How to describe a scene involving a shift in the environment due to forbidden magic?
Background/scene for question:
A character witnesses his wife killed before him. While holding her, he begins screaming her name. With each time he utters her name, the world around him shifts as he uses magic he was previously unaware of.
The world shifts because he is using magic that is not of this world, ripping it from another world to revive his dead wife. The shift is like the difference felt right after an earthquake where nothing feels quite right. There are no physical changes, but you just know something is different. Like a shudder in the air.
(These shudders will slowly affect and change how the world works later in the novel)
This "shudder" is felt strongly every time he screams her name until she is finally revived much to her displeasure.
Now the question:
I am asking how I can show this shift that is happening in the air around him, in this particular scene, in a believable way that makes sense to the reader?
I am hoping other writers may have knowledge of this sort of scene.
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2 answers
Monica is on the right track, but I'd push it more. If he's howling the name of his murdered wife in his grief, he's not aware of anything outside that grief.
I would actually not show the husband being aware of the changes while they're happening. Maybe, possibly, flashes of light (which cast different shadows on her face), or he feels his ears pop, or the floor tilts — basically, alterations in the physical world which he can't overlook because they are interacting with him.
But the "muffled traffic" is something you notice when you're reading, not when your heart has been shattered.
However, there could be other people in the room who do notice the changes, and once the wife wakes up, the other characters could start wondering aloud if the changes in atmosphere were related to her resurrection. Or the husband distantly realizing "my ears popped" is the other characters saying "the entire building just levitated two hundred feet and then dropped" or something.
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I can't call specific examples to mind right now, but I've seen this sort of "wait, the world is not quite as it should be" situation handled by sharing the POV character's inner dialogue as he gradually notices peculiarities. Something like this:
"Sharon, no!" he shouted to no one in particular as he cradled her in his arms. "Sharon!" He shuddered as he began to absorb the shock of it, then shuddered again. What was that odd feeling?
"Sharon!" he repeated. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Why was it suddenly so warm in here? And quiet -- the sounds of the traffic outside seemed muffled. He shook his head to clear it.
Nope, definitely getting warmer. Stuffier, too. It almost felt like the walls were closing in on him. Gotta knock off the coffee, he thought.
He looked again at the lifeless body in his lap. How could they have snatched her away from him? It was wrong! Unfair! Nearly shouting, irrationally hoping he could yet bring her back, he screamed -- "Sharon!"
Etc.
The point I'm trying to make is that we get hints as the main character gets "that niggling feeling" that things are Not Right, but he's focused on something else so his tendency is to dismiss them -- his head is fuzzy from the shock, he's had too much coffee, etc. The reader will figure out that things are changing before the character does, and then will get the pleasure of watching the character work it out.
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