Magic Systems: A Teen Author’s Insight

Whether you’re reading Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, or Throne of Glass, magic systems play an integral role in how the story plays out. The way an author decides to use magic in their story is one of the most defining features that can make a book stand out. It doesn’t matter if it’s wands, gods, or magical creatures; the magic system is one of the most important things you can look at when reading or writing a fantasy tale.

While most magic systems, especially within subgenres, will have some similarities, oftentimes they are as unique as the authors who are writing them. As I've said many times before, writing is such a unique experience, nothing will ever be exactly the same. There may be similarities in some instances, but there are only so many books of the same genre that can be written before some similarities will pop up. I’m not talking about plagiarism here, which is blatantly different and done with intent to take the work of someone else, but there will often be some overlap within a genre.

Back to magic systems, I write types of fantasy myself, and as much as I love writing magic (for me this often ends up writing characters with powers, less spells and wands) the intactices of magic in fictional worlds, and making sure that I have everything laid out well enough before I start writing can often lead to me pulling out my hair or screaming into my pillows. Then again, that happens even when I’m not working on a magic system.

Magic systems are only as complicated as you make them, when writing at least, Unfortunately, I can't control the authors that you read. My first ever book that I wrote my characters had powers, the typical ones you see in the media today, fire, air, shadows, you know the drill. However, one of the biggest things I’ve come to learn in my years of writing and the many drafts of that book that I’ve gone through is that, especially in stories like the one I was working on, magic can’t come without its price.

Some of the best basics you can look at are Sanderson’s laws of magic from Brandon Sanderson, the author of The Stormlight Archives.

Rule One: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

Rule Two: It goes like this: Limitations > Powers

Rule Three: Expand what you already have before you add something new.

In my opinion, the first rule is often the most important, and a lot of times the most ignored when writing fantasy, and it also ties well into the second rule. Writing magic is fun, it’s supposed to be, and a lot of people will say that there are no limitations when it comes to writing magic, of course not, it’s magic, it’s not real, you can do whatever you want with it.

However, that’s not entirely true; you are limited partially by how well your readers can understand your system, and that understanding shapes how your characters can solve their problems with said magic. Doug Landsborough with Dabble said it well here, “There is nothing worse than magic being used as a deus ex machina to save the day when our protagonist has backed themselves into a corner…If your wizards have only been shown wielding elemental magic, it’s going to be jarring if they suddenly time travel to solve a dilemma. If your witches need to say a magic word or two to hex their enemies, why the heck can they do it in writing for the first time during your climax?”

After this, I think the second rule comes into play, limitations make the system, and in turn your story, sing.

Any author will tell you that if your character isn’t facing challenges, it’s not really a book; a lot of readers will tell you the same. A book without conflict isn’t interesting, an agent won't pick it up, and a reader won't finish it. There’s a reason that conflict is something you learn early in English class.

When you bring magic into the mix it gets even more important, you can have all the conflict in the world, there could be a new problem every chapter (although I don’t really reccomend this most of the time) and if your character can just snap and wipe away the problem with magic it’s not going to be any better than if you had no conflict at all.

“Think of it this way: if your protagonist can shape shadows into weapons, what happens when they wake up in a room absolutely flooded with bright light? In that situation, the interesting stuff doesn’t come from their shadowshaping but from the decisions they’re forced to make to overcome their limitations. These limitations add tension, force characters to adapt, and make you think of characters as more than just their powers.”

I know a lot of writer who will agree when I say this, that being cruel to your characters is one of the most fun things you can do as a writer. Sometimes it’s also just fun to take out your frustration on someone who you can’t get in trouble for. Shout out to all the authors who have killed and tortured their characters for fun. I get it.

Anyways, espeically when your characters have learned to lean on their powers, in conflict or in just in a more normal situation, example, I have a charachter with shadow powers who cannot see if it’s bright out, he has to bend shadows around his eyes like sunglasses to be able to see. This is where it’s interesting to take away your character's powers, or to muffle them, and see just how much it takes for your character to find a new way to succeed. Oftentimes, it’s excruciating for the characters to manage, but it can lead to so much development.

I got a chance to interview local author G.H Fryer on the topic, the transcript is below.

Milla Pickett

So in your newest series the governess trilogy You dabble a little on the magical side of things more so than in your last novel, correct? 

Gretta Fryer

Correct 

Milla Pickett

How was it different for you writing magic after working on your last novel at the arsenic box? 

Gretta Fryer

The arsenic box, although in a traditional sense, it is a simple murder mystery, I always like a little bit of the unreal and the unseen in all my stories. So even though on its face, it looks like a simple murder mystery story, there are elements of magic, like the painting of a cat, where the cat slightly moves just a little bit to make you wonder if there's something more to it or if you just need to go to sleep.Little elements of something beyond that I can link to other stories that give me flexibility to be more supernatural. 

Milla Pickett

As someone who now, or always, writes stories with magic involved, how important do you think it is to have a developed magic system? 

Gretta Fryer

That's a complicated question. In my new trilogy, The Governess trilogy, you see it from the perspective of being an already defined magic system. But in the telling of this story and how the characters learn about this magic system, it leads back encouraging curiosity in where it begins. So that not even in this story, in the story that follows, will be the telling of how this magic was created.It needs to have an air of ancient and a structure to it in order for the reader to suspend their belief of the natural world. So in that sense, it does need to be a fully developed system. But that system doesn't necessarily have to be on paper. All that history and the mechanics behind it can just be in the writer's head. It's how you let the audience know about it that gives it its realism. 

Milla Pickett

Okay, going off of that, I have to change my next question a little bit. Do you think it is important to at least have the system fleshed out in your head to know the ins and outs of your system 100% before you start working into work? 

Gretta Fryer

No, because for me writing is a form of art. I've always been an artistic person. When I was a little girl I thought I would be a painter. Turns out I paint with words and not paintbrushes. Part of making art is not knowing the end product. It's not knowing really what it looks like. Quite often when I'm writing my stories and the magic in it, I'm discovering the magic at the same time as the reader and it gives me such joy to have something spontaneous come out like that and then realize in that instant that there's a whole other story behind it. Behind the story you're writing. It's like art creating art and there is magic in creating art. So I don't think it needs to be a hundred percent fleshed out. I think there should be room for magic for the writer too. 

Milla Pickett

Are there any challenges you faced with writing magic for more or less the first time? 

Gretta Fryer

Yeah, magic's been written about a lot. Finding a magic system that is unique and has never been done is hard to do. All the stories that we tell each other as humans are all based on just a few archetype stories. There's the hero's journey for just one example. These are basic story structures and stories themselves that have been passed on and retold over and over and over again. You know Odysseus and Frodo are quite literally the same story with the same magic just told from different perspectives. And so finding a way to make something new is the ultimate challenge. New magic is very hard to do. Yeah, it is. 

Milla Pickett

Did you have fun working with magic? 

Naomi Pickett

Oh yeah but mostly for my villains because let's just face it it's way more fun to be bad than to be good um part of where my my story starts to take a turn is that the villains weren't always villains and the heroes aren't necessarily good people or good beings and sometimes being the hero of those story means that you've got to be a villain for part of it so finding where my characters can intersect with what they're supposed to be not what they want to be and using magic to unveil people's true personalities that's fun

Milla Pickett

And finally, are there any tips you have for writers working with magic systems for the first time? 

Gretta Fryer

Oh, gosh, have fun. Have fun. Don't be afraid. And if you write something you don't think your readers are going to believe, then write the story before that. If you want your magic to do something and it bucks against the trend of either what's popular or what the imagination can't quite perceive, then tell a story that explains that particular magic. I'm working in a story where a girl can draw a picture and that picture happens, but how did that magic start? It's an unrealistic story until you take it back to a mother whose grief for a daughter being murdered becomes so real that she creates her own magic in order to cast vengeance on those who harmed her baby. That pain is real and a lot of people can bond with that. And if you let that kind of grief fester, then what could have been potentially benign magic that would have faded away as grief softened, it can fester into something that can be passed down like a curse from one generation to the next. What happens to a story if you tell it telephone style that changes in every telling magic, I think, is the same way it morphs and changes with every person who cast the spell or who gets infected by it. So grief in the beginning turns into something, nothing like it in the end, but maybe, maybe to complete the magic system, you need to bring it back to grief. So who am I going to horribly torture in order to bring all my magic into the modern realm where people can believe that it can be effective like that. So, yeah, you gotta have fun. You gotta be loose and tell stories, stories about the stories. All the stories before the stories matter, even if you never write them down and tell them to your readers, they matter to the writer. 

Works Cited

Brandon Sanderson. “What Are Sanderson’s Laws of Magic? | Brandon Sanderson.” Faq.brandonsanderson.com, 14 Oct. 2018, faq.brandonsanderson.com/knowledge-base/what-are-sandersons-laws-of-magic/.

Landsborough, Doug. “Building Your Magic System: A Full Recipe.” Www.dabblewriter.com, 20 Apr. 2023, www.dabblewriter.com/articles/create-magic-systems.