Hi all,
So I've got this character I've been juggling in my head for a while who'll enter my novel-in-progress in the second act, and I had been tossing around the idea of making her a pagan. She's also something of a love interest for the male narrator, so I had also been tossing around the possibility of making her a boy.
Yet most of what I "know" about paganism is about female witches and divine feminines, so where do pagan boys fit into the mix?
First, here's what I know about this character. He and his older sister have just moved to a small town in New Mexico. Their parents are dead, and he's been raised by his sister for the last several years. Before that, he was close to their mother. Her sister moved them to this town following work. His sister blames him for their parents' death, and so despite raising him, she is also abusive toward him.
So some questions:
1. I need a path for him. I want this to have been passed down to him from his mother before she died, who received it from her mother, and so on.So I'm looking for a form of traditional paganism that can have survived (more or less) unbroken through being passed down through generations in his family. If anyone has any resources for this, I would appreciate it. I'm looking for both historical and contemporary accuracy. So I don't want him practicing things that aren't practiced anymore today, and I also don't want to find myself reading some Carlos Casteneda rip-off or any other plastic shamanism.
2. I intend for his sister to be a lapsed pagan. In addition to blaming him for their parents' death, I want her resentment toward him to be somewhat fueled by his closer relationship with their mother. Because of her disinterest in their beliefs, most of the traditions were passed to him instead. If anyone has any insight into how to realistically portray this dynamic in a pagan family, I'd love to hear it.
3. I need some insight into his experience as a boy pagan now living in a small southwestern town populated mostly by Mormons and a few Native Americans (namely, my narrator). The imagery of modern paganism in popular media is dominated by the female witch, so what is it like to be a pagan boy in modern southwestern America with no nearby pagan community? I'd like for him to identify as a witch; would a boy still identify as a witch? And lastly, I haven't pinned down his sexuality yet, but he's not hetero. I'd be grateful for any insight into pagan concepts of gender identity and sexual identity.
Many thanks for any responses!
So I've got this character I've been juggling in my head for a while who'll enter my novel-in-progress in the second act, and I had been tossing around the idea of making her a pagan. She's also something of a love interest for the male narrator, so I had also been tossing around the possibility of making her a boy.
Yet most of what I "know" about paganism is about female witches and divine feminines, so where do pagan boys fit into the mix?
First, here's what I know about this character. He and his older sister have just moved to a small town in New Mexico. Their parents are dead, and he's been raised by his sister for the last several years. Before that, he was close to their mother. Her sister moved them to this town following work. His sister blames him for their parents' death, and so despite raising him, she is also abusive toward him.
So some questions:
1. I need a path for him. I want this to have been passed down to him from his mother before she died, who received it from her mother, and so on.
2. I intend for his sister to be a lapsed pagan. In addition to blaming him for their parents' death, I want her resentment toward him to be somewhat fueled by his closer relationship with their mother. Because of her disinterest in their beliefs, most of the traditions were passed to him instead. If anyone has any insight into how to realistically portray this dynamic in a pagan family, I'd love to hear it.
3. I need some insight into his experience as a boy pagan now living in a small southwestern town populated mostly by Mormons and a few Native Americans (namely, my narrator). The imagery of modern paganism in popular media is dominated by the female witch, so what is it like to be a pagan boy in modern southwestern America with no nearby pagan community? I'd like for him to identify as a witch; would a boy still identify as a witch? And lastly, I haven't pinned down his sexuality yet, but he's not hetero. I'd be grateful for any insight into pagan concepts of gender identity and sexual identity.
Many thanks for any responses!
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