#writingmagic

The Rook Council grows stronger, but I am still in need of: 🕶️ A Veil Jumper Rook – A specialist in weaving between worlds, bending reality, and untangling the mysteries of the in-between. 🐉 A Shadowdragon Rook – A force of untamed drive, ancient power, and lore so deep it sends shivers down your spine.

I’m writing this WIP for sure self-indulgence, but I’m borrowing Rooks along the way—pulling inspiration from brilliant minds to shape something truly, well something. If you think your storytelling vibes align with these roles, let’s talk. If you don't but you have an idea for others that might please drag them on over <3

Disclaimer: All Rooks will be handed back over politely to their creators, the writer is not responsible for any wear and tear that might accrue during the rental process.

🖋️🔥

The Heart of Your Tale

Nearly all stories in science fiction and fantasy deal with new systems of power—whether it be Frodo’s magic ring or Asimov’s robotics, ultimately you’re creating a new system for acquiring and maintaining power, and when you do this, as Orson Scott Card put it, you are forced at some level to consider the question, “What is the right use of power?” The understanding of power is vital to making better magic systems for your world.

Very often, the answer to this question becomes the very heart of your story. Certainly, it did for Frodo with his ring of power, for Luke Skywalker as he struggled to master the Force, or for Ender Wiggins as he fought to outwit his aliens.

Indeed, if your story is going to have an epiphany—a powerful moment of realization where the audience actually learns something of value—you as a writer have to contend with the issue of the proper use of power.

It’s for this reason that Algis Budrys, the longtime science fiction critic for the Chicago Sun Times and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction pointed out that “Science fiction and fantasy are the last bastion of moral fiction in America, the only place where you as a writer can talk about good and evil.” (In the mid-1980s when he said it, there was a backlash in popular fiction where people refused to talk about morality. Given the recent #MeToo movement, corruption in politics, and our persistent mass shootings, I suspect that maybe some folks will begin to realize that, “Hey, maybe we should have been trying to reach a consensus on what is right and what is wrong.”) We ignore moral questions at the peril of our own society.

Thus the issue of morality tends to become the very heart of your tale.

Now, there are thousands of “power systems” in the real world. If you think about it for a few moments, you’ll recognize them. In our world, money can give you power. You can use your money to do good—to cure cancer and help others—or you can become totally self-serving and build your pool until the day you abruptly expire. But other power systems exist. I’ve known men in politics who tried to gain power and then been destroyed by others in their own political party. I know writers who use their gifts primarily for self-aggrandizement until they become the Harvey Weinsteins of the publishing world. I’ve seen priests who were destroyed by public adulation, along with rock stars and actors and sports figures and so on. Heck, I’ve even seen mothers use their parental authority to become evil moms.

You’ve probably heard Acton’s quote, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He continues, “Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.”

Take that quote to heart. I think that when most of us hear it, we assume that Acton was talking about someone else. Let me assure you, he was talking about you and me. He was talking about the protagonist of your story. Whatever power system you serve and struggle to use, it can and will corrupt you. All of us need to learn how to handle power without being destroyed by it. Part of learning how to use power is understanding how and why and when to give it up.

What does that mean to your story? Whatever wanky magic system you create in your tale, it is a monster that is likely to turn on and destroy your protagonist. If you missed the prior tips on this topic, you can start here!

Happy Writing!

Hi! I’m @lighthearted.writer on Instagram!

From what I’ve seen, creating diverse magic systems in stories can be a pretty daunting task. We often worry that our system will end up being too similar to an already existing one, and therefore our readers won’t care or our book won’t sell (or something else along those lines). Deep down, every writer wants people to love or be helped by their story, so of course, having something like a diverse world is always going to be in the back of our heads. 

However, I don’t think we should be worrying about diversity from story to story as much as we do. You’ve heard this a hundred times before, but I’ll say it again: everything’s been done before. We’ve seen telekinesis, we’ve seen flying, we’ve seen people control earth’s elements to save their village. You can change things as much as you want, but they’ll never be completely different. 

But you can still make the effort, and that’s what I’m going to try to help you do :)

Protip: take a simple power (let’s use telekinesis as an example because I love that power) and start out with that as it is. It’s just like any other telekinetic power, the one you’ve seen been used a thousand times before in a thousand different movies and books. Now, plan just one character (not a whole race of people) that use this power. Why do they need it? What purpose does it serve for this story? How does it compliment their personality specifically and how will it be different from others? The key here is to give the power purpose. If they aren’t going to use it, then why give the ability to them in the first place? Don’t worry about anything else just yet!

Next, plan the things your character needs to interact with in the story. Write them into some scenes before (or after, it doesn’t really matter) you’ve started your drafts. For example, if your character is going to get trapped in a room with some strange villains, then write this seen. It will be good practice, and you aren’t obligated to actually use the scene. While you’re writing the scene, think about how you can have your character use their telekinetic ability to get out of certain situation. Add onto their magic as you go along.

IMPORTANT: think outside the box! 

If your character sees a large animal standing in their path, their first instinct will be to move it with their powers. It could be that simple, but what if there was a little more to it? Maybe when they go to move the animal, it knocks the animal unconscious with the force. That makes it a little different. Since this happens, it could either be intentional or it could even mean that something is wrong with the person using the power. Maybe they don’t have enough training. Maybe only few people can do this when they use telekinesis. How does this effect them mentally and physically? Now that your character has knocked someone unconscious (if it’s a person), it’s their job to hide the mess. This is gonna have some setbacks. Do they wish they could move things normally? You should also think about adding other things that your little telekinetic can do besides one “out of the box” thing. 

Let’s use another example: shapeshifter. We’ve seen a million of them. But have you ever seen one that can only take the form of someone else by looking them directly in the eyes? Seems kind of weird doesn’t it? And it makes things a lot more difficult. 

For me, it’s all about giving my characters strong powers that still make their life difficult. 

Of course there's loads more that has to go into creating a magic system, such as whether it’s a hard or soft magic system, but hopefully, this can at least get you started. 

As soon as I started thinking out of the box, of the most OUTRAGEOUS and weird powers (that made sense for my story/characters) I came up with some pretty cool stuff. 

I don`t do much on here, nobody knows me or is interested in what I have to say, because I haven`t said much. So I understand if you don`t care about saying much to me. But sometimes I have questions, so why not ask? I`m kinda a writer, but it`s hard to write when I don`t know something, especially if it`s a weird question or I don`t know how to phrase it. But I`m gonna ask anyway. Maybe we’ll learn something together, maybe it`ll help somebody else write something or just understand the world a bit better. And you can ask me stuff too. Maybe we can start up a big writing convo and we can all ask and answear stuff idk. So pls pls pls reblog/reply/send me an anon if you like idc pls talk to me

So, my questions are;

The pros and cons of bows and blades

How magic could work/ how magic is portayed in fiction

How telekenisis/telepathy could work/is portrayed in fiction

Cool words nobody uses

Words people use incorrecly

Romantic feelings vs. sexual feelings so I can write about sexuality stuff

How NOT to write stuff

Common misconseptions you get angry about and want to clear up

Whatever you feel like talking about

Anything you know a lot about and want to share

How to write

What you would like to happen in a book

What you don`t want to happen in a book ever again

How to create an alternate dimension from scratch in my brain

How to tag posts so that lots of people see it and help me

How to apologize for reblogging this post all of the time so people see it

Get Real

One essential part of making better magic systems is giving real imagery to the reader without telling them what to see. Very often I will read stories where the author describes a magic spell like this: “As soon as he entered the room, Kyla felt the powerful magic. She reached out with her senses, seeking the source, and found it was Naylam, standing above the bloody altar.”

Pardon me for writing two such embarrassingly weak sentences, but I’ve read them so many times, in so many manuscripts, I have to show you what it is like. When you read it, it’s sort of like being splashed in the face with pig slop. You know it’s garbage, but you can’t quite figure out what kind.

Do you see the problem? There is no actual imagery here. You as a reader have no idea what magic “feels” like. Does it feel like a kitten purring as it nuzzles against your cheek? Or does it feel more like a dagger piercing your kidney? Or does it feel like a bad case of the flu is making you want to barf?

The imagery is so vague, the reader isn’t led to imagine anything it all. The author is simply “telling” us what the mage experiences without creating any real imagery. But as an author you’ve heard it over and over again, “Show, don’t tell.” So you have to come up with precise imagery in order to fix the problem.

Before we address precise imagery, there are a couple of clichés that we need to deal with here. Why is it that so many mages “feel” magic power? I’ve seen people “sense” magic in books hundreds of times. Much in the same way, in film anything that is magic glows. So when we describe something magic, authors often refer to these two senses without thought.

But sight and feeling are not the only senses we have. Indeed, relying upon any one sense alone is too damned weak to bring your magic to life. We need to involve all of the senses—all the ones that your teacher taught you about in school—and more!

So instead of harking back to the old clichés, when you create magic, I want you to ask yourself, “How does the viewpoint character know that someone or something is magic?”

Come up with an answer. For example, if a character sees someone with a magic sword, you might imagine that the sword is glowing. Why? Because in Hollywood, everything that is magic glows. It’s a visual medium, after all.

If you do default to that image, throw your answer away, and ask yourself, “How does my hero really know?” Come up with a better answer.

Then maybe throw that second answer away and ask, “How does he really know?” Repeat this as often as needed, until after maybe ten or fifty tries, you get an answer that your gut tells you is right. If you’re familiar with acting techniques, you’ll probably recognize this exercise, but it works in storytelling as you consider things like character’s motives, possible plot twists, and . . . what does magic look like?

So you make a list.

Now that you know what magic looks like, ask yourself what does the magic sound like? When a mage casts a spell, for example, what does the audience hear? Does he hear a scream from the netherworld, or a crackling of static electricity, or the voice of a god in his mind shouting in fear, “No!” Consider a dozen possibilities.

Once you have got the visual and audio down, go deeper. What physical sensations does the magic carry—things like hot, cold, wet, dry, rough, smooth, soft, unyielding.

What smells are associated with the spell, if any?

Go deeper. What emotions are aroused by magic? Does the mage feel triumph, horror, regret?

When a magical spell is cast or an implement is used, how long does it take? Does it happen faster than thought, or does time dilate, the way that it will in a fight, so that the mage really is aware of what is going on in minute detail?

What is your viewpoint character thinking during the process? Go into his or her direct thoughts.

And finally, what are the magic’s effects? How does it act in ways that surprise the viewpoint character, or arouse powerful emotions?

In other words, when you are trying to create an impression that magic is taking place, you need to involve all of the senses. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, emotions, time—and you should even go deeper, into your POV character’s direct thoughts.

This is the only way to make magic feel real. If you would like to see some examples of how it is done, I’d invite you to look at Brandon Sanderson’s work, particularly in his Mistorborn series. Carlos Castenada does it well in his book, The Teachings of Don Juan. I do it in The Runelords, too.

But I need to emphasize this: In writing, all failures are tied to a failure of imagination. If your magic system feels weak or cliché, or if the consequences of your magic system aren’t rigorously examined, then you need to go back, exercise more and more imagination until you fix it. If you would like a more in depth course on imaginative writing, look here, but do not forget about the Super Writers Bundle!

-David Farland

Organic Magic

Some magic systems just don’t make any sense. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be fun, it just means that the audience will frequently be reminded at how silly it all is. When this happens, it reminds the audience that this is “just a story,” and can effectively remove the reader from the tale. As the poet/critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge put it, the magic system violates the reader’s “suspension of disbelief.” Making better magic systems includes making it fit into the story seamlessly and naturally.

Let’s take a classic example: Dumbo. Disney specialized in creating magic systems that were often ludicrous simply to get a fun visual effect. I remember seeing Dumbo for the first time when I was about ten years old, and it really annoyed me. I kept looking at Dumbo’s ears and wondering, Is waggling those big ears really supposed to give that elephant enough thrust so that it can lift off the ground? I don’t think so!

Now, as a child of four, I might have thought the idea of a big-eared flying elephant was cool. I might even have wondered if it could really happen. I might have wished that I could ride a flying elephant. As an adult, I might have been delighted to see my own children enjoying the nonsense. But at ten I was just at the cusp of an age where I couldn’t figure out what to make of it and found myself “outside” the tale, watching it but not really being engaged.

Another magic system that bothered me as a child was Popeye the Sailor Man and his eating of spinach.

As a five-year-old, the magic system seemed to me to be designed to sell nasty canned spinach—as if it were the brainchild of an unusually foolish advertising exec. Now, if you’re creating a magic system for an animated film, and you’re looking just to create a visual spectacle, such a magic system might work fine. It can be lighthearted and fun.

But once in a while, a magic system comes along that somehow feels a bit more . . . realistic than others. It can subtly invite the reader to believe. To me, such magic systems feel more “organic.”

Indeed, I often find that the best magic systems have deeper meanings. They often serve as metaphors for life, and beg the reader to consider the tales they are in seriously.

I think that the first time that I really noticed one of these “organic magic systems” was in Frank Herbert’s Dune, where a powerful “spice,” an organic molecule created by giant alien worms, was found that stimulated a person’s prefrontal lobes so well that the person who inhaled the spice was given almost prescient powers.

The idea of spice worked well for me for one simple reason: There had been rumors of drugs that stimulated the imagination for centuries. In fact, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (mentioned above) wrote one of his most famous poems, “Kubla Khan” under the influence of opium.

Of course, in the 1960s and 1970s many artists experimented with drugs in an effort to increase their productivity and expand their imaginations. I’ve known authors who use alcohol, pot, meth, and LSD for such purposes. Even Frank Herbert is rumored to have written Dune under the influence of mind-altering drugs.

Just to be clear, I strongly warn authors not to try this. I’ve seen too many authors destroy their careers this way.

But my point is that the magic system in Dune suggested the idea that potent chemicals could be developed that might lead us to higher stages of consciousness. As a teen with an interest in medicine, I felt that that was worth thinking about. Magic systems that are based on principles that sound plausible feel somehow more “right” to me, and thus invite me to become more engaged.

Similarly, a magic system might invite us to consider the tale more seriously because it can act as a sort of magnifying glass that helps reveal the world as it is. For example, in a recent story by Andrew Peery called “Useless Magic,” found in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume 33, a magician lives in a world where his father, a powerful sorcerer, spends his time humiliating his children in an effort to get them to follow in his footsteps. The only problem is, the young man can’t. He has only one small magical ability, and it’s utterly worthless. In this story, we aren’t invited to wonder at a fantastically crafted magic system so much as to consider the far more human tale that unfolds between father and son.

So, when I’m crafting my own magic systems, I often like to look at the tale and ask myself questions like, “Does this magic system feel organic, as if it is an extension of some natural law?” and “What life lessons does this magnify?” or “Does the magic system invite me to engage in this story on an intellectual level?”

This is what I tried to do with my novel The Runelords,

I spent a year researching and considering various magic systems and didn’t really like any of them. I was interested in dealing with magic at an “economic” level, to consider the underlying morality of how we trade for goods and services, often with both parties trying to get the most possible from the other while offering little in return. I finally came up with a magic system that acted as a metaphor in the way that I hoped. When I wrote the novel, it sold millions of copies, but it wasn’t until it had been out for ten years and the world was going through a huge recession that I began to get fan mail from readers who said, “You know, as I was reading this, I realized that this isn’t fantasy at all: it’s about the real world!”

Yes, as a writer, that’s what I try to do: I search for magic systems that can help me say something about the real world.

It’s not the only way to work, but it’s one that I find fun.

-David Farland