A touch of magic

 

At the turn of the year I saw a social media post that declared that I need, ‘more magic in 2025’.  It urged me to embrace that ‘magic’ (but didn’t define it) wherever and whenever I might find it.  It was accompanied by a funny video of a simple visual trick through which a four year-old could have easily seen.

In a world which our news feeds suggest is becoming increasingly dark, the idea of a little bit of light and escapism is attractive. ‘Who better,’ I thought to myself, ‘to bring more magic into the world, than we writers?  After all, is that not what we do?’  

Those of us who regularly wrestle with words in a fiction setting focus our creative minds to conjure people and places beyond the reality around us.  Our words truly can make worlds. 

If non-fiction is your genre, then we’re talking less about the magic of illusion and more the sprinkle of magic dust required to ‘pep’ your subject with the sparkle of a fresh angle which will woo readers sufficiently to encourage them to jump in and read your entire article or book. 

I can vividly remember the magician who came to my infant school many years ago. This winsome gentleman made things disappear and reappear as we gasped in wonder; he produced miles of coloured scarves from nowhere and produced a coin from behind my friend’s ear.  We were utterly entranced.

We weren’t there to pick holes in his execution or the simple variety of tricks he had prepared for us, but we willingly participated in the illusions and sleight of hand on display.

Years later, when I studied drama and theatre, I learnt more about an audience’s willingness to ‘suspend our disbelief’ when we sit in a darkened auditorium.  As the curtain rises, we eagerly allow ourselves to be plunged into a time and space of the playwright’s choosing.

In the same way, a reader opens the cover of a book with all the excited anticipation of knowing that they are about to be drawn into an adventure, mystery, thriller, comedy or tragedy that will transport them into a whole other world.  Familiar character traits may emerge; situations that stir memories of similar experiences; places we have visited ourselves may be brought to life.  Readers may laugh, cry, close the book on an emotional high, with anger, illumination, satisfaction or resignation, but they are almost guaranteed to have experienced some magic along the way.

I just wish that producing this kind of magic was as easy as saying ‘Abracadabra!’

[Images from Pixabay]

Jenny Sanders has spent the last twelve years living between the UK and South Africa. She writes faith-inspired non-fiction: Spiritual Feasting (2020) asks how we can ‘feast’ when life serves unpalatable menus; Polished Arrows (2024), explores the allegory of  God shaping us to be fired effectively into our culture and contexts.                 

Jenny also has two collections of humorous short stories for Key Stage 2 children: The Magnificent Moustache and other stories (2022) and Charlie Peach's Pumpkins and other stories (2023).  She is available for author visits in primary schools, taking creative writing sessions.  She loves walking in nature, preferably by a river, and has a visceral loathing for offal, pineapple and incorrect use of car indicators on roundabouts.