Magic

Personally I don't care how magic is used in a story as long as it is used consistently throughout the book/series. I've read books with very loose "because it's magic" explanations and books where magic follows strict rules and there are stories in both camps that I loved and loathed.

I think magic in all forms is great in books and most everything I write includes magic but I really hate it when magic just takes over a story and fills pages better spent on character development. To me this is just as bad as when a movie lets neat CGI take the place of a solid story. I don't really care what flavor it is so long as the author remembers magic enhances the story but that doesn't mean it is the story.

That having been said I do love seeing new and inventive magic systems I haven't seen before.

I made up a magic system that was awsome, but I never stuck to it in the book, which is a bummer, cuase I should have.

Basically, you'd carve runes on these magical stones, then you could combine the runes to do different things. Throw a few fire runes on the floor and create a wall of fire. Slap a wind and a posion rune together and create mustard gass and so on.

So yeah, I always like combination magic that has a lot of basic things, but when you add them together, they do cool things.

As long as the idea is consistent I like magic in any form. I generally lean more towards complicated magic systems because it's fascinating to see what other authors come up with. As far as writing it, I'm too anal to take a general approach like "oh it was just a little magic." My brain has to work out little details or I lose interest.

I like to understand how it works, but so long as I do, and so long as it remains consistent throughout the story, I don't really mind how general its application is. So long as I understand why magic can be applied to an eye or to a glass lense, it's all good.

Most people just use some variation of manipulating the fundamental elements of the world (traditional ones, such as Fire Water Earth Air and divine substance).

I get all my magic from role playing games.



LOL.


Well, you know a lot of people do. It's the great crutch of wannabe fantasy writers.


Magic is magic because it's not science, although sometimes science is magic because it's impossible to those it's being performed for.

For me, the best magic is the kind that's hard. Hard for anyone to do, let alone peeps who know what the heck they're doing.

In my WIP, the Prot was once a legend, and is now trying to live a life of seclusion, but he still putters around with the skills he used to have mastered. I show him struggling to light a candle with magic, and it frustrates him, because he used to be capable of much more -- in many ways it's the same sort of scene as showing the old gunslinger having trouble hitting a can as he practices before strapping the old six-shooter back on.

As far as magic that alters the body as opposed to magic that enchants objects to make the body better? This is a preference thing. Using the old role-playing jargon, does it make a difference if I cast a spell of Bull's Strength upon you, or give you Gauntlets of Ogre Power? You still end up with a +2 strength bonus.

I have to agree with using role-playing games as source material for magic systems. The big difference is, in a role-playing game, everything is described in step by step, logical order; but in an actual story your magic needs to be natural, consistent, appropriate to the setting and mentality of the people, etc.

The contrast between magic and science can't be taken lightly. Sure, magic is full of old formulas weird rituals, but there's no expectation that any Joe could just follow a formula and become a magician. The essence of magic is some degree of personal power, and some defiance of the natural order of things. If everyone can do it, then it's not really magic anymore.

While pondering magic systems (targeting the role-playing game market), I came up with some long lists of different methods for producing magical results, based on folklore and myths of various cultures. Some factors to think about are: the type of effect being produced (healing, fire, circles of protection etc), the source of the power behind the Magic (personal strength, external mana, godly intervention), the way that spells are visualized (runes, power words, brews, spirit guides, pixie dust...), how common magic is in your world, whether magic use is accepted or condemned by your society, and whether magic is taught openly or secretly. The number of combinations is surprising. Also, is there a general magic which can do anything, or are there a lot of focused schools of magic to learn?

Choose a combination of elements that interests you, try to find some real-world mythology to help get a feel for it, then try to personalize it and make it your own -- but in the end, whatever it is, it must be consistent.

Interesting and valid question:

JimmyB27 said:

...what sort of magic do you prefer, both as a reader and a writer?

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Personally, I prefer magic that runs like a science. Something with some level of reason and repeatability to it. Whether it's difficult or easy, legal or illegal, divine or arcane... doesn't matter IMO; that's completely up to the writer and what kind of story they want to tell.

Sassee and Oddsocks make excellent points, too. Whatever system you use, be consistent.

...But as long as you're going off into specifics...

JimmyB27 said:

...The sort that can be employed just as easily to affect glass or human tissue - with a healthy dose of handwavium, as in Harry Potter for example. Or the sort that can only be used in certain ways, with strict rules - almost like the real world's laws of physics. Like the Skill and Wit in the Farseer books, for example.

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Granted, Rowling is a bit more liberal in her system, a lower threshold of release if you will, but she still has rules and sticks to them. To me, the difference you've just described is really more about the level of magic saturation, or the difference between "magic rich" and "magic sparse" worlds.

In that respect, comparing magically rich vs. sparse environments is like comparing apples and oranges – they're both great, but what kind of fruit dish are you preparing here? If you're trying to create orange juice for your readers, don't squeeze the apples. If you want to give them apple pie, avoid the oranges. They can both be very real, but what story/feel/mood do you want to convey?

Think about it in mundane terms – make the techno-leap. For grins, let's whip up an adventure story and tell it without stretching the sense of reality even a little bit. Let's take a hero on a battlefield as our exercise.

Let's tell the story of an Afghan fighter some 100 miles north of Jalalabad, taking on the Taliban. He's outfitted very basically: pants, robe, jacket, knife and his most advanced equipment is a barely functioning AK-47. He's a minimally "trained" soldier for a local warlord but unfortunately, he'll be facing a bunch of foreign religious nuts that filtered over the border from Saudi Arabia. All he wants, really, is to get his daughter educated back in the village. Let's throw in a little complication: his warlord is playing both sides, growing a poppy field and trying to hide it from UN inspectors. Now you've got internal and external tension, and for the purpose of your story, that's all he'll ever need to manage acts of great heroism. However, in this setting, we see the equivalent of a low magic-saturation story.

Now take the same setting and approach from a different POV. You have a U.S. Marine Scout-Sniper operating in the same area. He's been trained to speak a few words in Pashto and recognize Dari when it's spoken, but he's a native English speaker and still has a bit of his California surfer roots surface when talking to his buds. He carries an encrypted radio, a GPS, a laser range finder, a laser target designator (for air strikes), a ruggedized Colt .45, an M-4 and he's still getting used to his M-40A3. He carries nearly 7 pounds of ammunition when he goes out. Our hero lives and breathes as much technology as dust. He will kill more enemy combatants in a month than our native hero will in his entire life – and should he ever be cornered by that enemy, they will literally skin him alive. Unfortunately, his CO is looking to grace his own performance review with "operates under budget" because he wants to land a corporate job when he gets out – and now half the equipment our Marine hero is carrying doesn't work because he can't get authorization for repairs and batteries. Note that we now have all kinds of internal and external tension... but go back to the equipment. This is the equivalent of a high magic-saturation story.

Both stories are real, valid, moving and powerful.
Which story do you want to tell?

Repeating most of the previous replies, as long as it's consistent in the story, I enjoy any form and rules of magic. When I write, I generally make it so that magic can only affected inanimate objects. Otherwise, there would be no story. The handicap of indirectly affecting living beings makes it much more interesting.

Like David, I've sampled a lot of RPGs to see what they do for magic. I look at invented "systems" as a bit of creative anthropology. Think of D20 or GURPS (or whatever floats yer boat) as doing a little reverse engineering to find the methods that may have given rise to those very myths.

There is, however, a potential compromise in borrowing game systems: a lot of RPG publishers artificially tweak what magic could do for the sake of balanced game play. That could be good for a writer to help avoid deus ex machina traps... it could be bad, understating the potential of magic for some real earth-shaking consequences.

scottVee said:

I have to agree with using role-playing games as source material for magic systems. The big difference is, in a role-playing game, everything is described in step by step, logical order; but in an actual story your magic needs to be natural, consistent, appropriate to the setting and mentality of the people, etc.

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Absolutely right, though there's no "but" to it. Just because a system is there, it doesn't mean the writer has to lay out the step-by-step process every time the character casts something. That would sorta be the equivalent of an "infodump" in SF.

... Consider a preset system a writer's built-in safety net. With static source material – potentially a whole system to borrow and adapt – means at least the story will have continuity and consistency to the magic.

The irony here is that some of the writers that do novels for publishers like WotC don't always follow their own system's rules, usually bending (or shattering) those rules with a few well-placed and impossibly powered spells (at least as measured by the game system that supposedly limits the players of said system).

scottVee said:

The contrast between magic and science can't be taken lightly. Sure, magic is full of old formulas weird rituals, but there's no expectation that any Joe could just follow a formula and become a magician. The essence of magic is some degree of personal power, and some defiance of the natural order of things. If everyone can do it, then it's not really magic anymore.

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Nor could any Joe pick up a slide rule and build a nuclear bomb – at least not right away. In the long run, anyone could do it that's sufficiently motivated.

For magic, I think it's case-by-case for what kind of a story a writer is trying to get across – and what threshold of magic they have in their world. Even the most byzantine magic would have to operate within a set of rules or nobody would be able to control what they were casting.

Figure you can build an action story the second someone picks up a gun, whether they're trained or a "natural" or not. In fact, half the drama of stories is in watching the character struggle through the learning curve; the drama of the growth process if you will. Why not have a "magic" story that starts when some schmo stumbles over a magic ring, has no clue on its dynamics but can still make it work? Or has that already been done...?

scottVee said:

While pondering magic systems (targeting the role-playing game market), I came up with some long lists of different methods for producing magical results, based on folklore and myths of various cultures. Some factors to think about are: the type of effect being produced (healing, fire, circles of protection etc), the source of the power behind the Magic (personal strength, external mana, godly intervention), the way that spells are visualized (runes, power words, brews, spirit guides, pixie dust...), how common magic is in your world, whether magic use is accepted or condemned by your society, and whether magic is taught openly or secretly. The number of combinations is surprising. Also, is there a general magic which can do anything, or are there a lot of focused schools of magic to learn?

Choose a combination of elements that interests you, try to find some real-world mythology to help get a feel for it, then try to personalize it and make it your own -- but in the end, whatever it is, it must be consistent.

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Good suggestions.

I think most folklore and myth and touchy-feely organic naturalism tends to lean toward low-power, shamanistic magic. Meh. Amateurs. However, mythology in literature does give great cultural cues and forms the very paradigms of story telling. Those plot-first archetypes are the foundation that all our modern, character-first stories are struggling to pretend they're not following – and frankly, it helps to know the rules before you start breaking them.

Bang on.

My favorite magic system is tapping an island for blue mana ...

Ok, on a more serious note I'd have to say I prefer magic to have strict rules. It's also best if magic is not very flashy, just subtle little things that are really handy. Flashy magic belongs to stage performers, I think practically, one would not want to call attention to the fact that one is casting a spell. Favor surprise and all that.

By the way, I came up with a magic system I've always wanted to use in a story, but haven't been able to work into any of my fantasy stories. The mage writes his spells on scrolls and then applies one of the four classic elements to the scroll to initiate the casting. Burn a scroll to cast a fire-based spell, blow on it to access the power of wind, rub it on the ground for an earth spell, run it under cold water if need be. Simple cantrips can be performed using a spoken word or a gesture, but anything complicated requires detailed written description.

Here is the concepts I started with when imagining magic in The Queen's Hound:

Artwork and music evoke certain reactions from people, whether they understand them or not. An american infant and an elderly japanese man can both feel excited or sadened by certain selections of classical music, for instance.

All over the world, we have similar mythologies. Ancient (in some cases, cave) drawings that could be said to depict "dragons" or "unicorns" have been found all over the world. Yeah, there's a lot of differences, but there's a lot of similarities, too.

>So part one of the theory (remember, this is fantasy) is that there is a "Common Human Mythology". This mythology tells us the difference between a sad melody and a happy jig, it says that red is a passionate color, and that dragons are creatures of power.

Have you ever felt someone staring at you? Have you ever seen someone weep and been overcome with their sadness? Or felt someone's anger towards you? I took this and the notions of "Putting energy out into the Universe" or "Vibes" and thought up part two of the theory:

>We are connected by an unseen web of emotions and energies that we are ultimately in control of.

Then I threw in a healthy dose of "Consensual Reality", basically considering the nature of our souls (powerful) and how, in the consensual reality theory, we've all agreed that in our earthly bodies, we'll play by certain rules.

>Part three of the theory: The laws dividing science and magic are there because we agree that they are.

Finally, I thought that, hey, there's all these people throwing around all this energy, and such a great number of them wish that they had more power than they do. What if so many of them wanted more power that the scales tipped, and our consensual reality shifted to allow "magic" on a grand scale. What if, suddenly, when you wished that someone would just die, you sent out that negative energy, and they really did die?

Then I brought the Common Human Mythology back into it. The Common Human Mythologies, I figured, are basically ways for us to conceptualize those energies we throw around, and therefore they exist on an "energy level".

The human body is an energy body as well as a physical one, so I figured there would be a limit to how much of these energies the body could contain, and this would vary from person to person. When that level was exceeded, well, the body would be destroyed. Then I thought that the intense release of that energy, now channeled into a form granted it from the common human mythology, would put energy out into the world strong enough to take on a bit of "life" of its own.

>Long story short, a person can summon negative, painful, killing energy and hurl it at someone they hate, but if the energy summoned is too much for their body, the energy will destroy the body and enter the world as its own entity (now that it has been given shape). This shape would likely be something dark and destructive...a black dragon, perhaps. Likewise, they could sincerely wish for someone to be helped or healed, lay their hands on them and will them to be well. If the energy was enough to destroy them, we may end up with something white, pure, healing...like a unicorn.

To keep all the magic straight and consistent, I wrote it all down in game terms, and ended up creating an RPG based on the novel. Both are due to be published later this year.

I would also like to say that while magic definitely plays a role in my story, it is largely part of the background and character development but not involved much with the actual plot. The world is post-apocalyptic because the birth of magic was so abrupt (and, well, led to dragons and werewolves, and all sorts of baddies) that it virtually destroyed mankind.

Imagine: rush hour traffic. Negative energy everywhere. Someone loses it, and the energies they send out destroy the guy who just cut him off, but the energy is too much, and suddenly there's the energy form of a dragon out in the middle of the street. Panic ensues...and the energy is just too much. More people lose control. It spreads like the dust of a mushroom cloud, and in the wake, powerful incarnations of fear and destruction, who then go on to create more of the same. Viola. The Apocalypse. Those who can control their energies survive, and the remaining humans have great power - and great restraint.



So I like consistent magic with definite rules, in high or low saturation. The "well, it's just magic" thing always seems like a cop-out to me. Harry Potter avoids this to some extent because it introduces the magic (usually in one of Harry's classes) long before the magic is needed in the story. What I don't like is when you are operating under one assumption (oh, no! They're trapped and there's nothing they can do!) and suddenly, ah-ha! Magic! They're saved!

I also prefer magic with a set of rules behind it. I want to know what a magic user can and cannot do.

At one point I have read a book that had a magic user that could do anything with little repercussions. At least, it appeared as such in the first few pages of the book. I brought the book back (good thing for me it was within the refund period) because if such a person can do anything then why not solve it on page 1 already...


As a writer I'm also working on a magic system that has strict rules. In fact, my WIP will deal with a Mage that will try to do something that is not according to the rules and facing the consequences thereof. And I'm not talking about rules layed down by Mages, but actual rules of how magic itself works. In my system there are a few types of creatures that can be summoned, and others that cannot. He will try to summon one that cannot be summoned. I have yet to determin the result, but it won't be pretty.

I'm not so certain about the absolute need for rules, at least not in the sense of "this is how the magic engine works".

Ok, it helps. I use a set of rules myself, but that is more a means to get me some backdrop rather than to have magic work within the frames of the story.

Now, price, that's another thing. I believe magic should always come at a price. Whether that price is getting tired, having to pay ten quid every time you cast a spell or the AntiMagicSquad paying you a visit during night and smash your knees really doesn't matter much. Just as long as I, the reader, believe there's something holding wielders of magic back.

Orson Scott Card has a lot to say about the price of magic in his excellent book, "How to Write Fantasy & Science Fiction". Of course, being Card, the price is usually something a bit grisly!

Myself, I don't expect magic to be worked out with rules of RPG-like precision, but I like there to be consistency and limits, so it's not some 'deus ex machina' that can solve any problem - especially if the author then fails to use the all-powerful magic when it's needed, just to keep the plot boiling.

Either the magic-wielder has to have known limits to their powers (e.g. can do absolutely anything with water, but is powerless in a desert - and of course our heroes get stranded in a desert!), or as others have said, there is a price to pay. Or both.

One detail I personally think has been overlooked for far too long (warning for sweeping generalization's ahead) is when magic is abundant but really doesn't impact on society.

Great towers of sorcery, wizards roaming the lands in their thousands and in the end it all comes down to the special effects department or Guns'R'Us.

When every second page is crawling with magic I want to see it affect preindustrial production of goods, transports, city hygiene, media, medicine, and, well, you name it.
If there is a plethora of mundane magic creating mundane effects, then the price for wielding magic could be mundane indeed. "Be a good little wizard, shut up and don't get late for work. You have five scryings, two letters to send and a field to water before sundown, so get your lazy ass out there before I cut your salary!"

I feel that the best magic systems are simple, and shouldn't be too large scale. This way you can keep the story about things besides magic, and make use of swords.

Just to clarify: I don't need RPG-level details to the way magic works, but just enough to know what a character can or cannot do.

I don't like seeing a deus ex machina power suddenly pop up out of nowhere and saving the day.

Michael Dracon said:

Just to clarify: I don't need RPG-level details to the way magic works, but just enough to know what a character can or cannot do.

I don't like seeing a deus ex machina power suddenly pop up out of nowhere and saving the day.

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Agreed!

JBI: My magic system was complex enough that it became the basis for an RPG, but in the story, it is basically setting/background type stuff. You can't read the novel and come away knowing all the mechanics behind the magic, and the "rules" of magic aren't discussed as part of the plot. Just because the rules are there don't mean they have to impose on the story.

Monkey said:

Agreed!

JBI: My magic system was complex enough that it became the basis for an RPG, but in the story, it is basically setting/background type stuff. You can't read the novel and come away knowing all the mechanics behind the magic, and the "rules" of magic aren't discussed as part of the plot. Just because the rules are there don't mean they have to impose on the story.

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I actually learned that a few days ago. I was working on setting up a set of rules and even some background for the magic that is used in my WIP.

Last weekend I decided to split up the document in 'rules' and 'rules light'. The rules being what I need to keep in mind when people are doing magic in my books, and the 'rules light' part being what the readers will read about it to understand the basics.

An example is that I have actually worked out why speech works when summoning a creature from another realm. But I don't have to put that explaination in my book because summoning something that way is pretty common in most (urban) fantasy setting already anyway.

Michael makes an excellent point: just because you have a complex system in place, that doesn't mean you show much of it – only what's necessary for the plot.

Now, on to this:

JBI said:

I feel that the best magic systems are simple, and shouldn't be too large scale. This way you can keep the story about things besides magic, and make use of swords.

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...This echoes back along the lines Yappo mentioned: if you have magic in the world, it's going to affect that world. The more accessible magic is, the easier it is use it, the more it'll be used and the more it'll impact the world in day-to-day living.

Again, take the real-world equivalent of magic: technology. Take a look at today's world – then figure out the last time swords and axes were used on a warfare scale. It would have to go back some 300 years. Once the firearm was invented, it became the standard of combat – even close quarters battle. That doesn't mean swords ceased to exist – heck, metallurgy could make swords today that would've been considered freakin' magical by dark ages warriors (light, harder and sharper than anything possible back then). But next to an HK MP5...? A three-round burst at close range creates such an amazing amount of ballistic trauma, so fast, there is neither any sword, nor any sword style, that can compare or compete (and that's using FMJ ammo... lord help the poor bastard that gets clipped with glaser safety slugs).

Now take that equivalent into the magic world. If you've got wands that can deal damage, you've just created some equivalent to firearms. Once the folks wearing blue create a wand of X strength, the guys across the field wearing red are going to work creating a wand of Y strength. That'll grow. Maybe it's your choice to cap magic... but will that come off as an arbitrary and artificial limitation? Will you just place your story between those development cycles...?

In some ways, you can try to balance it out with enchanted armor. That can bring a little "heroic" life back to the CQB element. It would be like modern body armor – enchantments making certain hits survivable... though you don't want to be the guy testing that out.
...And you don't want the shot hitting some place that's not covered by those enchantments (like, say, your face...).

Take that a step further and you see enchantments, too, would likely follow real world development cycles. Even after the firearm was entrenched, guys were still used to old world tech and they were killing themselves trying to wear ineffective armor. In the American civil war, guys were strapping on big, heavy iron girdles that provided no help against a speeding bullet (at least on the way in...). Such "cursed" armor would actually keep the bullet from passing through, creating a series of ricochets that would bounce around inside the guy's torso. Ouch.

For a while, armor was essentially useless – and you had armies lining up in rows and shooting at each other wearing nothing more than a field jacket and a prayer. Over the next couple hundred years, material science would start to catch up and today you have technology that can protect against amazing things. We're trying to deploy some of that now – though it's expensive stuff... and there will always be an achilles heel somewhere, some chink in the armor where something can get through.

Enchantments (or even magically-driven science) in your fantasy story can help level the playing field, but realize that a magic-rich story is very likely going to make swords obsolete (at least for a time).

I tried to avoid some of that by having limitations on what magic can do and by making magic both dangerous and physically costly for the caster.

Another thing that is commonly overlooked in fantasy (especially in RPG's, since they've been mentioned) is that showing up at your local tavern decked out for battle wouldn't always be appreciated. There should be legal and social ramifications of running around in full armor and armed to the teeth. It makes you look as if you are there to start trouble. Likewise, running around with obvious magical items could make you a target for theft or could have the same effect as showing up with a drawn sword. People don't like things that they find threatening, and many magics would fall into that category.

In the novel I wrote, magic played heavily into politics, and the main city where the action takes place has two "seperate but equal" districts; one is for those who want to deal with magic, and in the other, all magic and magic users are prohibited. The whole society had to be structured around the fact that many people find magic threatening.

In my WIP what can be done with magic is based solely on personal strength. In theory ANYTHING could be done with it, provided the person casting had powerful enough soul. And when you do something too much for you, bad things happen. Death, dismemberment (headache diahrrea dysentary the clap and lice)... etc...