Advice needed: Haunted house story

[Beorning]

Servants of former occupants, private owners of the house, before it became a frat house.  Imagine a degenerate old man abusing and murdering his female servants; a housekeeper who was his lover and had a daughter by him that she hid from him.  He then finds the daughter, takes her and kills her.  The housekeeper plots murder and suicide and because she maybe a practitioner of dark arts (voodoo?) traps his soul and hers in the house.

Ooooh. Nice... :)

[Beguile's Mistress]

Thank you. :-)

[Beorning]

Okay, so I have another question:

Currently, I'm thinking on setting my story in a abandoned mansion in some hard-accessible place (deep woods, small island etc). Would a place like this be realistic? Also, where exactly in the States could such a location exist? I admit I have no real grasp of USA's geography...

[Beguile's Mistress]

Southern Gothic is a great setting.  Imagine the Louisiana bayous, a setting similar to a jungle with overgrown waterways, thick vegetation, alligators, snakes and small animals and birds.  An abandoned plantation sits on an island deep in the swamp.  A hundred years ago a massacre took the lives of all of the family and many of the house servants.  The slaves ran away out of fear and any who visited the site and remained after dark experienced strange visions and dreams.

Another site that you might find interesting is the Hudson River Valley in New York State.  It's mountainous and forested and an abandoned manor house once belonging to a Dutch patroon would be a good setting. 

Hope this helps a bit.

[Beorning]

These are two interesting ideas, BeMi :)

I'd like to use the "paranormal college course" idea we discussed earlier. A couple of students would go for a weekend trip to a mansion and would find it very haunted indeed... :) I'm looking for a location that would be away from ordinary civilization (so that the students couldn't just walk away), but still somewhat accessible (these are just college students, after all, not wilderness experts).

What do you say, are the two locations you mentioned like that? I've never been in a swamp, so I don't know what's it like - I admit I've always thought that swamps are a very dangerous terrain. Would the students be able to navigate it safely? Regarding Hudson River Valley - forrested sounds very good :) How big are the forests, exactly? It'd be great if they were as big so that my students would need to take a few hours' walk to get to other people...

[Beguile's Mistress]

Both are remote locations.  The bayou is more dangerous unless you know the terrain and having one of the students be a native of the area and accustomed to navigating the waterways would be a good move.  The bayou is more of an overgrown waterway than a wet swamp and the plantation doesn't need to be too far in. 

The mountains of the Hudson River Valley offer locations that are at higher elevations with roads leading to them that are old, rutted and crowded by encroaching undergrowth but may be reached with sturdy 4-wheel-drive vehicles.  Here again one person with some knowledge of the area and haunted house lore would add some credibility.

Google these terms to get some idea of what is available to you for settings, geography and topography:

Hudson River Valley
Hudson River Valley haunted houses
Louisiana bayous
Louisiana bayous plantations
Louisiana bayous haunted plantations
Louisiana bayous navigation

Note:  The Hudson River Valley is the site of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip van Winkle."