Yesterday’s post about hellhounds represents the kind of research a writer does when s/he plans to use a legendary monster, magical helper, or mythical place in a story. First, determine what is known about the place creature and how the beliefs about it change from place to place. In my case, I want to know what makes a hellhound a hellhound and whether or not it’s different in the American South.
Basically, I think stories simply work better when they use attributes that generally fit the legends about the place, creature, or phenomenon because this matches the story to what people have heard and/or believe about the thing being described.
Naturally, authors are free to make up whatever they want, but the descriptions fall flat then they don’t link up to the readers’ general expectations about the critters or places. What I cannot forgive is the use of real places or real groups of people that don’t coincide with actual facts. For example, traditional witchcraft and Wicca are real, so the reality of these groups in a story needs to mesh with their beliefs and methods, not made-up stuff that doesn’t match the real world of these groups’ practices.
What’s real in the real world needs to stay real in the story. What’s mythical or folkloric in the real world needs to stay true to the parameters of the legends. Doing this makes for a better story and one that sounds true enough that readers think it could have happened.
I was amused at the semantic chaos a character in a recent novel fell into while trying to explain the various pagan groups to an individual who (a) was a born-again Christian with Baptist-oriented beliefs, and (b) thought anything labelled “pagan” or “witchcraft” was pure and simple “devil worship.”
I blame both the Catholic Church and Hollywood for creating and sustaining the ignorant idea that pagans and/or witches and/or Wiccans and/or hoodoo practitioners all worship the devil. Many of those “charged” with worshipping the devil don’t believe in the devil. The devil is more or less a Christian notion.
I call my series of conjure novels “folk magic” which, in many ways, is like conventional witchcraft. The terms get muddled because many Wiccans call themselves witches while others mix up Voodoo and hoodoo.
Wicca, like Voodoo, is a religion. Hoodoo and conventional witchcraft are practices usually with a strong link to nature and spells drawn on what is observed in the natural world. Those who practice hoodoo, with its origins in Africa, are often very strong Christians and see no conlflict between the two belief systems.
I find it easy to write stories about conventional witchcraft and hoodoo because they seem to me to be very natural to those who notice the ways and means of the seasons and the natural world. Both allow the practioner to worship the gods and goddesses of their choice, Christian or otherwise.
Creator of Wicca
The Wicca Academy website states that, “Wicca is a contemporary, nature-based, pagan religion. It refers to the entire system of practices and beliefs that comprise the modern pagan witchcraft spectrum. Although people often think that the terms Witchcraft and Wicca mean the same thing, that is not the case. All Wiccans are witches, but not all witches are Wiccans.”
The Green Man website states that “Drawing Witches into a cohesive identifiable group of any sort is truly like herding cats! And Traditional Witchcraft is no exception! So to cover my ass I think it best to state that all I can share is my own perspective based on my own practices, beliefs and understandings. These I have gleaned over more than 4 decades as a Traditional Witch and over two decades of leading a Coven and Tradition as well as teaching and presenting Trad Craft to the general public. All that said, there are many others with valid experiences and credentials who, coming from other Traditional foundations, would present Traditional Witchcraft in quite a different manner. As with all such explorations, look for multiple, diverse sources and find what speaks to you personally. That is in fact an approach that would be perfectly in accord with Traditional Witchcraft practices, as I present it. As Traditional Witchcraft is rooted in one’s personal senses or rather extra-sensory abilities, built upon one’s intuition, we call it “The Sight” aka “The Gifts”. Informed through direct communion with the many forms and expressions of Spirit, a Traditional Witch is then guided by their own sense of right and wrong employing what one might call one’s Ethical Compass. It is this personal and direct communion relationship a Traditional Witch has with Spirit that sets them as a Heretic: meaning outside of all forms of organized religion and circumventing any priesthood authority mediating Spirit or imposing a codified “One and True practice” or belief with regards all things related to Spirit. ”
In general, I like the practices better than the religions because I don’t really trust systems in which others tell me what I can do or what I must believe. Truth, I think, comes in following what we believe rather than what a hierarchy of leaders and rules say we must believe.
When an author writes a novel or short story in the magical realism genre, magic is always a natural and unquestioned component of the characters’ lives and the environment in which they live. As an author, you’re more likely to write a believable story if–while you’re writing, at least–you assume the magic is real.
This is my favorite blog because the writer has many years of experience and a great archive of posts for many Hoodoo subjects.
This doesn’t mean you must personally subscribe to the philosophy and practices of the magical system in your story whether that system is a known collection of beliefs such as hoodoo or Voodoo or a fictional system you built from scratch.
I prefer using practices based on actual belief systems because they already have a rich, varied and somewhat known lore that is often much deeper than anything a most of us can make up.
When I wrote Conjure Woman’s Cat about a root doctor (another name for a conjure practitioner), I began by reading books and web sites written by people who practice hoodoo. When I had a question, I asked them, usually making it clear that I was researching a novel rather than following the belief system myself. (You’ll see some of the sites/books I consulted in the folk magic category of my Myth and Magic Resources post.)
At times, I’ve read paranormal and magical realism books by authors who take a known system–say, witchcraft–and have their characters doing things that are completely outside the realm of the practice whether it’s Wicca or the traditional craft. Hollywood has done this a lot, but I feel more anger about it when I find it in a novel by a known writer who can look stuff up and talk to experts and keep the magic within the realm of what a system claims is possible. Witches do not worship the devil nor utilize spells that look like they originated in the Harry Potter series or Lord of the Rings.
This is a more commercial site with products to sell. However, it also has a wealth of information about spells, herbs and candles.
Yes, we all take liberties when telling a good yarn, and even when we don’t, it’s probable that (in my case) a real conjure woman will find things in my book that are unrealistic. I try to make the material as accurate as possible for a fiction writer–as opposed to a real practitioner who writes a novel based on their own experiences.
One way to make your story accurate is through the use of multiple sources. This helps you understand the magical approach well enough to write about it in your own words.
Of course, if you make up the magic from scratch, it helps if you set limits on it (so that your characters aren’t all-powerful) and keep it consistent. Don’t state a magical rule on page 25 and then have a character successfully ignore that rule on page 250.
For your readers to believe, you have to believe. Most of them will believe while they’re reading the story. That’s how you need to feel. I didn’t become a conjurer after I wrote Conjure Woman’s Cat, and I don’t expect my readers to do so either.
If you don’t believe while you’re writing, the story won’t ring true because your author’s point of view is that it isn’t true.
There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that a fair number of people believe witchcraft, hoodoo and Voodoo work. Frankly, I don’t have an opinion about that and did everything possible while writing to refrain from judgement.
What we hope for when we write magical realism is that our readers will be carried away by the story as though everything in it is absolutely possible, maybe not in their own lives, but in the lives of our characters.
When magicians like Penn and Teller walk out on the stage in front of you or when you see them on TV, you know that what they’re doing is an illusion. You’re in the audience to be fooled and when the magician carries off a trick perfectly and you can’t figure it out, you laugh and applaud and ask for more.
A magical realism short story or novel is also an illusion. If both the magic and the realism in the story are done well, you’ll be fooled into thinking everything you read did happen or could happen. Neither the stage magician nor the writer dares approach his or her audience with any doubts about the effect s/he is trying to achieve. Doubts kill the performance, on stage or in writing.
And then, too, sometimes that stage magician and that writer include a bit of real magic under the guise of illusion. We always want you to think, “hmm, I wonder.”
–Malcolm
Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the contemporary fantasy novel “Sarabande” and the magical realism novella “Conjure Woman’s Cat.”
Yesterday’s post about hellhounds represents the kind of research a writer does when s/he plans to use a legendary monster, magical helper, or mythical place in a story. First, determine what is known about the place creature and how the beliefs about it change from place to place. In my case, I want to know what makes a hellhound a hellhound and whether or not it’s different in the American South.
I was amused at the semantic chaos a character in a recent novel fell into while trying to explain the various pagan groups to an individual who (a) was a born-again Christian with Baptist-oriented beliefs, and (b) thought anything labelled “pagan” or “witchcraft” was pure and simple “devil worship.”
Malcolm's Round Table 