When Magic Happens with Terry Persun

Give us an example of when the magic happened in one of your stories.  It could be a phrase, a character, a paragraph, a scene, a location, etc.

Bonus:
Did you know right then when it happened?
How did you know it was magical, did it feel right, is that how you knew?  Or did someone point it out?
What draft/revision did it happen?
Was it while you were doing something other than writing? Were you listening to Music? Or was it quiet?


When the Magic Happened

by Terry Persun

This is always a difficult thing to talk about, since I’m usually excited when I start a novel, which is pretty magical in itself. I get up early in the morning, can’t wait to sit at my computer, and start exploring along with a character who has been building in my mind for (often) months or years. It’s amazing that one day I just wake up with the overwhelming urge to explore a life like that.

As I think of the magic, I know it happens with every book just to get started. Then, more often than not the magic happens several times while writing the novel—keeping me interested and moving forward. I specifically remember—this is what we’re talking about—the beginning of Doublesight. I saw the crows in the trees for a long time and when I wrote about them, something I can’t explain grabbed hold of me and I was with them. I can still smell the forest, feel the breeze, if I close my eyes.

That particular novel had a lot of magic in it. Every time I wrote about one of the doublesight shape shifting, I could feel the sensations as I wrote them. I don’t know if the reader gets the same experience that I did, but I do know that when I’m that close to the writing, it tends to work.

Since Doublesight is a fantasy novel, there were times when I found I was creating a passage that involved things that I’d never experienced first hand, that appeared to be coming completely from my subconscious, or from a place where the story was actually happening while I wrote, a place where I could watch it from my remote place in front of my computer. If that’s not magical, I don’t know what is. Writing itself has magic in it for me.

Did I know magic was happening at the moment it happened, probably not. It’s often not until later that I realize that I was in some sort of trance as I wrote. And it doesn’t happen every morning, but when it does…heaven. Luckily, though, I’m almost always sitting at my computer working on a book when it comes through me.

Such magic happens when it happens, sometimes during the initial writing, sometimes during one of the many rewrites, and sometimes during a final proofing. There is no rhyme or reason to magic. I find if I show up every day, though, that there’s a great chance of it coming more often and staying for longer periods of time.

As for your last question about listening to music: I never listen to music while I’m working. I need the space to be quiet, without words, without sounds, and as separate from others as I can get. That’s not always the case for every type of writing that I do, but most often that’s how I like it when I’m working on a novel.

I might add that since those moments were so prevalent while writing Doublesight, that’s probably why I wrote a second Doublesight novel, then a third, and am planning a fourth. There’s something about shape shifting, about shamanism, about magic that interests me, and I plan to explore it down all its pathways.


Terry Persun writes in many genres, including historical fiction, mainstream, literary, and science fiction/fantasy. He is a Pushcart nominee. His latest poetry collection is “And Now This”. His novel, “Cathedral of Dreams” is a ForeWord magazine Book of the Year finalist in the science fiction category, and his novel “Sweet Song” won a Silver IPPY Award. His latest science fiction thriller is, “Revision 7: DNA”, and his latest fantasy is “Doublesight”. Terry’s website or you can find him on Amazon.

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