It’s Friday the 13th, so let’s talk superstitions!
For storytellers across many genres, superstitions can be a great way to dig into and expand your world-building. They can also provide interesting and fun insight into characters and their psyches. Superstitions, after all, tend to be deeply rooted in the history and culture of a place and its people.
Take Ireland for example.
I’m not sure how many of my clients and followers know that my mother was Irish—as in born and raised—and I’m an American-born Irish citizen with the passport to prove it. And folks, let me tell you: the Irish love their tales and their magic. This means that growing up, I heard my fair share of superstitions.
Here are just a few of the ones that came up frequently:
- Knife to the floor means a man to the door (a fork brings a woman)
- Itchy nose means a fight (which would be followed by a quick slap to the hand to “get it over with”)
- New shoes on the table brings bad luck
- One magpie brings sadness, two bring joy—if we spotted one, we had to wait to leave the house till a second had been spotted
- Opening an umbrella in the house welcomes bad weather (bad happenings) inside
- Itchy or burning ears means someone’s talking about you
Using Superstitions to Round Out Your Characters
Whether you call them superstitions or quirks, the small beliefs we tell ourselves can say a lot about us and how we perceive/respond to our world.
Look again at the superstitions my mum repeated to me growing up: many of them were about trying to prevent potential misfortunes or otherwise control our fates.
Giving such beliefs and whims to your characters allows you to explore not only themes of fate and destiny, but also themes of control. We may find that these beliefs impact a character’s decisions, motivations, reservations, relationships, and therefore their overall growth throughout the story. In turn, this can greatly influence and impact your plot.
(Again look back to the Irish superstitions above; imagine a character who is convinced trouble is near because they’ve seen a magpie—how might something like that affect their decision-making?)
How Can Superstitions Be Beneficial in Your World-Building?
As seen above, superstitions develop as warnings or as a means of soothing fears—they’re a way to feel a sense of control over something beyond our own actions. They’re illogical, but they survive generations and many of us continue to abide by them even today.
Because of this, much like values, religions, and customs, the superstitions you invent can reveal not only aspects of your characters, but also of your world.
Let’s think for a moment about the well-known superstition about not walking under a ladder. Yes, there’s a practical reason why we shouldn’t walk under ladders: it’s just unsafe. But the superstition that it’s bad luck has many potential sources. The oldest possible source is the Ancient Egyptians, who supposedly believed that spirits rested between the ladder and the wall, and to disturb them would bring misfortune. Christianity pivoted off of this, noting the shape of the ladder against the wall formed three points—the Holy Trinity—and to break the trinity would be blasphemous. In medieval times, the fear was simpler: that the shape resembled the gallows, and no one wished to bring death upon themselves.
Each tells us something about the believers or their world: a fear of disturbing the dead, a fear of or reverence for god, a fear of death itself.
Remember: your world and your characters play into how you grow and resolve your plot. How could superstitions become part of that?
A Note on Sensitivity & Authenticity
If you do choose to include superstitions that may have cultural backgrounds other than your own, it’s important to research and be attentive to avoid use of anything that may be used to create negative perceptions of the culture from which that superstition originates. Authenticity readers can be of great value here.