Month: December 2025

Using Holiday Folklore to Inspire Your Story

Writing stories with folklore

If you want to combine Christmas or New Year’s Day with speculative fiction, or to give any story a touch of magic or wonder, you can accomplish this by using holiday folklore to inspire your story.

Many, many superstitions are attached to these holidays at the end of the year. This is probably because Europeans held on to some pagan beliefs as they converted on Christianity. In Celtic lands, the winter solstice was a time to be on guard against evil spirits, who were said to roam the long nights. Ancient Celts lit bonfires and made noise to scare them away. (Side note: Celts also believed evil spirits were out and about during the fall celebration of Samhain, the holiday from which Halloween derives its origin. I get the impression that it was no picnic to be ancient Celt.)

This fear of evil spirits may have led to the English tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve. I believe that may have influenced Charles Dicken’s decision to use ghosts to haunt Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

The Christmas Encyclopedia by William D. Crump (the link is to a newer edition than I have) lists many superstitions from various countries. Here are a few.

“A child born a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day will have good fortune.”

“A child born during the twelve nights of Christmas may become a werewolf. (Germany and Poland)”

“From cockcrow until dawn on Christmas Day, trolls roam the land. (Sweden)”

“A windy Christmas Day brings good luck.”

In my YA mystery, “A Rose from the Ashes”, I refer to a Christmas legend. Early Christmas morning, under an almost full moon in the clear, frozen dark, Rae Riley confronts the three men who are the only candidates to be her father and her mother’s attacker. The moon gilds everything, giving the land and everyone under it a magical appearance. Rae says she believes animals could speak on a night like this.

I couldn’t find a country of origin for the legend, but it states that because the animals in the stable were kind of Jesus at his birth, he granted them the ability to speak at midnight on every Christmas Day since then. I use the legend to underline the wonder Rae feels when she solves the mystery of her mother’s attack and her father’s identity.

A lot of superstitions deal with performing rituals to predict the future.

“On Christmas Eve, if an unmarried woman peels an apple, making sure it remains as a single ribbon, and if she throws it on the floor from above her head, the pattern of the peeling on the floor will disclose her future husband’s initials.”

What if a young woman performs this ritual and doesn’t like the initials she sees because she knows to whom they belong? Or what if such rituals are accurate but can only be performed by trained fortune tellers? In this world, the best fortune tellers run businesses and customers scramble to make appointments with them for New Year’s Eve and Day, changing the important days from Christmas Eve.

One way to insure good luck for the coming year was to get the right person to enter the home after midnight on New Year’s Eve. This custom, called first-footing, was popular in Scotland and northern England. A powerful man with dark hair brought the best luck. Agatha Christie uses this superstition to help solve a ten-year-old death in the short story, “The Coming of Mr. Quin” in the book The Mysterious Mr. Quin.

Do you know of some holiday folklore in your area or a tradition that’s been passed down through your family?

0

Use the Five Senses to Describe … Your Christmas Morning

How to write a Christmas story

Sorry this is a day late, but a server somewhere kept sending me messages that it was having problems. Everyone’s Christmas morning looks different. Maybe it’s a quiet time of reflection over breakfast by yourself. Maybe it’s being attacked by your preschoolers in bed. It could be helping at a shelter or working so colleagues can have the day off. It could be waking up in a room at a resort for a Christmas vacation or waking up in the guest room of your sister’s house and being attacked by her preschoolers in bed. Use the five senses to describe your Christmas morning. Here’s mine:

  • SIGHT: Multi-colored wrapping paper coating the floor. Multi-colored Christmas tree lights glowing by the window. The backyard growing lighter with the dawn. Shiny bows and ribbons. Boxes of all shapes and sizes. A red penknife.
  • SMELL: Aroma of bacon, cream scones, coffee.
  • TASTE : Salty bacon, crumbly scones, coffee, tea, orange juice.
  • TOUCH: Smooth wrapping paper and ribbon. Prickly pine tree.
  • HEARING: Chatting, laughter. Crinkly paper.

Here’s how I work those sensations into a story.

*****

I collapsed onto the couch next to Tom. “It’s been a great Christmas.

The living room was buried in wrapping paper, and the multicolored tree seemed to glow extra bright was dawn light strengthened through the window behind it. Giggly conversations from upstairs as the kids investigated their gifts drifted down to us. The cozy aroma of bacon and freshly bake scones hung over every room.

“Despite the Taylors?” said Tom.

“Yes.” I was firm. “I tried to help, and I didn’t help at all. If anything’s going on over there, it’s none of my business.”

“Nothing wrong with offering to help,” my sweet husband said. “You just can’t make them take–“

A scream erupted outside. To the right of our house. The Taylors’ side.

*****

Here are more Christmas writing prompts.

0

Writing Tips for Creative Fun with Characters

Writing exercised with characters

This post from January on how on writing tips for creative fun with characters was one of my most popular article this year. Enjoy!

I’m a character writer. I start with developing characters and getting to know them. Once I understand them as well as my kids, it’s time to throw them into a story. When my writing isn’t going well, I look to my characters to rescue the narrative. And to put the fun back into a story.

Fun Ideas for Characters 

Here are some ideas to write about characters for just the fun of it.

  • Create two very obnoxious characters. Then put them in a scene together.
  • Write from your pet’s POV, especially what it thinks of you.
  • Insert yourself in a scene with one of your favorite fiction characters like Sherlock Holmes or Bilbo Baggins.
  • Insert yourself in a scene with one of the characters you’ve created.
  • Reverse a famous hero-villain pair. For example, Superman terrorizes the world, and only Lex Luthor can save it.

Fun Ideas for Characters in Your WIP

If you’re writing on a deadline, you might not have time to write something outside of your WIP. So below are ideas to consider adding to your WIP, if you’ve found all the fun has gone out of your current project but you can’t step away from it.

  • Add a scene or two with your favorite supporting character.
  • Have two characters who don’t like each other meet.
  • Have your main character (MC) fight wither their closest friend.
  • Have your MC do something that’s outrageous for them.
  • Have your antagonist do something outrageous for them.
  • Bring together two characters who haven’t had a scene together yet.
  • Add a character who isn’t supposed to be in the story. For example, you decided you didn’t need your MC’s grandma in the story and sent her on vacation. Bring her back and see if she can fit in the story.
  • Write a scene that isn’t working from the POV of a different character.

What suggestions do have for writing fun with characters? For more character prompts, click here.

1

Use the Five Senses to Describe … Your Christmas Kitchen

Writing prompts for Christmas

If you love to bake and cook during the holidays, and love to write as well, here’s a writing prompt for you: use the five senses to describe … your Christmas kitchen.

My husband is a fantastic chef, and I’m the baker. So my Christmas kitchen is a bakery. Here’s a list of things I notice while whipping up my family’s favorite Christmas treats.

  • SIGHT: Shiny silver mixing bowl. Sprays of white flour or sugar on the burgundy counter. Brown or tan batter. Oily film on cookie sheets. Glowing screens on stove. Black wire racks.
  • SMELL: Cloves, cinnamon, chocolate.
  • TASTE : Quick tastes of sweet chocolate or batter.
  • TOUCH: Heat from the oven. Rumpled sugar and flour bags. Smooth utensils handles.
  • HEARING: Swish as flour or sugar is poured into a measuring cup. Sound of spatula mixing batter. Conversations. Laughter. Banging batter off utensils.

Now I can take those observations and work them into a story. Like working ingredients into the batter!

*****

I viewed the wreckage as my niece and nephews sat beached on the couch and watching Charlie Brown and Snoopy figure out the true meaning of Christmas with the smug smiles of kids who’ve eaten way, way too much sugar and know it.

Flour and sugar sprayed on every horizontal surface. My silver mixing bowl dull under a coating of flour. Tan batter from the apple bread smeared across the counter with few stains clinging to the backsplash, a reminder of when Noah and Ollie dueled with batter-covered spoons.

Myla hopped off the couch and dashed over to me. “Did we make enough cookies for Christmas dinner?”

“We have a dozen chocolate spritz cookies and ten gumdrop cookies.” I wiped back my bangs and warm chocolate came off my fingers. “That’s not nearly enough for the whole family.”

Myla stared at the two plates of cookies. “I thought you said we needed to make six dozen.”

“You guys sampled a lot.”

Noah twisted around, looking over the back of the couch. “Mom and Dad aren’t coming to get us until after lunch tomorrow, right? Could we bake some more tomorrow?”

“Could we?” Ollie echoed, plopping down beside his brother.

I smiled. “I guess we’ll have to.”

*****

Describe your Christmas kitchen. Here are more Christmas writing prompts.

2

Crafting the Perfect Character Names for Your Short Story

How to create names for characters

A post on crafting the perfect character names for your short story has received a lot of views this year. So I’m revising it since it’s been seven years since I wrote the original post and I’ve learned a few things about writing in the intervening years.

Because of a short story’s limited word count, creating names for short story characters is more important than just hanging an identifying label on them. You can convey a lot about their personalities is a tiny space by picking the perfect name.

In my short story, “Bovine”, the main character is a snobby New York novelist up to no good. I wanted even his name to sound snobby, so I went with Harrison Sharpe. Harrison is not a common, it’s long, and sounds very formal, perfect for my elitist novelist. Sharpe actually reveals his acid-tongued personality and the “e” on the end looks pretentious, like the man.

His wife is a supermodel. So I created an unusual first name, one that was memorable enough that she could use it alone, like Beyonce or Cher, and people would recognize her. I went with Ariella. Her husband calls her Ari. Nicknames make a character seem more real and down to earth. Many of us have nicknames for our loved ones. Ari has no nickname for Harrison, which hints at how snobby he really is.

Speaking of nicknames–in a short story, they can be a quick way for a writer to reveal what one character thinks of another. When Harrison Sharpe thinks about Sheriff Malinowski, he refers to him as the Blond Ox. That not only describes the character but shows better than any lengthy internal monologue Harrison’s contempt for the man. For more on using nicknames in your writing, see my post “Lesson #1 from The Deer on a Bicycle.“

Here are more posts with tips for writing short stories.

If you’re a writer, how do you create the perfect names for your characters? Readers, what are some of your favorite literary names?

0

Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑