I watched the last season of Teen Wolf with great interest, as the sow expanded beyond the small California town of Beacon Hills to Mexico, and embraced some shifters and other supernatural bad-asses from other cultural traditions.
That got me thinking – what other cultures and beasties are ripe for new stories in the paranormal genre?
Every culture has its own set of traditional stories and legends from which to choose, along with a unique set of superstitions. As a child, I had a huge fascination with Native American tales – especially the ones abut little white kids kidnapped and raised with Native families. I have to think there’s a lot you could do with some of those stories in the context of the paranormal.
So here’s my question today – is there a particular (non “mainstream” American”) culture you have an affinity for? And if so, what stories could we tell that draw on that culture? For readers, have you read any paranormal tales that drew on another culture’s mythology?
I’m quite into Jewish folklore. I just published a story about the Golem, and I’m thinking about how I can use the Dybbuk in my fiction. There was a novel in the ’90s called the Dyke and the Dybbuk that was quite good. A Dybbuk is a spirit with unfinished business who possesses the living. You can do all sorts of fun stuff with that.
I always liked the Native American cultures too. I especially liked Coyote and Raven stories…the tricksters. I also started working on a paranormal murder mystery with some of the Kachina from the Hopi culture.