The Code of Magic by Arie
Farnam
The vast genre of
fantasy is akin to a wildly diverse landscape—encompassing vast plains of epic
proportion, shear crags of nail-biting tension, dark places where few dare to
tread, deep forests of ancient myth and cities of every description where
corruption and courage vie for dominance. Still, as enormous as this genre is there
is one thing that indicates whether or not a story belongs in the fantasy
universe. Fantasy stories contain some form of “magic.”
It may be no more than
subtle dreams invading reality in magical realism or it can be a full-blown flying
printing press that shoots bolts of lightning in a steampunk/western mashup,
but there’s got to be magic.
Magic in this context
can be defined as something that cannot be explained purely by science. The
line between fantasy and science fiction is under some debate because there is
always the question of whether something that can’t be explained by science
today might someday be within scientific grasp. But fantasy should generally
fall on the side of strange and wonderful things that science isn’t expected to
explain.
For writers, the
fantasy genre maintains all the challenges that other types of literature
entail, plus a few. There is often a lot of work to do to develop settings and
to make characters that are very different from us relatable. But the thing
that makes fantasy either fly or flop is the design and execution of whatever
magic is in the story.
While it may be fun to
throw pure imagination at the page and let all things go wild, as in Alice
in Wonderland, writers do well to be wary of that path. It can lead to
obscure literary praise (if done extraordinarily well), but it leads into the
surrealist subgenre of fantasy, where few paying readers venture. And thus it
doesn’t generate bestsellers.
If you want to not
only write fantasy but have other people read what you write, careful thought
on magical systems is mandatory. David Eddings reportedly spent six years
developing his magical system before starting The Belgariad. Being less bold than the grand masters of fantasy, I
took twenty years to work out my first magical system and it is satisfyingly
troll proof. A magical system doesn’t necessarily have to take that long, but
some serious thought goes into the good ones.
There are rules you
can follow to make the process easier. Good magical systems can be had by
rehashing the same themes explored since the dawn of true civilization (ahem…
that being in 1911 when J.R.R. Tolkien started writing for school magazines).
However, the key to creating a great magical system is in the conflict that
arises from a unique premise.
With that in mind,
here is my code of magical development:
The author god must
know the truth
Problems can arise
when a writer is exploring a magical system while writing. It’s fine as far as
it goes, but this exploratory approach requires major editing and you shouldn’t
start publishing until you know your magical system to its very core.
I’m going to use some
examples from my contemporary fantasy series here, not because I think mine is
the best or because I want to force it down your throat, but because one can
only really write about the behind the scenes methods of an author from firsthand
experience. I spent many years testing out different scenarios in my
imagination before writingand this resulted in a logically sound and yet
deceptively simple scheme.
In the long forgotten
past, a very negative magical work was created and it took over the wills of
its human creators. The negative magic itself became a living entity—the Addin.
The Addin desires absolute power over humanity and it gains it through usurping
the wills of individuals and using them as pawns. Many of the political,
economic and social leaders of today’s world are in fact controlled by the
Addin. No human being can resist Addin domination for long, if they are
specifically targeted. Most people don’t even know it exists and think that
simple greed and corruption account for any abuses of power and the destructive
tendencies of their leaders.
The world I created
for The Kyrennei Series is eerily similar to the real world and that has been the
key to its impact on readers who find the Addin frighteningly plausible. That’s
part of the magical system of this world and while the main characters don’t
entirely understand it even within the first few books of the series, my
understanding of it as the author keeps the series consistent and gives the
story a connection to authentic emotions.
Know the Source
Magic has to come from
somewhere or something in your world. Your characters may not know where it
comes from, but you should. Is it from the gods or pulled from the life force
around the magic user or from the energy of the universe or from something else?
I never spell this out
in The Kyrennei Series but essentially magic comes from primal life force or
energy. It operates on another plane of reality that can affect physical
reality in certain ways. Emotion is also energy. The intensity that goes into
the use of magic matters and the Addin, of course, operates primarily through
the usurpation of the emotions of others.
This was important for
me to understand as an author, even though the characters didn’t get into the
theoretical basis of magic in their world. It has implications for the way
magic works. The Addin steals the power of human beings by usurping their
emotions. But there are people that the Addin cannot take over. They are the
Kyrennei, a non-human race that lived on earth long ago, but the Addin was able
to annihilate them fourteen centuries ago because they were smaller and
physically weaker than humans. Still, before they died the last Kyrennei mages
set a magical process in motion that hid the genome of the Kyrennei within the
DNA of certain humans. When the Kyrennei thus return from extinction after
centuries of absence, it is their power to resist the Addin and their other
abilities with energy and emotion that matter. And the details of this premise
fit together nicely because they are rooted in the source of magic itself.
Know the limits
Just as magic should
have a source, it must have limits. If it didn’t have limits, there would be
nothing stopping anyone with magic from getting everything they want and ruling
the world. And that would make for a boring story. Limits equal conflict and
conflict is good for fiction.
The limit may be as
simple as a Cold War between magic users, such as “I can sense your magic, so
if you try to kill me in order to control the world without competition, I’ll
vaporize you just as you vaporize me.” There’s conflict there, even if the
magic is otherwise limitless, but that would make for a very inflexible
conflict.
Here again your characters
don’t necessarily know the limits of magic in their world. Or you might have
some fully informed magical scholars. But the “author god” should know the
limits. What can magic do? What can it not do? Is it limited by space and time?
Is it difficult to learn or limited to only some talented magic users? Is it
theoretically possible for magic users to read minds, live forever, change
anything into anything, bring back the dead, put out the sun or drive the
planet like a space ship? If they can’t do these things and much more, your
magic isn’t limitless. And you need to know where those limits are.
Often the outer limits
of magic will not be firm, however. Some types of magic may be stronger than
others, some magic users may be able to do more and certain devices, substances
or rituals may be able to push the limits of magic. Again, the “author god”
must know what is possible and what determines the abilities of magic users.
As an example, in The
Kyrennei Series, the question of why the magic users don’t rule the world is
answered. One group of them does rule. They exterminated the other group of
magic users partly because that group resisted their control of the wills of
normal humans. Even so, the ruling group does not use their power without
limit. When they usurp a person’s will, they make that person one of the elite
group of magic users as well and thus they must share power with that person
from that time forward (even though they will be a loyal follower of their
patron’s goals). This is why the Addin doesn’t yet control everyone in the
world. They are the wolves and wolves need sheep. If they eat all the sheep,
they will have no one to rule over and no more sheep to eat. As such, there are
certain limits on Addin, power but individuals sometimes stretch these limits.
And there can be controversy, even among the Addin about how much is too much
use of power.
On the other hand, the
protagonists in the Kyrennei Series initially know little about the limits of
magic as most of their magic has been suppressed for centuries. A key moment
comes when Aranka Miko, the first Kyrennei to take her true form in modern
times, shows a group of resistance fighters that she has abilities unknown for
centuries. Even then, any magic beyond the terrible power of the Addin and the
simple power of the Kyrennei to resist the Addin seems very limited indeed. But
eventually, the Kyrennei find that their physical weakness is balanced by greater
magical strength than anyone dreamed.
Apply basic logic
and be consistent… mostly
You may hate logic and
believe that consistency is for fools (and you may even have a fun plot).
However, you are likely to have a lot of unhappy readers (and a few angry
ones). Not all readers insist on logical consistency but many in fantasy and
science fiction genres do.
As a reader, I’m not a
zealot (in that I don’t go to great lengths to try to find logical
inconsistencies in books I read). But I am like most fantasy readers in that
obvious issues simply distract me from the story and take me out of the
“fictive dream” (that state in which you are feeling and experiencing the story
with the characters). And whether your genre is fantasy or any other sort of
fiction, it’s a mortal sin for a writer to boot the reader out of this dream
state. It’s what makes readers put books down for a minute… or indefinitely.
Don’t do it.
As long as you keep the
reader feeling and experiencing the story, other writerly sins will often be
forgiven and forgotten. And an underlying sense of reality and consistency is
crucial to keeping the reader engaged.
How does that apply to
developing magical systems? Magic is supposed to be illogical, right?
Yes and no. Magic is
supposed to go beyond science. You can rewrite the rules of science. But you
must still have rules. Gravity is a “rule” that keeps us from floating away
into space, and the rules of magic keep the reader firmly on the ground in your
fantasy world.
There are rules about
what magic can and cannot do. You make the rules. Then you play by them. Make
sure that if magic can’t do something in chapter one, there is a darned good
reason if it can do it in chapter eight (and visa versa). If you give your main
character the ability to magically transport themselves, you’re going to have
to give a good reason for how they get stuck in any dangerous situation that
your plot requires. Why wouldn’t they just teleport themselves away? Whatever
magic you give your characters they have to actually use it when in need,
unless there are specific reasons why they can’t.
In addition, if
everyone can do magic in your fictional world, there must be a good reason if
they don’t use it all the time (perhaps it is tiring or comes at some other
price). If magic users can transform any substance or creature into another
substance or creature, your magic users should never be poor. They could just
transform dirt into gold. In fact gold would be as worthless as dirt. In a
world with lots of transformation magic, no one should be hungry. But make sure
you know if any magical transformations are permanent or not. Eating bread that
turns back into rocks after an hour might be a bad idea.
So, consistency is
good.
But… too much
consistency can be a problem. If every use of magic always works exactly the
same and is always successful, you’ll be giving up a great source of suspense
for your plot. It often works best if magical ability isn’t absolute or well
understood by the characters and magic doesn’t always work. This adds conflict,
suspense and interest to the story. But again, the author must understand why
the magic works in some instances and not in others, even if the characters are
dismayed and confused.
Another common logical
blunder occurs when writers set up the belief that magic takes a lifetime to
learn. Magic users are invariably very old in such tales, until the main
character arrives (usually an adolescent) who is supposed to learn magic. But
the adolescent usually masters magic in a matter of weeks or months and soon
exceeds the abilities of his or her teachers. This isn’t just a tired plotline.
It’s also a logical inconsistency. David Eddings actually pulled this off in
his Belgariad series, but it wasn’t nearly so tired a plotline when he did it
(and his version is still among the best).
More importantly, he
dealt with logical inconsistencies. First, the talented adolescent was the
answer to a prophecy and expected to be far stronger in magic than everyone
else. Second, it did take him a few years (not weeks) to get to be really good.
Third, the reason most magic users were ancient was that the talent for magic
in Eddings’ world is exceedingly rare, so by the time the main character was
born all the other magic users had grown very old. And fourth, even when the
amazingly strong adolescent had come into his power, he still needed to consult
with his technically weaker but more experienced teachers on a lot of issues,
so it was still clear that he was strong but inexperienced.
Magic shouldn’t be
the key to the plot
Here’s an interesting
irony for you. Fantasy must have some sort of magic to be fantasy and yet it
isn’t a good idea to make magic the key to resolving your plot problem. The
crux of fiction is a conflict or a problem that the main characters must solve.
But fantasy writers shouldn’t just “magic away” the problem.
For example, if you
have a young adventurer faced with an evil tyrant of great power in your story
and the young adventurer must rescue someone, escape from somewhere, retrieve
an important object or win a battle resulting in freedom from oppression (or
one of the many other things that such adventurers do in fantasy books), it is
inadvisable to simply say that your young adventurer learned a new magical
skill and “bam!” the evil tyrant is sidelined or dead. This makes for a boring
story and a poor ending, even if the rest of the plot is great.
Unlike most of the
other rules in my code of magic, this one is often broken by commercial fantasy
writers and sometimes stories that break this rule even have a moderate amount
of success. However, you should note that the most successful fantasy does
follow this rule. Harry Potter wins through moral fortitude, loyalty to friends
and family and inner freedom of spirit, not because his patronus is just
stronger. Frodo wins with only incidental use of magical items (like cloaks) by
stamina, undergoing hardship and the final moral victory over the temptation of
power.
The thing that makes
these stories work is that the characters had to change in order to win. If
Frodo had to climb Mount
Doom on the first day of
the Fellowship of the Ring, he would have failed. Harry Potter too. Maya
Gardener in the second trilogy of the Kyrennei Series is frozen in fear in the
beginning. It is only through many trials and experiences that she comes to
choose her own path and stand up to aggression when it counts most.
That’s because magic,
as important as it is to fantasy stories, cannot be “the magic bullet” of the
plot. Magic is a tool in fantasy, but stories driven by changing characters
facing obstacles with inner strength will always win the day.
Guest Blogger Bio
Arie Farnam is a
former war correspondent and urban documentary filmmaker turned fantasy writer
living in Prague.
She is the author of The Kyrennei Series (Book One is The Soul and the Seed). When not
setting keyboards on fire with speed typing, Farnam practices urban
homesteading, chases her two awesome children and concocts herbal medicines.
Author Links:
Website: http://www.ariefarnam.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arieanna.farnam
Twitter: https://twitter.com/farnamarie
Amazon Author Central page: http://amzn.to/1TECS44
Books:
Coming Soon:
Available:
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