Building a Magic System on Local Mythology

Call this a first-world problem, but many people in the United States don't have a great sense of belonging due to their immigrant status. I'm talking generations later, we still don't know our roots, we don't feel like we belong anywhere, and this presents a challenge for storytelling: how do we know which mythology "belongs" to us? How do we avoid appropriation of native cultures?

Avoiding Appropriation in Mythology

Well here's a rule to start: if your story exploits someone else's culture, art, fashion, beliefs, or cultural wisdom for you to make money or gain status off of it while leaving them behind, you're appropriating. There are better definitions out there, but this is an important distinction for storytellers.

An example: I wrote my second novel under my real name Laura K. Cowan, Music of Sacred Lakes, about a white kid from northern Michigan who felt his life was falling apart due to a sense of not belonging anywhere after a girl he killed in a car accident started haunting him through Lake Michigan. The story had to dive into Native American spirituality to some extent, because I couldn't not give credit to where I found the wisdom that helped me through a similar crisis. So, the best friend becomes the Ojibwe boy with a pipe carrier/medicine man uncle who help this boy through a mental health crisis while he generally makes a mess falling in love with two girls at the same time (one from the summer people tourist bunch, one local girl next door). How would you handle this topic? I chose to write the book rather than avoid the risk of appropriation, and even went so far as to try to meet some members of the local tribe I was writing about in fiction to learn the language and make sure I was respecting their traditions. To be honest, I never knew how appropriate this really was, as I wasn't close enough to get audience with the pipe carrier of the tribe but was able to connect with one of the elders who loved that I was learning the language and local ecology to understand what I was writing about. I hope I did the subject the honor it deserves.

Mixing Mythology with Magic in Fiction

Fast-forward to last year, and I was launching the first Murder of Crows books in the Michigandia fantasy series, Reverse All Tides. This fantasy/romantasy series is more like urban fantasy than the previous novel's magical realism flavor. I have been working for years to figure out how to blend local mythology with modern fantasy and fairytale like paranormal stories for a deep dive into the subconscious and consciousness in nature that was supposed to be more fun. It was a tall task, goodness knows why I do this to myself.

My first question: Does this mythology belong to me?

Answer: I actually took a DNA test to figure out what cultures I did belong to, and was super surprised to find Finnish and Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian or Estonian) instead of German alongside a lot of English/Scotch-Irish ancestry, including Bretonic English which connects me to... guess what? Druids and nature magic, animistic shamanic nature-based spirituality, which is what I was attracted to this whole time.

Second question: How can I blend mythology from a region like Michigan (dogman, the Paulding Lights, haunted house legends, the legend of Sleeping Bear Dunes etc.) with modern fantasy and keep it from being a fight over spirituality?

Answer: I got tired last time around from all the nastiness and conflict surrounding writing about spirituality, and realized it was really about bringing readers along with me for the journey of finding connection with consciousness in the natural world and not really about how people get there or what they believe. Mythology seemed a better way to do this than spiritual belief systems.

Third question: How do I not make a mess?

Answer: I am always making a mess, and imposter syndrome is real, especially among Americans with displaced or shameful roots (my ancestors took Native land in northern Michigan after the western territories opened up in 1855, though they gifted it back as a nature preserve decades later except the family farmhouse). This is a topic we all have to sort through. I highly recommend if you're dealing with this issue personally or professionally that you actually do learn your own roots and figure out why certain traditions are important to you. Follow your values, and you can't go too far wrong.

Now I'm publishing the second book of the Murder of Crows series, White Hurrican, which follows two new main characters from parallel versions of Earth where the life force of nature, people and animals is being stripped away to feed the ego of a maniacal nature spirit guide from another dimension. It's a trip and a half, but I realized after writing it I was really writing about how we all feel: like we're walking blind through life figuring out the rules of reality as we go, trying to keep loved ones safe in confusing and dangerous times. I hope I was able to make it fun and a great love story as well as a romp through multiple dimensions of the multiverse, but you the reader will have to be the judge.

By the way, I'm still looking for readers to read a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest Amazon review. If you're interested, please message me on socials with "ARC request" in the subject line or email laura at cronicle.press with "ARC request" and list the book you would like to review. Thanks so much for taking this winding journey with me. I will be back soon with interviews with other authors also working through these issues and wrestling with how to make working remotely work for them post-pandemic. I'm hoping we can all glean some tips, as remote work looks like it's my forever plan at this point to stay healthy.