So, when I was coming up with my world I was mostly inspired by pagan beliefs related to nature combined with a modern fantasy about races/cultures existing in a world, but being mostly unnoticed by common people. I've decided that the driving point of the story - MC's ability that makes her "special" - should be directly tied to how my fantasy world operates. Everything was proceeding fine for a while - I decided that the world will be based around 10 types of nature spirits, that are only noticeable to people like my protagonist - for now, I call them "seers", but maybe I'll get a more original idea at some point. These spirits generally look like humans (in lore, humans are supposed to be their "purest" descendants), so of course, they dress like humans. And here's the catch... Since spirits are supposed to be invisible, it would mean that their clothes should pretty much levitate, right? The point of the story is that spirits are supposed to have their own culture, towns, etc, but only a select few know about it. Moreover, the mages in this universe propagate the concept that spirits are only pagan legends and most supernatural occurrences are caused by people with magical talent who have not been trained to use it properly. There's much more to all of this, and I have most parts of the world planned - except for the stupid clothes. For example, people who cannot see spirits are also unable to decipher their writing, despite the fact that both races use the same language. The reason why so few people can acknowledge spirits is one of the main mysteries in my plot. For now, I wrote that some spirits weave their clothes from materials such as morning dew or storm clouds, but it doesn't really explain when and why these materials become invisible. I feel like there are a lot of stories with a similar concept - all those werewolves bursting out of their clothes and then being fully clothed when they transform back is one example I can think of. But most stories with this premise I can think of are movies/video games, and they have the luxury to never address the subject. So, do you have some sort of magic way to explain this inconsistency? Did you ever struggle with a similar problem? If so, how did you solve it? Sorry, I have a tendency to ramble a lot.
If you have magic anyway, why not make the clothing visible only to seers and other spirits too? It looks to me as if you're overthinking this. I am, however, a fan of nekkid werewolves.
Ah yes, this eternal dilemma. I have a couple of solutions planned in my story: 1: Make their clothes out of something that "conducts" their magic. Something that responds to their magic as if it's part of their body, and thus disappears along with it. 2: Make their clothes just another part of their body. Many species in my story produce something called "Shadowfiber", which is a jet black, usually fabric-like substance that can frequently take the shape of clothes and is treated as a part of their body. 3: Just have them not wear clothes, or at least not all the time. Sometimes, surprisingly, that works pretty well, depending on how you call attention to it.
I have a tendency of overthinking everything in my stories. And I also like nekkid werewolves. Thanks a lot, that first idea seems really cool to me - it might have the form of an outfit thanks to the spirit's magic, but turns back to mist/dew once a spirit takes it off. I didn't want to have them naked, since one race of the spirits looks like children, and having a bunch of children running around naked in the forest seemed a bit.... weird to me.
Hippy commune, nudist cult, savage feral clan, or part of the problem is they always have to stash their clothes when shape shifting.
While I see the problem that could arise there, I have to say that children are the most likely to be naked. They don't care yet. I mean, you could mention they are naked and then just don't linger on that fact. Apart from that, I also think that the approach "the clothing is just a part of the spirit's appearance" is best. May I suggest a few more "materials"? Cobweb, starlight, flower petals, frost crystals, moss, beetle wings...
I mean, not necessarily. It depends on how exactly the invisibility works. They may project some sort of light-bending field around them that includes their clothes and anything they carry on their person. Or it's the type where they're not physically invisible but rather causes your brain to ignore them. Actually being invisible in the sense that light doesn't interact with your body at all would be pretty problematic since, well, first of all you'd be completely blind what with light just passing through your eyes. And even if you ran around naked, any foreign object on or inside your body (dirt, food in your stomach, etc) would still be visible. I'm fond of the idea that the reason shapeshifters can shapeshift to begin with is because they have two separate bodies they switch between, and while using one they store the other one in like a pocket dimension or something. Thus, when they transform, their clothes just disappear and then re-appear when they shift back. This also explains very quick transformations that add or remove a lot of mass for seemingly no reason. It's very convenient, and I'm the sort who like to keep everything as simple as possible.
Allan Ahlberg uses the device of clotheslessness to great dramatic effect in Woof! (1986). And that's a nekkid kid wereterrier. Do people have nightmares more often about werewolves or being naked? I'll warrant it's the latter: nakedness is scarier than werewolves. But is the OP's anxiety really about shifting the level of descriptive detail in-scene? Is it that absolutely everything has to be described in purple prose and gothic embellishment? A contemporary genre werewolf can't leave her knickers sticking out of nextdoor's letterbox and come back to get them after she's ripped Count Von Bromide's head off... it's that their cottony adjectivity has to be seen to slide over snow white intertexts. I exaggerate, but if it's anything along those lines consider writing some passages in a lighter, more jocular tone. As well as mixing the tone up to keep the reader awake, you can deploy the light tone tactically to climb back down from describing awkward, squicky, maudlin, or problematic stuff.
Thanks for the suggestions! Hope you won't mind if I'll actually use them in my book. I wanted to go with the "your brain just ignores them" idea - one of the main themes of the story is how different people perceive the world and why is that. It was more of a question "well, ok, when does the object the spirit takes also become invisible?" But maybe I'm overthinking this - the old good "you don't pay attention to it" explanation might always work. I'll think about changing up the tone. Thanks for taking the time to respond!
