Ritual Reads

19/07/2026

🕯️ CRAFT CORNER: Naming Characters in Dark Fiction

A name does work before the character says a single word.

Dracula.
Heathcliff.
Beloved.
Miss Havisham.
The Overlook Hotel.

Notice how those names already feel like something, even before you know the story.

In dark fiction, names carry atmosphere.
Consider:
→ the sound (hard consonants versus soft vowels)
→ the cultural associations (what the name signals about origin, class, era)
→ the rhythm (how it hits the mouth)

Sometimes the most unsettling choice is contrast. A plain name in a Gothic world.

Or a grand name attached to someone horrifyingly ordinary.

What is the best character name in dark fiction, in your opinion? 🌙

17/07/2026

📖 FOLKLORE FRIDAY: Grimoires

Before they were props in films, grimoires were dangerous things.

From ancient Egyptian magical papyri to the medieval Key of Solomon, these were books people hid, copied in secret, and sometimes died for.

The word itself comes from the Old French for grammar — because the power of language was never far from the power of magic.

Every witch in fiction has one. Every one of them is standing in a very long tradition.

What fictional grimoire do you most wish was real? 🔮

14/07/2026

📹 GENRE EVOLUTION: J-Horror

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Japanese horror changed what Western audiences were afraid of.

Ringu (1998). Ju-On (2002). A wave of films built around a new kind of terror: not a monster you could run from, but a presence that found you through the ordinary objects of modern life. A VHS tape. A phone call. A photograph.

The horror was in contamination. In inevitability. In the idea that knowing wouldn't save you.

Hollywood remade them (with variable results). But the originals remain among the most psychologically effective horror films ever made.

J-Horror also reinvigorated the figure of the onryo — a vengeful ghost from classical Japanese tradition — for a 21st-century audience.

What is your favourite example of J-Horror, film or fiction? 🌙

13/07/2026

🐺 MYTHOLOGY MONDAY: The Puca

The puca is one of Irish mythology's great shapeshifters — appearing as a horse, a goat, a hare, a dog, or sometimes a dark figure with yellow eyes.

Unlike the kelpie, the puca doesn't always mean you harm. Sometimes it gives good advice. Sometimes it ruins the harvest on November 1st. Sometimes it takes you on a wild, terrifying ride and deposits you safely back at your door, shaken but intact.

It is unpredictable in a way that is, somehow, deeply Irish.

Pooka, the character in Harvey (1950), owes his name to this tradition. So does the puca in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Fiction's tricksters often have the oldest roots. 🌙

10/07/2026

🪤 FOLKLORE FRIDAY: Horseshoes

The horseshoe as a protective talisman is one of the most durable folk beliefs in British and European tradition — still visible nailed above doorways across the country.

The belief has several interlocking origins: iron was considered repellent to fairies and evil spirits. The crescent shape echoed the moon. A horseshoe was made in fire by a blacksmith — a craftsman associated with magical power in many traditions.

The debate about whether to hang it points-up (to collect luck) or points-down (to pour luck over the household) has been ongoing for centuries. Families still disagree.

What old folk charm do you find most inexplicably persistent? 🌙

09/07/2026

09/07/2026

⛪️ AUTHOR SECRETS: Victor Hugo

In 1831, Victor Hugo published Notre-Dame de Paris — known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

He wrote it partly as a deliberate campaign.

The cathedral was in a terrible state — neglected, damaged, with serious proposals to demolish it. Hugo wanted Parisians to care, to see what they were losing. He wrote a novel so vivid and atmospheric that the building itself became the protagonist.

It worked. Public outcry led to a major restoration project, spearheaded by architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.

A novel saved a Gothic cathedral.

The pen, occasionally, is mightier than the wrecking ball.

Which piece of writing do you think changed how people saw something they'd overlooked? 📚

05/07/2026

🕯️ CRAFT CORNER: The First Line

The first line is a contract between writer and reader.

It does not have to be shocking. It does not have to be beautiful. But it does have to create a question the reader needs answered badly enough to turn the page.

A few that do it perfectly:

George Orwell (1984): “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca): “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

William Gibson (Neuromancer): “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

Three very different tones. One shared promise: something is not right here.

What’s a first line that stopped you cold? 📚

03/07/2026

📚 If you're tired of waiting for Book 3, then you can read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson!

03/07/2026

ᚪᚱ FOLKLORE FRIDAY: Runes

Runes were not invented for magic. They were the everyday writing system of Germanic and Norse peoples from around the 2nd century onward.

But they were also carved into amulets, weapons, and runestones for protection and power. The boundary between writing and spell-casting was very thin.

In Norse mythology, Odin himself hung from Yggdrasil for nine days and nights to gain the knowledge of runes. They were worth suffering for.

Today they appear in fantasy fiction, games, and tattoos. The oldest letters in Northern Europe, still speaking.

If you had one rune's power, which would you choose? 🔮