 Feminine power can be a terrifying thing to people who are scared of sharing their space in the world. Throughout history, non-conforming women, reluctant to practice a patriarchal religion, were considered witches. Many were hung for their crimes, whether or not they demonstrated any supernatural powers. Let me begin by saying: you don’t have to de-trope anything. If you’re a writer of witchy horror, or gothic horror, or historical fiction with a focus on witches and witchcraft, don’t change a thing if you’re happy. Write about what fascinates you, what lights that fire deep within your soul. I’m not here to convince you to cast your favorite witchy tropes into a fiery cauldron when planning your next witch-based horror novel. There’s a place for tropes, and we’ll see if they’re right for you. Genre, by definition, employs similar style and subject matter, so you might not, if you want to sell books, wish to part with formulaic tropes. I learned this the hard way from 2012-2018 during a time when I was going through a divorce and making it on my own as a mom of three. I turned to writing erotic romance to pay bills. I’d never written “steamy romance” before and had never even been a fan of romance (yikes, and I was writing for romance readers). But because I heard there was good money to be made, I dove in headfirst with the intention of learning. How hard could it be? I’d be writing about men and women falling in love (I could write that). They would have sex (I can write that). They have issues to overcome (I could definitely write that). At the end of the story, however, they overcome them. I studied the genre and long story short, ended up writing for bestselling romance authors, even writing a few of my own under a pen name. Once I got cocky, I started thinking of ways I could re-invent the genre, and first place I would start was by ditching the horrible alpha male. I didn’t care for the alpha male. I thought (judgingly) that women who loved this archetype were weak and anti-feminist, and therefore I sought to change him into a more relatable, fun-loving, intelligent, feminist beta male. A more modern steamy romance, yeah! I got crucified. How dare I try to change the well-loved alpha? Romance readers love their alphas. Don’t fuck with the alpha male. Don’t fuck with the formula. The whole point of the genre is that alpha males create a challenge for the heroines. They’re seen as sexy for wanting to protect the women. They’re actually quite loving in their own way when you get to know them. Most of their assholic behavior is a defense mechanism for past pain anyway. And they usually end up being more feminist than you think. I had to swallow a pill and shut the fuck up. I went back to writing alpha males. It’s what the readers wanted, and I was NOBODY to try and change that. Now, let’s look at witchy lit. There are tropes here, too, and one popular piece of advice for writers is to stay away from cliché. While this sounds good in theory, you have to ask yourself this question: Who am I writing for? Myself and others like me? Or a wider audience? If you answered “myself and others like me,” then write whatever your heart desires. Write that bizarre, half sci-fi, half romance, 4-person POV, alternating 1st-person and 3rd person omniscient narrative, anti-formulaic autofiction story about a monster who isn’t a monster. But if you’re writing for a wide, mainstream audience, don’t forget what happened to me when I tried to get rid of the alpha male in a genre that is about…the alpha male. Switch the landscape to witchy lit. Giving readers what they want here means writing stories about Salem descendants, non-human women who hold supernatural powers, and odd-behaving or looking outsiders who live on the fringe and are not accepted by society. This is what the people want, and as a writer, you’re a representative, an ambassador of story. So write All the Witchy Things. However, if you’re like me at this point in my 20-year career, you want balance. On one hand, I want to be true to myself, be unique, and offer new ideas in the genre, but I also want to make money from my books by giving a mainstream, commercial audience what they want. This means I’ll have to reconcile my own vision of what witchy horror novels should be vs. what pleases other readers. I’ve read a lot of witchy literature, since witchcraft is of interest to me and because I’m a practicing witch, but in finding my own voice, I had to decide whether or not to include the most common tropes. I can’t tell you what to do, and I can’t tell you what’s write. I can only tell you what each trope means to me and whether or not I use it in my stories: Witchcraft as Symbol of Feminine Power: Feminine power can be a terrifying thing to people who are scared of sharing their space in the world. Throughout history, non-conforming women, reluctant to practice a patriarchal religion, were considered witches. Many were hung for their crimes, whether or not they demonstrated any supernatural powers. Just the act of thinking for oneself was enough cause to be demonized. Men who thought for themselves were considered visionaries with heroic qualities, whereas women who thought for themselves were portrayed and treated as evil. It’s a tale as old as time, but does it belong in modern witchy lit? Yes. The idea of a person harboring a hidden power deep inside their soul, one that’s squelched and yearning to be free, that can change the world for the better, is at the heart of any witchy literature. It’s the story of the oppressed, the browbeaten quiet ones asked to remain quiet, anyone wishing to be free in any storytelling form that may take. Feminine power is about manifestation, bringing goals to life and fruition, and that is a power capable of changing the world. And who rules the world? Men. Feminine power is a threat. But do witches need to be women? No. The world is full of masculine power and feminine power and neither has anything to do with gender. It’s about energy. Anyone accessing their inner strengths to enact a change in their environment, whether a positive or a negative one, can identify as a witch. In my book, MOON CHILD, I write about male witches, female witches, nonbinary witches, and witches from all sorts of cultural backgrounds. One only needs to be an underdog who learns to harness energy to be a witch. Witchcraft as Girl Power: It’s 2021, and even now, I keep hearing how little girls should hear that they can do anything in this male-dominated world. I don’t disagree. They do. But it’s not new. I will be 50 years old this year, and since the 1970s, I have been hearing this empowering axiom. As a 4th and 5th grade teacher during my twenties and thirties, every little girl I ever had the pleasure of meeting knew this. We’ve all grown up knowing we can be anything they want. We are not children of the 50s when women were housewives and little more. Today’s young women DO see their mothers in positions of power. Maybe not perfectly equal, but we’re getting there. Madame Vice-President, anyone? So, I think we need to move our focus from telling little girls that they can be anything they want to telling queer children, gay children, Black children, Jewish children, Hispanic children, children with ADHD, children with disabilities, and so on that THEY can be anything. But more than that, show them HOW. Modern stories about witchcraft need to elucidate to young readers just how a witch finds her/his/their power, where to find it, how to access it, and when to use it in a complicated world on the cusp of dismantling its old ways. Witches as Descendants of Salem and/or Celtic by Culture: The persecution of women in Anglo-Saxon England and the New World during Puritan times is an unfortunate chapter in history, but because we’ve heard it so many times, witches are often portrayed as Celtic or Germanic in culture. Many books also feature protagonists who are direct descendants of Salem witches. Nothing wrong with that, but the truth is, witches come from anywhere. Every culture has its medicine women, its midwives, its spiritual healers who don’t follow conventional methods or ideologies. In MOON CHILD, my character Valentina encounters white Celtic witches, Seminole witches, male witches, Black Haitian witches, non-binary queer witches, and she herself is a Latina witch from Cuban and European ancestry. We are everywhere, so this is one trope I probably won’t be using anytime soon. Since we’re here, not every witch protagonist needs to be descended from a long line of other witches. And while we’re also here, not every witch protagonist needs to be a single woman too strong and too feminist to be in a romantic relationship. Danger from Meddling in Magic: I read lots of stories where the witch protagonist is warned not to use her magick, for if she does, she is sure to have it backfire on her, thereby bringing mayhem and disarray to the world. Look, magick is symbolic of feminine power, so this comes from the days of little girls being told to shush. Don’t have ideas. Don’t read. Don’t think. Don’t contribute. Just have babies, the most powerful instinct for furthering the human race. I thought long and hard about this when writing MOON CHILD. On one hand, I wanted Valentina to fear using her magick, because she was told all her life not to use it. As Valentina grows, however, she realizes the real danger and horror of the story, comes not from the magick, but from her deep well of suppressed pain and anger. Magick, in my story, is just a vehicle for accessing her hidden rage. Witches as Wiccan/Pagan: Let’s get something straight—a witch is someone who practices witchcraft, the manipulation of energy for a desired end result. There’s nothing religious about it. If anything, witches are anti-religious by definition. They go against the grain, remember? So yes, you can be Wiccan and practice witchcraft, but you can also be Christian and practice witchcraft. How’s that for overthrowing stereotypes? In fact, most Christians do without realizing it. Anointing a newborn with holy water is a ritual to symbolize the washing away of sin. Anointing a person with oil is a ritual to symbolize consecration. I know I don’t need to tell you that bringing an evergreen Christmas tree into the house is itself a pagan ritual of Yule, symbolizing that the warmth of the sun and springtime will one day come again. Since we’re talking about religion and witchcraft, many witches in literature and media are portrayed as being in cahoots with the Devil, but most witches (except for the Christian ones I mentioned) do not believe in Judeo-Christian deities, therefore they don’t believe in Satan either. In other words, witches may or may not be religious, and they may or may not believe in God or Satan, so no, they don’t have to be pagan. Witches as Having a Magickal Toolkit: Not all witches have a Book of Shadows or grimoire, and not all literature witches are protecting an old volume of family recipes handed down over generations. It’s a lovely trope, and I love stories involving strong familial ties, but I don’t think all witches need this, as not all witches are descended from a long line of powerful women. Some are just discovering their powers now. Some are looking to separate themselves from their familial ties. Some are the first of their generation. And almost all modern witches know that magick doesn’t come from herbs, crystals, Tarot cards, pendulums, smudge sticks, or grimoires—it comes from intention. Your brain is the most powerful tool you’ll need to manifest a result, and everything else in your toolkit are just tools. Witches as Not Fitting In: Most stories about witches describe a lonely woman who lives alone in the fringe, in a forest, in a lonely shack by the sea, frowned upon by society, and while this is central to the idea of being different, it’s been done. And done so well, I don’t feel the need to compete against those tales. In my stories, the central characters are a little odd, yes, but they function in society. If anything, they’re realizing they don’t belong, don’t want to be in society the way it currently exists. They want change. They normalize feminine power, the access of intuition, and the practice of witchcraft. Ask any astrologer, and they’ll tell you we are entering (if not there already) the Age of Aquarius where kindness, compassion, and sensitivity are becoming the norm. Empathy rules. Caring for others rules. The old establishment of aggressive masculine power is over. Witchcraft is becoming normalized. All you have to do is look at the rise of witchy fiction on the shelves, check out the plethora of witchcraft accounts on Instagram, listen to more and more teen witches talking about energy, meditation, salves to heal any number of ailments, and getting in tune with their herb gardens to know we have turned a page. So, while some readers will always love the same-old witchy tropes, I try to re-examine them, modernize them. I don’t write about Salem witches, because that’s been done so beautifully by others. Plus, my stories are in the “new adult” category where modern protagonists aged 18-21 navigate an ever-changing and complicated world, where they carve out their own spaces to fit, and demonstrate how becoming a witch and becoming the human they wish to be are synonymous with each other. It’s about finding that hidden truth inside of you. My stories are about gifted young people deciding the kind of society they want to live in and doing the necessary landscaping to reshape their world. This is less about “de-troping” than it is about re-imagining, which is exactly where I want to be.  The Craft meets The Shining in this slow-burn Florida gothic horror. 18-year-old Cuban-American Valentina Callejas was raised to do what her Catholic grandparents say to do. But Valentina feels a different pull--an affinity with nature, a desire to read tarot cards and study the occult. After ditching her church retreat, Valentina flees home and ends up five hours away at Macy’s house, a half-sister she’s never met until now.When a mysterious wolf leads Valentina to the abandoned Sunlake Springs Resort, she meets the “clairs,” young psychics drawn to the hotel’s haunted history. They’ve been waiting for her, they say, to open a magical entryway to the spirit world. But Valentina’s sensitive hands tell a different story--of anguished spirits, menacing cracks, and hooded ghosts of Florida’s hateful past. Even a local legend, the beautiful “Lady of the Lake,” hints to the hotel’s sinister history. To protect the clairs from the horrors awaiting them on the other side, Valentina must use her growing powers and decide, once and for all, if she’s the witch she was always meant to be.  GABY TRIANA is the bestselling author of 17 novels for teens and adults, including the Haunted Florida series (Island of Bones, River of Ghosts, City of Spells), Wake the Hollow, Cakespell, Summer of Yesterday (a tribute novel to Walt Disney World's River Country), and Paradise Island: A Sam and Colby Story. She's a short story contributor in Don't Turn Out the Lights: A Tribute Anthology to Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a flash fiction contributor in Weird Tales Magazine, and the host of a horror-based YouTube channel called The Witch Haunt. Published with HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Permuted Press, & Entangled, Gaby writes about witchy powers, ghosts, haunted places, and abandoned locations and has ghostwritten over 50 novels for bestselling authors. Her books have won IRA Teen Choice, ALA Best Paperback, and Hispanic Magazine's Good Reads Awards. She lives in Miami with her family and is at work on her next novel. Visit her at www.GabyTriana.com FB: @GabyTriana.author Twitter: @GabyTriana IG: @GabyTriana YT: The Witch Haunt   Comments are closed.
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