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Everyone knows that if you're looking for somewhere haunted, there's no better place around Forks than the old Frazier house. Some kid axe murdered his parents there and then broke his neck trying to run from the cops. It's been abandoned ever since.
Cam in Ghost House
and-I-will-lose-it
I W A N T NON S P I N E R M O DE S W I T C H spelling to follow numbers to follow spelling to follow numbers to follow.
campanology
"- yeah, valid." He folds up a strip of paper into a little triangle slotted into itself, after some trial and error, and colors in the outer sides - one blank, one solid, one crosshatched. Writes down that blank side down means standard meanings, solid down means letters, crosshatch down means numbers. "You good to flip that over as needed?"
campanology
"I sent the publisher a letter but I don't know what kind of turnaround to expect on that and... kind of doubt they are equipped to put out a mass recall that is widely abided by."
campanology
"Good start?" Cam asks, after (having written down each letter as it goes by) blinking at that one. "Yeah, tracking spells sound like a plan, though again I don't plan to cast anything till I've read the whole book."
melting-in-the-dark
The Incantations chapter, when Cam gets there, is the shortest so far. If you're not a native speaker of whatever language the spell is in, the book claims, you should consult with one until you have a native-quality accent for that incantation specifically. (Or just have them cast it, if it doesn't need to be you in particular.) It's possible to translate spells, if you want to; you should stay as close as possible to the original in both format and text. Consult with or be a fluent speaker. (For translated spells in this volume, the original incantation is also included.)
Incantations don't inherently have to be poetry but it's much easier to craft ones that are. Spells in general are about setting up a framework where it's very obvious what you want to happen, and then adding a lot of internal connective material. At least one of symbolism of objects and symbolism of time is essential; having both helps. Internal meter and rhyme help; err on the side of more structure rather than less. For those with absolutely no knack for poetry, it's possible to add scaffolding with mathematical properties of words, or with music, or with diagrams. Some spellcasters work only in drawings and don't use incantations at all. Generally, the more powerful or more delicate the thing you're trying to accomplish is, the more detail and support—the more fanfare, the more limitations, the more different types of things—the spell will need to have.
Once you think you have something you think is good enough to be a spell, you can use the divination on this page for a basic test of the result, and if that goes well you can use the transformation spell on this page to magically solidify it into something that will actually work. If you don't perform the transformation spell yours will never work; it's approximately impossible to make a new spell by accident.
If you stumble over your words while casting a spell, you can say 'pfeh', wait at least one second, and start over from the beginning of the line.
campanology
But how are these symbolic, is there a correspondence of what various such ingredients and timings mean?
melting-in-the-dark
It doesn't specify here and if he pages back to the relevant chapters they don't really either.
and-I-will-lose-it
(Flip) C H (flip) 1 8 (flip) A N D (flip) 1 9 (flip) H A V E XA M PL E S B UT NO RU L E S T EC H N I CA L Y A L A P L ICA T I ON C H S D O (flip) maybe (flip) NO T R EA L (flip) I don't know
melting-in-the-dark
Chapter 5, Dreams, is also pretty brief. If you sleep near a ghost, he or she might affect your dreams. This is an innate ability that they have and not based on spellcraft, but check out these imbuing and transforming spells for how to ward against that.
Some spells have as a prerequisite that you must have dreamed about a particular subject within a certain timeframe beforehand. The author recommends various basic lucid dreaming tips in addition to ways to stress yourself out about the thing in such a way as to cause dreams about them. Sometimes placing relevant objects around or in your bed can help. It seems possible that thinking sufficiently hard about the subject while under hypnosis or the effects of hallucinogens might qualify, but as the book went to print the evidence was not conclusive. Naturally, if you have a ghost handy, they can help you.
Sometimes dreams are prophetic but it's really only a very small fraction of them; most dreams mean nothing. Some people claim to have a talent for it and most of them are probably wrong, but if you have strong reason to believe in retrospect that you had one, you can watch out for commonalities between it and dreams you have going forward.
campanology
In what way might sleeping near a ghost affect his dreams? Like, does the ghost control how that works, the "ghosts can help you" thing sounds like they do but...
melting-in-the-dark
The phrasing does make it seem pretty intention-based, yeah, although not necessarily with any great deal of finesse.