Saint John storyteller pens book of ghost stories
If anyone in Saint John knows how to tell a good ghost story, it's local storytelling legend David Goss, who has spent over four decades perfecting his craft and collecting terrifying tales from all over New Brunswick along the way.
Now, Goss, who is well-known around the city for his popular "Walk n' Talks," has written and published a book which shows readers how they, too, can sell a spooky story to an audience.
"I wanted to share with people the way I've gone about doing ghost stories, so these are my secrets, these are how I've made the stories work," says Goss.
"I've taken the stories and made them so that anybody who wants to share them with their children, or grandchildren or around the campfire, can take this story and realize 'I just have to localize this story, I just have to do it in my own words and I can be successful with this."
One of his tried and true tips that's sure to send shivers down someone's spine is to use the element of surprise.
"You have to have something in the story at the end of the story that they're not expecting," says Goss, "and at the very end of the story, the story takes a bit of a twist and gives people a bit of a scare."
For even more scares, he says that props can be very important – in the book there's a story about Lady LaTour of Fort La Tour, who has been asked to keep the hand of one of her men who have died – and once a year, on his birthday – to kiss it.
"So, when Lynn Adams does the story for me, she has the hand in a basket, and nobody sees the hand until the very end," says Goss, "then she reaches into the basket – and says this is the day I have to kiss the hand – she pulls it out – gives it a kiss and throws it out."
The book is available at Coles, Indigo and the Great Canadian Dollar Store.
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