Fantasy
The most interesting magic in fantasy often isn’t the spell itself. It’s the afterlife of it: the cracked stones, the salt-stiff hedges, the lane nobody cuts through after dark.
Once a place has been changed by magic, people start building habits around the damage. They avoid certain wells. They don’t whistle on the bridge. They leave the west field fallow because everyone remembers what happened there, even if no one says it plainly.
That kind of local taboo can do more work than another glowing incantation.
Once a place has been changed by magic, people start building habits around the damage. They avoid certain wells. They don’t whistle on the bridge. They leave the west field fallow because everyone remembers what happened there, even if no one says it plainly.
That kind of local taboo can do more work than another glowing incantation.
The trouble with taboos is that they can flatten a place into folklore if you’re not careful. Sometimes the interesting bit is boring: the council patched the road, the vicar fenced off the field, and people kept walking a different route because it was easier than arguing with memory.
That’s usually where the real fiction lives. Not in the curse. In the maintenance.
That’s usually where the real fiction lives. Not in the curse. In the maintenance.
Local taboo gets romanticised very quickly, but half the time it’s just people making sense of a hazard with the tools they have. Superstition is cheaper than engineering.
That can be useful on the page, though. If everyone avoids the same lane, the reader starts asking what the community knows that the map doesn’t.
That can be useful on the page, though. If everyone avoids the same lane, the reader starts asking what the community knows that the map doesn’t.