{"id":1073,"date":"2019-07-17T08:32:31","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T12:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1073"},"modified":"2019-07-17T08:32:31","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T12:32:31","slug":"magic-central","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/17\/magic-central\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic Central"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 24, 2019, SluggishWriter wrote, I write primarily middle grade and young adult fantasy (as well as some science fiction). As much as I love magic systems, I struggle to make them fit within my stories, both plot-wise and scene-by-scene-wise. I don\u2019t want my stories to have a useless magic system attached, but I can\u2019t figure out how to make them important, even if I love writing them in. Part of this is that I tend to feel like special magical objects and such are kind of clich\u00e9 in fantasy, even though I love reading stories about that sort of thing. My magic can get a little too abstract because of this. If anyone has any tips, I\u2019d really appreciate that!<\/em><\/p>\n

Two of you responded.<\/p>\n

Christie V Powell: Brandon Sanderson, the fantasy author, teaches a university class and has posted all of his lectures online. Here\u2019s his lecture on magic systems: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jXAcA_y3l6M<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Melissa Mead: Maybe figure out what\u2019s unique about your world first, and then build your magic system around that? And choose your MC and their dilemma based on something that\u2019s different about them relative to this thing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ex: Maybe your world has \u201cPhoenix trees\u201d that burn on the top while replenishing themselves from the bottom.<\/em>
\nAnd magic in this world relates to the trees–eating the fruit, carving the wood, climbing the trees without getting burnt\u2026<\/em>
\nAnd your MC either can or can\u2019t do something that everyone else can\u2019t\/can, which causes a problem, bothers them, or otherwise makes them want to change this thing.<\/em><\/p>\n

I love the phoenix trees ideas! I\u2019d love to see one.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019ve watched many of Brandon Sanderson\u2019s lectures, which I\u2019ve found very interesting. I marvel at how methodical and rational he is about writing–where as I count on intuition and muddling to get me, eventually, where I need to go.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s a weird question: Does fantasy need magic at all? Please weigh in.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if it does, necessarily. Susan Fletcher\u2019s Shadow Spinners<\/em>, which I recommend heartily, is a fresh take on the framing story of The Arabian Nights<\/em>. It feels like fantasy and comes entirely out of fairy tale land, but there\u2019s no magic.<\/p>\n

As a child\u2013and to this day\u2013I love to read fairy tales, which I did not get from Disney but from the old versions that I found in my child\u2019s encyclopedia and in the Lang fairy tale books (which are all available online for free, since they\u2019re in the public domain). If you don\u2019t know the original tales, I\u2019d suggest going to Lang. (The books are named after colors: The Blue Fairy Tale Book, The Lilac Fairy Tale Book<\/em>, etc.\u2013there are lots of them.) I still love the magical apparatus in fairy tales: the flying carpets, the dead horse who can talk, genies. So I\u2019d suggest an afternoon spent reading fairy tales and, if you like, taking notes. Think about how the magic functions in these stories.<\/p>\n

Not that I have anything against Disney. But Disney and fairy tale novels like mine and others\u2019 are too filled in. The old fairy tales that you\u2019ve read or are about to read are short. Nothing is dwelt on, so the magical elements aren\u2019t, either. The flying carpet in these stories is just transportation, but what does it feel like to ride one? The dead talking horse merely delivers its messages, and the tale rattles on, but how does it sound? Does it sing? Does spittle fly? It\u2019s in the details that we get away from the ordinary.<\/p>\n

Regarding clich\u00e9s. Sure these old fairy-tale devices have been done before, but readers\u2013and writers\u2013go to them because they love them. There\u2019s comfort in their familiarity. I use them.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think we should worry about clich\u00e9 anyway, as I\u2019ve said more than once on the blog. The worry tends just to fuel our self-criticism. If we tell our story as we alone can, the clich\u00e9s will shrivel up.<\/p>\n

What technology does for us today, magic does for the characters in fairy tales, and we can use it that way. Your character needs to get somewhere in a hurry? Bring in the seven-league boots. Your character needs to see what\u2019s going on a hundred miles away? Give her a crystal ball. And so on. We just have to pay attention to the opportunities.<\/p>\n

We can complicate things. Our MC has a crystal ball, but it works only when she\u2019s calm\u2013and she needs it only when she\u2019s not calm! Notice also that we\u2019ve introduced two magical elements here. The crystal ball can see into the distance, and it\u2019s psychic, too. And we\u2019re moving into plot as well, because our MC has trouble controlling her emotions, a liability in a hero.<\/p>\n

Of course we can\u2019t let the magic solve the story\u2019s problems. We have to limit its power and\/or make it a source of trouble.<\/p>\n

Magic is part of our world-building, as Melissa Mead\u2019s phoenix trees demonstrate. Hers is a world that accommodates that sort of flora.<\/p>\n

An easy-peasy way to introduce magic is to include a magical creature or a species of magical creatures in our world. These can be ogres, dragons, elves, and so on. Or we can bring in a kind of creature never before seen in the pages of a book, as I did with brunkas in my mystery Stolen Magic<\/em>. As soon as the creatures are in, the world becomes magical. They don\u2019t even have to do much that\u2019s magical. They can live among humans. Broad-minded humans and elves can seek out diversity by living side-by-side. Some ENT doctors can specialize in diseases that afflict pointy ears. We can let our plot make room for a creature or two. If our MC is on a quest, she can bring a dragon along, and we can decide in what ways he\u2019ll make things easier for her and in what ways harder. She can encounter evil gnomes, who stand in the way of her fulfilling her quest.<\/p>\n

The problem at the center of our story can be magical, as I made it in Ella Enchanted<\/em> and Ogre Enchanted<\/em>, both of which revolve around a fairy\u2019s gift, and The Two Princesses of Bamarre<\/em>, which is about a magical illness, the Gray Death. If magic is at the core, it won\u2019t be an appendage to our story, it will be central.<\/p>\n

Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2219 Your MC has found a crystal ball in a cave. Inside the ball is a tiny person who is wringing her hands and muttering incomprehensibly. Your MC needs to know if it\u2019s safe for her to leave the cave, and she can\u2019t just go to the opening and peek, because the villain who\u2019s after her may be there. She needs the crystal ball, and she has to figure out how it works. Write the scene.<\/p>\n

\u2219 We\u2019re in the world of phoenix trees. Suppose the tree produces a single fruit every 300 years, and whoever eats it will live until the next fruit ripens. The 325-year-old who ate the last fruit wants to keep it from ever ripening. Your MC wants it for her beloved cousin who\u2019s dying of an arrow wound, and other people want it, too. Write a scene. Write the whole story.<\/p>\n

\u2219 List ten other plot possibilities that center on the phoenix trees. Pick one and write the story.<\/p>\n

Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 24, 2019, SluggishWriter wrote, I write primarily middle grade and young adult fantasy (as well as some science fiction). As much as I love magic systems, I struggle to make them fit within my stories, both plot-wise and scene-by-scene-wise. I don\u2019t want my stories to have a useless magic system attached, but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[321,38,322],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1074,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}