Once viewed as only hooked-nosed hags riding broomsticks, cooking potions in big cauldrons and wearing pointy hats witches today are now very popular in fiction and in TV shows. I love witches and have always had a strange fascination for them since I was a child. So it was natural from me for witches to happen to be a strong element of my Excalibar Investigations Series.
Gone are the days when witches were betrayed as ugly old women eating little children. Today which is portrayed as beautiful, strong, powerful and independent women as shown in books such as The Hallows Series by Kim Harrison and on the TV Show Charmed.
Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison was one of the first books I read featuring witches and inspired me to write in the urban fantasy genre. The main character in my Excalibar Investigations Series is a witch called, Cate McCray and she’s a very strong, powerful and feisty witch. My witches range from kick ass heroines to really nasty bitches.
I did quite a bit of research into modern-day witchcraft to learn more about them and their beliefs.
Modern-day witchcraft is based on a religion called Wicca. It has nothing to do with worshipping the devil or black magic. Wicca the nature based religion and focuses on expanding one’s knowledge of nature. This isn’t intended as a hate post either!
Here are a few tips about writing about witches:
- Appearance. Witches can literally look like anyone you like. They don’t have to look like an old hag. If you look at the images on my book covers you’ll see that my main character, Cate, is young and very beautiful with long auburn hair and sapphire blue eyes. They can look as spectacular as you want with blue hair, etc always ordinary as you want.
- Name. Your witch can have any name you can think of from Piper in Charmed or Bellatrix in Harry Potter.
- Powers. Witches in fiction can have any kind of power imaginable from blowing things up, to reading people’s mind. The possibilities are endless!
- Magic. Most witches in fiction usually have some kind of magical ability whether it’s conjuring storms or turning people into frogs.
- Try to avoid cliches. Having witches ride around on broomsticks has been done to death but if you can give a new spin on this then I say go for it. Your witches can run around on broomsticks, boil potions in cauldrons or be completely different from the which stereotype. It’s up to you!
- Mix fantasy with real life. Try to mix some real life elements in with your fantasy to make your characters more relatable to your readers.
Have you ever written about witches in your stories?
