by John Bucher (@johnkbucher)

It’s that time of the year. Ghost stories are filling the theaters. Writers sometimes mistakenly ghettoize ghosts solely to the realm of horror films. It’s easy to forget that the ghost takes many forms and can work in any genre at any time of the year. Here are six ghosts, both literal and figurative, that can improve any story.

1. THE GHOST OF REVELATION

The ghost of revelation appears when a character has a secret or an issue they have avoided dealing with. It can come in the form of a person who stands as a reminder for the issue, an image or symbol that brings up memories, or an unexpected event that forces the issue to the forefront of the character’s life. Ghosts of revelation demand to be revealed. They fight to get out of the closet. They will continue to plague our character until she relents and eventually surrenders or is defeated.

In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter eventually forces Clarice Starling to reveal her ghost. In A History of Violence, Tom Stall’s ghost shows up in the form of Carl Fogarty, who has come to reveal Tom’s past. In Election, the ghost of what Jim McAllister has done demands to be revealed and provides the central conflict in the story, while in turn ruining his life.

2. THE FAMILY GHOST

Perhaps the most common ghost in storytelling is the family ghost. This ghost represents either the death of a family member earlier in our character’s life or sometimes just the absence of that family member. The unifying factor for all family ghosts is the pain they bring. Batman is constantly haunted by the ghosts of his dead parents, as is Superman. Maximus carries a similar weight about his wife and son in Gladiator. Ray Charles is haunted by his role in his brother’s death in Ray. Cinderella mourns both her mother and father. Max seems daily motivated by the loss of his mother in Rushmore. Elliot is lost over the loss of his father, who isn’t dead but is absent, in E.T. Even in Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke Skywalker only agrees to go on his adventure after the death of his Aunt and Uncle.

3. THE TOUR GUIDE GHOST

Tour guide ghosts may be seen or unseen while navigating us through our story. Mostly, stories with tour guide ghosts are narrated by a ghost who leads us through the events that lead to their death. American Beauty and Sunset Boulevard are two of the most popular examples of this type of storytelling. However, American History X, Looper, The Lovely Bones, Sin City, Warm Bodies, Watchmen, and even A Christmas Carol all feature ghosts who walk us through the journey in one way or another.

4. THE POSSESSIVE GHOST

The possessive ghost is an actual ghost that feels ownership of a person, place, or thing. In many of the oldest ghost stories, a ghost felt ownership over a house they once lived in and demanded they remain the sole occupant. They try to scare the new occupants away, of course, by haunting the house throughout the story. Sometimes, it’s a person’s body they feel ownership over and other times it might be a single object that once belonged to them. While films such as Poltergeist are classic examples of possessive ghost stories, Field of Dreams would also qualify as the baseball-playing ghosts feel a sense of ownership over the field they play on.

5. THE INCONVENIENT GHOST

Inconvenient ghosts are rarely the main character in a story. Instead, they posses the unique ability to show up in our main character’s life at moments most inopportune. Sometimes, it is to warn the main character about something. Sometimes it is to tell them something they need to hear. Other times, it’s simply to be an annoyance. In the rare moment when the main character is the inconvenient ghost, the scenario usually plays out like the humorous exchange between Sam Wheat and Oda Mae Brown in Ghost. Obi Wan Kenobi shows up in The Empire Strikes Back to give Luke Skywalker some advice he’d rather not hear. This season of HBO’s The Leftovers has Patti Levin showing back up at inopportune moments in Kevin Garvey’s life. And the beloved Beetlejuice is perhaps the most entertaining inconvenient ghost of all time.

6. THE GHOST OF ACHILLES

Even the toughest characters usually have a soft spot. Giving a “Grade A Badass” a weakness can endear them to audiences in powerful ways. For Tony Soprano, it was his family. In Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane pines for his Rosebud. In Mystic River, Jimmy Markum is inconsolable whenever his daughter is mentioned. P.L. Travers is Teflon about everything in her life, except her father, whom her most famous work is based on in Saving Mr. Banks. Even good-natured Sean Maguire loses his cool as a counselor when Will Hunting disrespects his dead wife – she’s clearly his Achilles ghost. The execution of a good Ghost of Achilles takes a bit of set up early on in the story to pay off effectively, but the results are usually well worth the effort.

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John Bucher is a writer, speaker, and story consultant based out of Los Angeles. He is the author of several books including The Inside Out Story and the upcoming Secrets of Short Visual Storytelling. He has written for entities ranging from HBO to International Ambassadors. He teaches at The LA Film Studies Center and has conducted story seminars on five continents. He can be reached on Twitter @johnkbucher and through his blog, welcometothesideshow.org.