thing for me. But if I had to choose a label for this, after reading CMBright's definition, I'd probably stick with paranormal, which is what I called it to begin with.

And I think I'm just going to plug on with it and not sweat the wordcount. I'm self-pubbing this anyway, so I can get away with going a little long.

 

[Fergus MacGuffin]

Thanks everyone for the perspective. After reading responses, I feel like I'm getting too hung up on labels, which is a big thing for me. But if I had to choose a label for this, after reading CMBright's definition, I'd probably stick with paranormal, which is what I called it to begin with.

And I think I'm just going to plug on with it and not sweat the wordcount. I'm self-pubbing this anyway, so I can get away with going a little long.

I kind of always thought that "paranormal" was a word that was used when someone didn't want to say "supernatural", for one reason or another. But, I don't read much that would fit in either category, so my opinion is feather-light and subject to change.

Obviously there are other points of view.

But, yeah, you are right to avoid getting hung up on labels at this point.

 

[Nether]

Okay if I stand corrected--but if that's the case, then what exactly is supernatural?

A hit tv show on the CW.

But, in genre/subgenre terms, I'm not sure it's a category. I'll see paranormal listed in QM, but I've never seen supernatural.

Otherwise, the term supernatural seems broader than paranormal.

 

[dickson]

Okay if I stand corrected--but if that's the case, then what exactly is supernatural?

Following (at a distance) Hume, I‘d say the idea of the supernatural is incoherent. If ghosts exist, then they are part of the nature of things.

Doesn’t stop stories about supernatural shenanigans from being fun for so much as a heartbeat.

A related issue. I knew a psychology postdoc who told me, quite apart from whether or not ghosts exist (whatever that might mean), some people do see them. I know a woman who saw what she described as the ghost of a freshly-deceased dog, and she’s as sober as a judge.

The readiness to admit to seeing ghosts evidently has a strong cultural element. In Japan, for example, seeing the ghost of a loved one who has died recently is regarded as a normal part of the grieving process. After the Tohuku earthquake in 2011, counselors and mental health specialists comforted thousands of the bereaved who’d seen ghosts of their relatives. (Source an article in the LRB I read not long after the quake.)

 

[frimble3]

I've always kind of thought that 'supernatural' was seeing ghosts, demon dogs, etc. 'Paranormal' was investigating/looking for them.

Literally:
'Para' meaning: alongside of, beside, near, resembling, beyond, apart from, and abnormal.
'Super': over or above.
FWIW

 

[Al X.]

I would tend to view paranormal vs. supernatural as a Venn diagram type of relationship, e.g. the overlap contains elements of both. For what it's worth, our own (the US, rather) government has acknowledged the existence of paranormal activity, as evidenced by long declassified CIA documents regarding the Stargate project about psychic remote viewing, but it has never officially acknowledge supernatural activity, as far as I am aware.

I would consider the OP's story description as supernatural, as it involves ghosts (intelligent, non-living entities). If the plot were about living people interacting with one another through psychic phenomena, I would consider it paranormal.

By the way, the US Army has used remote viewers as recently as Afghanistan. No ghosts were harmed in the performance of those activities.

 

[frimble3]

By the way, the US Army has used remote viewers as recently as Afghanistan. No ghosts were harmed in the performance of those activities.

And none of them saw fit to mention that leaving all that military gear for the Taliban was a really dumb idea?

 

[Al X.]

And none of them saw fit to mention that leaving all that military gear for the Taliban was a really dumb idea?

Oh don't get me started. The withdrawal was a complete and total botch job. We should have concentrated all of our forces on Bagram at the end, flew the equipment out, and then withdrew personnel in an orderly manner. Yes there are standard tactics for that. Operation Frequent Wind in Vietnam was botched, and yet that was still executed better and on a much larger scale.

We didn't get beaten militarily. We learned from the Russians from their campaign in the 80's, and our own experience in Vietnam. And that is you can't win a ground war from the air. We could have maintained status quo ad nauseum. There was just no workable exit strategy.

It didn't take a psychic to predict the outcome. All of the military age men willing to fight and die for their cause were already on the side of the Taliban. All those that were left over didn't want freedom enough to fight for it. Really the whole operation was a dumb idea.

But I digress. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

 

[neandermagnon]

Okay if I stand corrected--but if that's the case, then what exactly is supernatural?

I would say, in terms of everyday speech, they're synonyms. The two words have slightly different vibes though. Paranormal has a more X Files spooky vibe while supernatural sounds a bit less spooky and more fun.

However I don't know how that fits in with genre categories.

 

[cmhbob]

Paranormal has a more X Files spooky vibe while supernatural sounds a bit less spooky and more fun.

Oh, now that's a cool way of looking at it.