"Adding Magic to Your Writing"

By Sally O’Reilly

Writing about magic means you can access the areas of your mind that you don’t normally use, freeing up imaginative ideas. But it only works if you impose constraints, and you need to decide how these are integrated into your story. 

Magic is multifaceted. In historical terms, high magic was practiced by scholars, and was often based on ancient texts and arcane knowledge. Whereas folk magic – including herbalism and fortune telling - was practised by women.

There are many ways of introducing magic into your story. You might create an entirely invented world, with its own rules, like Middle Earth or Earthsea. This is magic as fantasy. Related to this is the convention of a portal which leads to an invented world from this one.

Or you might make magic integral to the everyday world. For instance Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle is set in a world similar to late-twentieth-century America, but which encompasses witchcraft. A similar approach is to use surreal magic in a narrative, in which everything is "off" and weirdness is normal. An example is Leonora Carrington’s "The Debutante," a short story in which a debutante morphs into a hyena.  

Currently, there is a vogue for retelling folk and fairy tales and giving them contemporary resonance. Angela Carter is one of the most influential writers in this field. Dark folk traditions are also inspiring stories in which nature is sentient or sinister, and the past haunts the present through the landscape. 

So what are the tactics that you might use? Spreading your net as wide as possible at the start is essential. It’s important to read /watch / absorb anything that interests you and has magical resonance. For instance, I just saw Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, in which a man plays chess with Death, a haunting, unforgettable image.  

You might also visit potentially inspiring places, again, keeping an open mind. Go to old cities, museums, remote places in nature. Writers like Alan Garner and C.S. Lewis were deeply inspired by the natural world. 

Another tactic is to try to rediscover your childish belief in the possibility of magic. Try writing down everything you can remember about a time in your childhood when you were scared, or left alone, or lost. Write down as much as you can about your feelings then, and try to recall as much detail as possible. Magic works best in fiction when it is interwoven with the everyday – think of Harry Potter and the Dursleys. 

Familiarise yourself with folk tales and myths. Grimms’ Fairy Tales is a good place to start, but there are fairy tales and fables from all over the world, varied and colourful, often with similar themes and tropes. Old stories can be repurposed time and time again. 

Using magic in a story means embedding it into the narrative. So the rules that apply to story-telling generally apply here. Traditionally, stories are about characters who want or lack something, who seek a goal, are blocked or challenged in getting to that goal, and who eventually change, and if the story has a happy ending, get what it was they wanted, or something different but slightly better. 

Don’t let the magic in your story solve all the problems your characters face. If you want your story to be engaging, then you need to limit the access your characters have to magical power. Otherwise, everything is too easy, there are no challenges, and therefore no conflict.

Make the rules of your fictional world clear to the reader from the beginning. Be consistent once you have established those rules. If the magic is treated as a skill that must be learned, the stakes are higher. Create barriers and challenges. Impose limitations and rules – for example – a spell can only be cast in specific circumstances. 

Your characters must earn their rewards. Their achievements will only feel satisfying to the reader if the characters had to work for it. 

All writers are dealing with magic to an extent – it’s a proxy for pure imagination. If you can make your readers believe in the magic in your story, you can make them believe that all the events are real. 

About the author
Writer Sally O’Reilly grew up in Stoke-on-Trent and now lives in Sheffield. En route, she’s spent time in Brixton, Brighton, and Barcelona. Her short stories have been published in the UK, Australia, and South Africa, and she has been shortlisted for the Cosmopolitan short story prize and the Ian St James Awards. Her historical novel Dark Aemilia (Myriad Editions/Picador US) was nominated for the Kirkus Prize. She has worked as a senior Creative Writing lecturer at the Open University and her journalism has been published in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, and New Scientist. Her latest novel, Hagtale, is a reimagined origin story of Shakespeare's Macbeth and is shortlisted for the World of Books Sustainable Story Award 2026.

About Hagtale
A hagtale, a dark fable, a story told around winter’s fires and known to Shakespeare but never written down. Until now.

In eleventh-century Scotland, feral wolf-child Wulva is brought up by witches and then sent to live at a Scottish castle, where she falls under the spell of cruel, ambitious Lord Macbeth.

Three hundred years later, gentle Brother Rowan goes on a strange and perilous journey to a remote and ancient monastery to write a history of the Scottish king-line.

Misfits in their own time, seekers after truth, Wulva and Rowan are deeply connected despite the centuries that separate them.

Hagtale explores the power of stories lost and found, their transformative potential, and who gets to be the owner of the tale.

You can read more about Hagtale on the publisher's website here. 

Katie Daniels, "Stone"

 

Katie Daniels lives in Leicestershire and writes poetry and prose.  Her debut poetry collection, Catch, was published by Redbeck Press in 2007 and a pamphlet, The Geometry of Distance, by Mantle Community Arts in 2012. Her poems have appeared in publications including Magma, Iota, Obsessed with Pipework, and Other Poetry. Katie received an Arts Council grant for writing time in 2012, and another as part of the former Inky Fish poetry collective for their reading tour in 2006-07. Katie is self-employed and works as a charity governance professional. She plays a lot of Countdown, and is terrified of giraffes. 

Below, you can read Katie's poem "Stone." The poem has previously been published in Other Poetry and is taken from a projected full collection called Feathers in my Palm.

Stone

Moment of impact: stone/bone.
You're swaying slightly, then moving on,
walking the old road, hotheaded
 
where stone has broken you,
the back of your school shirt turning redbrown.
You’re fluid, offbeat, draining away,
 
thinking in stone’s subsurface glint -
some new cold language planting flags. 
This passive victory leaves you sure
 
that only stone could be this soft and wild:
slithering down to your new shoes,
smoothly embracing the furrows of your skull.

Robin Vaughan-Williams, "What Data Saw"

Robin Vaughan-Williams is a poet and producer based in London. His previous publications are The Manager (Happenstance Press) and How to Fix a Human (Sampson Low), and poems have appeared in magazines such as Acumen, Under the Radar, Long Poem Magazine, Dream Catcher, and Anthropocene. He did a PhD on the Bakhtin Circle which fuelled an ongoing interest in the voice as material, from open mics and performance-collage events to his practice in collaborative poetry improvisation. His work was highly commended for the Erbacce Prize 2026, and he has hosted live literature series in Sheffield, Nottingham, and Oxfordshire. His website is here. You can find him on Bluesky/Instagram @robinrvw.

About What Data Saw, by Robin Vaughan-Williams

In Robin Vaughan-Williams’s latest collection, Data is reimagined as a mythological being in the process of becoming. Unsure yet who or what she is, or the extent of her powers, Data attempts to blend in, understand, and communicate in a human world where she both does and does not belong. 

She appears on Secret Millionnaire, becomes the target of protest movements, witnesses human-on-human violence, and is used by people for their own ends. She needs to feed; but if everything is text, where can she find her mouth?

You can read more about What Data Saw on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From What Data Saw

Data engulfs her mother

When Data yelled it made her mother go deaf in one ear.
When Data laughed a pod of dolphins dived for fish.
When Data gurgled cats patrolled the enclosure that kept her safe.
When Data opened her mouth there were already words waiting to fall from her breath.
When Data sucked at the breast it was hard.
She charged up on two teats thick with serum.
Her exhalations were sweet with electrolytes.

When Data was weaned she engulfed her mother.
She took her to a quiet place and lay there undisturbed for 9 months.
The mother-shape dissolved in her belly.
It became a fly.
It became a drinks dispenser.
It dropped cans into foxholes
that exploded when shook.
It pinpointed movement in the snow.
It entropied warm bodies.
The mother became the probability of an event.
A collision on a screen.
And Data moved through her mother in violent ways. 

Data: in a field

it is as if she is not there nowhere is Data
only data the stuff of her dreams things
she is made of always 'of' something
content but not contentment the feeling
of emptiness good at camouflage
and transcendental meditation stirring
the sugarcube into the universe to sweeten
the brew losing herself in an acid dance
in a field when the cows come home
she's still not there having it like a lost raver

Diana Janney, "The Zen Violinist"

 

Diana Janney is the author of the novels A Man of Understanding, the Runner-up in The People’s Book Prize, of which Frederick Forsyth was the Patron Emeritus, The Choice, and The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, which has been translated into many languages, produced as an audiobook by the BBC, and the film rights were sold. Formerly, Diana practised as a barrister in London after having qualified as a solicitor at a leading City of London international law firm. She gained two degrees in Philosophy at University College, London, where she received a First for her Master’s thesis on Kant and Hume, and three scholarships. Diana has received much acclaim for her writing, which combines her philosophical knowledge with her highly popular poetry and keen observation of human nature. Her new novel The Zen Violinist has already been described by Mark Williams, co-author of the worldwide bestselling book Mindfulness, as a masterpiece. It is published by Cogito on 1st October 2026. You can find out more about Diana’s writing on her website here.

About The Zen Violinist
Suki Koyama, a talented English violinist, grew up in Japan from the age of four. When she returns as an adult to London, her birthplace, to pursue a musical career, she takes with her many influences from her years in Japan – the violin, created by her luthier stepfather, classical music, poetry, writing, Zen. The two she values most are her violin playing and Zen nature, but on the brink of achieving her dream of success as a twenty-five-year-old soloist tragedy strikes and Suki fears she is losing both. A deepening relationship with enigmatic Rex Curtis intensifies her fear that her true nature is disappearing. How will Suki respond?

Suki tells her moving story in lyrical prose, like a concerto in three movements, to compose a thought-provoking, original reflection on a life guided by music and Zen practice. The story resounds with the beauty of a work of art, the wisdom of Zen, and the complexities of love.

You can read more about The Zen Violinist on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel. 

From The Zen Violinist

finding suki

A violin who does not play soon loses her voice.
 
Each note played on her strings adds to her tone. Her quality is created by her player. Her player’s quality is created by her. When they play together, there is no separation. They are one. But they are also two.

There is a saying in Zen Buddhism: not one, not two.

Let me explain the best way I can, in Suki’s way.

When I play my violin, the violin and I are not two but one. Suki loses herself to the instrument as they create music together. There is no duality, no Suki and her violin – not two. Suki finds freedom, enlightenment through this experience in which there is a sense of no space and no time. 

Then the violin returns to her state of rest and Suki returns from her experience of enlightenment to a state of seeing the duality of Suki and violin as she saw it originally. That is, not one. 

Yet now when she sees the violin, it is with these new enlightened eyes. Not one, not two, but a third perspective. 
 
In a violin concerto, we often find themes in a first movement that repeat in a third final movement. They are the same themes, but they are different. They are now seen from a new perspective through the experience of the first and second movements. This experience gives the finale its altered, third perspective, even though the themes are like those at the beginning. In the end is the beginning, in the beginning is the end. Not one, not two, but a third perspective.
   

          but I forgot this. 
          concerto played without me.
          suki remembered. 

But this is not only about my violin and me. It is about something more. 

Tim Relf, "Not Even October"

 

Tim Relf, photo by MadMann photography

Tim Relf is a Leicestershire-based poet, novelist and journalist. His debut poetry collection, Not Even October, is out soon with Salt Publishing. His poems have been published in most of the UK’s leading poetry journals, including Poetry London, The Rialto, Stand, Under The Radar, Poetry Wales, The Dark Horse, Acumen, Banshee and Bad Lilies. He is a former poet-in-residence at Leicester Botanic Garden. His most recent novel, published by Penguin, was translated into more than 20 languages and turned into an audiobook starring Emilia Clarke and Charles Dance. You can find out more about his writing on his website here.  

About Not Even October, by Tim Relf
Not Even October is a collection about the easy-to-miss moments that shape lives. Moments in hotel rooms, petrol stations, cafes and vets. In suburban gardens and city parks. In small-town streets and country lanes. Evoking love lost and found, nights of excess, threads of friendship, the rip of grief and the flickering, beautiful absurdities of life in a digital, distracted age, the poems trace how we make sense of memory, mortality, place and home. Not Even October vaults from humour to heartache – then back again – in a breath, attuned both to the anxiety-inducing barrage of turbulent times and the calming comforts offered by the natural world. In this tender, relatable debut, Relf navigates contemporary Britain, finding everyday magic in everyday places, while asking readers: How do we hold on to what matters – and let go of what doesn’t?

You can read more about Not Even October on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read a sample poem from the collection. 

From Not Even October

Windfall

It was going to be about how, if you sit in an orchard

in September, it surrounds you:

falling.

It was going to be about the soft drop of decades as you rest

between Ribston Pippins. But now I see – hear –

this poem isn’t about that, after all.

It’s about waiting for the word

for the sound apples make

landing:

the exact right word for the noise they make

as they hit the ground.

Anne Charnock, "Alston Moor"

Anne Charnock studied Environment Science and Fine Art, and her latest novel, Alston Moor, is a work of eco-fiction. She won the Arthur C. Clark Award 2018 for Dreams Before the Start of Time, and the British Science Fiction Association Award 2017 for her novella, The Enclave. Her debut novel, A Calculated Life, was a finalist for the 2013 Philip K. Dick Award and the 2013 Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award. Anne’s writing career began in science journalism, and her articles appeared in The Guardian, New Scientist, International Herald Tribune among others. Lancaster University recently awarded her an honorary DLitt for her novels "on key topics including near-future environmental collapse."

About Alston Moor, by Anne Charnock
In an epic novel set on the North Pennine Moors, Elizabeth has abandoned avalanche science to restore desolate peatlands. She treks in the footsteps of Isabel who, five centuries earlier, herds her cattle to remote summering grounds. 

Both are reeling from the overwhelming crises of their day. In 1548, Isabel and her father, together with the priest in this poorest of parishes, grapple with the chaos of the Protestant Reformation. Today, a grieving Elizabeth fights to save an invaluable ecosystem, one that is threatened by wilful fire-raising and arson.

The entwined stories are told through multiple voices creating a rich portrait of England’s most remote landscape. At its heart, this deeply moving novel interrogates how society confronts crisis whether through science, faith or superstition.

You can read more about Alston Moor on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel. 

From Alston Moor

Christopher - May 2022

He scans across the moor, unsure exactly where they found the ruin. It stands a few stones high, he recalls, and he’ll know it when he sees it. From the ruin, they saw a single tree, so he heads towards the only one that’s visible from the path. And he smiles as he remembers that Abi could not believe a tree could survive out here through winter, seeing how blustery it felt even in May. If she were that tree, she said, she would pick up her roots and let the wind blow her somewhere warmer. 

He stumbles across the ruin, which squats in a slight hollow on the hillside, a few minutes scramble from the track. Clumps of reeds, which he does not remember from before, partly obscure what remains of the walls. Only now does he question what the hell he is doing here. Why come back? He hates himself for staying so angry. 

Isabel – May1548

Isabel knows the moment that changed her. Not the moment when she sat with a basket holding eight perfect eggs laid by their eight ordinary hens, when it dawned on her: these hens do the work and we take the profit. No, the moment that changed her occurred three years past at the Michaelmas fair in Hexham – the one time she travelled so far with her father. She stood before a stall selling cheeses. She stood transfixed by the sight of a single exotic fruit, an orange, on display – not for sale, mind. In that moment she gleaned that a world existed beyond these northern moors and valleys. A world where such a thing, this extraordinary orange, grows on trees or bushes or springs from the soil like cabbages, she knew not how. But she grasped that a place exists in the world where oranges are as ordinary as eggs.

Elizabeth – August 2022

When she switched her research from the Alps to working in peat bogs in the Pennines, she instantly drew looks of disappointment, bemusement, even from her sister. After the switch, Elizabeth received fewer invites to dinner. She supposed that her traveller’s tales became less riveting. No more derring-do. However, in some ways, Elizabeth feels that peat bogs suit her better, not so much in terms of the day-to-day research or the inherent dangers, but in terms of her as a person. She is introspective by nature – she accepts that – and she looks back on her days in the Alps as though she were accidentally caught up in a role bigger than her personality. In the movies, they would describe her as ‘cast against type’ as an avalanche scientist. Now she comes to think about it, her son is similarly cast against type. He is outgoing, extrovert, more like his father, and yet he works in insurance.

Mati Shemoelof, "Bagdad | Haifa | Berlin"

Mati Shemoelef, photo by Ali Ghandtschi

Mati Shemoelof is a Berlin-based writer, poet, curator and creative writing educator, originally from Haifa, Israel. He has published sixteen books of poetry, fiction, essays and drama in Israel and Germany, and his work moves between Hebrew, German, Arabic and English.

He is the co-founder of ANU – Jews and Arabs Writing in Berlin and the initiator of the Poetic Hafla, a literary and cultural series that brought together Hebrew, Arabic and German-speaking writers and artists in Berlin. He has also worked as a curator and editor and teaches Creative Writing in English, German and Hebrew.

His books published in Germany include the poetry collection Bagdad | Haifa | Berlin (AphorismA Verlag, 2019), Das kleine Boot in meiner Hand nenn ich Narbe (Parasitenpresse, 2023), and the novel Der Preis (PalmArtPress, 2025). His latest book, Fünfzehn Narben: Jüdisch-arabische Texte zu Politik und Poesie, a collection of essays and political and poetic texts, will be published by AphorismA Verlag in 2026. His first book written originally in German, Jiddische Sounds, Deutsche Wörter, will be published by Elif Verlag in 2027.

 

About Bagdad | Haifa | Berlin, by Mati Shemoelof, translated from Hebrew into German by Jan Kühne, Arabic translation by Nael Eltoukhy, Afterword by Jan Kühne

Bagdad | Haifa | Berlin brings together 40 poems from Mati Shemoelof’s Hebrew poetry books and presents them for the first time in German translation. The bilingual edition places the original Hebrew poems alongside Jan Kühne’s German translations, creating a dialogue between the language in which the poems were written and the language of Shemoelof’s new life in Berlin.

The three cities in the title mark three connected but very different worlds: Bagdad, the city from which Shemoelof’s Iraqi-Jewish family came; Haifa, where he was born and grew up; and Berlin, where he has lived since 2013 as a Hebrew-language writer.

The book brings these places together through questions of migration, memory, Mizrahi and Arab-Jewish identity, Jewish history, belonging and language. The poems move between family memories and contemporary political realities, between Israel and Germany, and between the experience of home and the experience of being a stranger.

Rather than presenting identity as something fixed, Bagdad | Haifa | Berlin shows it as something formed through movement. The three cities are not simply geographical locations. They become different layers of memory and belonging, carried by the poet from one language and country into another.

You can read more about Bagdad | Haifa | Berlin on the author's website here. Below, you can read two sample poems from the collection. 

From Bagdad | Haifa | Berlin