560 – The Questionably Supernatural
Description
What’s that strange sound overhead? Is it a magical creature landing on the roof or just a common crow? If your book is shelved in the fantasy section, it had better be a magical creature! But that doesn’t mean you can’t tease your readers a little, makin’ ‘em sweat, wondering if they’ll get the sweet supernatural content they crave. To what I’m sure is your great surprise, we’ve got some tips for that!
Transcript
Generously transcribed by Maddie. Volunteer to transcribe a podcast.
Chris: You are listening to the Mythcreant Podcast. With your hosts, Oren Ashkenazi and Chris Winkle. [Intro Music]
Chris: Welcome to the Mythcreant Podcast. I’m Chris.
Oren: And I’m Oren.
Chris: Hey, did you… did you hear that? I think my mic is picking up these weird sounds that I can’t hear myself, but when I listen to the recordings from the microphone, it’s like quiet, inaudible voices whispering… with faint notes of a song I haven’t heard since childhood. It’s probably the neighbors.
Oren: Don’t be silly, Chris. Despite having encountered supernatural things many dozens of times, I am going to be skeptical of this one.
Chris: Hmm. When will you acknowledge the truth before your eyes, Scully?!
Oren: Scully’s very cool. I would like to be 5% as cool as Scully, and if this will get me there, I’m willing to do whatever it takes.
Chris: So this time we’re talking about the questionably supernatural.
Oren: Is it supernatural?
Chris: Is it magic? Is it not magic?
Oren: So here’s my hot take. It better be.
Chris, Oren: [Laugh]
Chris: No. How could you diss Ann Radcliffe that way? Disrespect.
Oren: Ann Radcliffe and me, we got beef. My beef is that supernatural was fake and not real. I’m like the people who get real hung up on the idea that romance has to have a happy ever after. As far as I’m concerned, if you hint that there’s supernatural stuff, there had better be supernatural stuff.
Chris: Say, that is true, if you are writing speculative fiction, there should be some things fantastical. But I still think we might need to acknowledge that there are works outside of speculative fiction in which that might go down a little better.
Oren: Hmm. Agree to disagree, except that I don’t agree. Hmm.
Chris, Oren: [Laugh]
Oren: I think that it’s fine if you do that as long as it is a book that is never going to be read by me.
Chris: [Laughs] Well–
Oren: That’s my stance.
Chris: I don’t think you’re gonna pick up the average non-speculative mysteries. So I think we’re…
Oren: Oh they’re safe then, or are they?
Chris: It is really funny to read some non-speculative works and see how they use speculative elements as dress up.
Oren: Mm-hmm.
Chris: “Oh, see, I can add novelty to my word craft by using metaphors of this being a fairytale or treating this element as though it’s supernatural. But of course, we all know thats ridiculous.”
Oren: “Obviously.” [Chuckles]
Chris: That’s how those stories go and it’s always weird. I critiqued a mystery story that, apparently it does have some level of supernatural elements in it, but I could not tell because it kept using metaphors. Okay, I know he’s metaphorically breathing fire because he’s angry, but could he literally breathe fire, please? That would be so much more interesting. [Chuckles]
Oren: That would be neat. Who knows? Maybe.
Chris: I know this house only sort of looks like a cyclops because of the windows, but what if it actually was a cyclops? That would be better. With the speculative audience, you definitely don’t wanna taunt them with something that is fantastical only to, “Uh, sorry.” In the same way, you don’t be like, “Well now that those kids grew up and are adults, the magic goes away. ‘Cause they gotta act like adults now.” Nobody wants that. Don’t take the magic away. Don’t do it.
Oren: The most popular trope that everyone hates. The weirdest concept. I suppose someone must like it, but everyone I talk to hates that trope and it’s always funny to me how common it used to be.
Chris: How could you do that to Kiki? How could you do that to her?
Oren: [Chuckles]
Chris: I definitely feel like it comes from this outlook of, “Oh, well that’s not realistic. Of course, we gotta grow up so naturally the magic has to go away,” instead of thinking about what’s actually enjoyable for readers.
Oren: Also, we were talking about Mary and the Witch’s Flower that does that. Not Kiki’s Delivery Service?
Chris: Doesn’t Kiki’s Delivery Service also do that? She grows up.
Oren: I thought Kiki’s Delivery Service ended with a different weird ending, which was that her search was to find her element and then the ending is that her element is flying.
Chris: Maybe I’m getting that mixed up.
Oren: Which was also unsatisfying because every witch can fly and it didn’t really establish that she was especially good at flying.
Chris: [Laughs]
Oren: I felt like that didn’t work either, but I think that’s a different ending than Mary and the Witch’s Flower where the character excitedly yells, “I’ll never use magic again!” It’s like, what? Why Mary? Why? Magic rules.
Chris: I know that there’s a story other than Mary and the Witch’s Flower, but Mary and the Witch’s Flower is particularly funny because apparently the storyteller’s goal was to condemn magic, but it makes magic so cool that you would barely know that. If you look closely at the plot, you can see where the storyteller was attempting to do that. In any magic story where magic is cool, you would have villains doing something bad with magic. That’s just normal. That doesn’t seem like you’re condemning magic.
Oren: You were just showing me villains doing bad things and they were magical. That’s all that was happening.
Chris: [Chuckles] Any case, back to the questionably supernatural. So why do it? Why have things that maybe or maybe are not magical, supernatural, fantastical in some way?
Oren: Other than enraging me personally.
Chris: [Laughs] Well, just having something mysterious is not gonna do it. It’s just the ending. Obviously creating a mysterious atmosphere, if you don’t know whether or not something is fantastical or if it’s normal, that opens up kind of a mystery, creates lots of atmosphere, which is a big reason to do it.
Oren: Mystery enhances a number of other traits. If the magic is mysterious and you want it to be scary, that’s much easier than if it’s well known. And if you want it to be wondrous, that’s also easy. If you don’t know for sure if it’s magic or not, you can create this feeling that there might be magic anywhere around any corner, which is very cool, even if there’s very little actual magic in your story.
Chris: I also think that it might be useful for slowing down the action in the story. I think this is good for horror in particular because we
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