A World of Ghost-Punching

The man tightens the rope around my chest. “Are we really extending this metaphor?” he asks. “Just to continue your explanation of Ghost Punchers?”

“Hey, you started it. Sticking a bag over my head, tying me to a chair, turning out all the lights except that one naked weak bulb hanging from the basement ceiling above us — this was totally your thing.”

The man narrows his eyes. “Shut up and tell me about the setting.”

A wise man once said that three key elements for a successful storyworld include setting, characters, and conflict. Today I’d like to focus on the setting of Ghost Punchers.

As I stated last week, Ghost Punchers is set in a twisted version of the real, modern world. Coincidentally, I’ve previously tackled the topic of creating a storyworld within the real world. You can read it here if you like.

Go on, read it.

It’s short, I promise.

Still here? Well, let me summarize the piece for you: Because the audience is already familiar with the world in general (it’s the world they live in, after all), we should focus on those things that are specific and unique to our storyworld.

Off the top of my head, here are some setting details that are unique to Ghost Punchers:

• Ghost are real, dangerous, and common enough that there’s a whole group of of people dedicated to fighting them… but not so common that they’re no longer scary.
• The supernatural exists, both in the form of inhuman creatures (like, say, ghosts) and methods used by humans to fight them (yes, we can just call it “magic” and move on).
• This means there could be vampires, werewolves, and other Twilighty things in the world. But that would make me sad, so let’s say there aren’t any. (No Kristen Stewart either, if anyone asks.)
• There is a spirit world where big-shot ghosts live like feudal lords or mafia dons, using their minions to haunt the living and thereby steal bits of life energy. This energy is the only thing that keeps ghosts from being pulled into the afterlife, where they will face judgement. In the realms of the dead, human life energy is the only thing of value; it’s worth any amount of fighting, haunting, or even killing.
• Those who fight ghosts have the rare ability to see and affect the spirit world. On the one hand — hey, ghost-punching! On the other, they are much more vulnerable to ghost attacks than normal folks. While a ghost normally can’t interact with the physical world and its inhabitants without a great deal of effort, it has an easier time manhandling ghost punchers since, by their nature, they bridge the two worlds. It’s like dual citizenship, but with more punching.

This just scratches the ectoplasmic surface of the setting (not a lot of specifics yet, I’ll admit), but it highlights what makes it unique and sets the stage for the next step of our process: exploring the storyworld’s characters.