Dear Authors... Magic Systems

okay so today we are talking about magic systems so if you're unaware I do the series called dear authors where I post on a community tab asking my subscribers to chat about something readers talking with readers about what we like and don't like to see here's a playlist if you want to see some of the other videos that we've done I recently did a video talking about my favorite magic systems my top 5 favorite magic systems at the moment I'll link that in the corner in the description as well if you want some examples but I felt like a good follow up was a dear authors where we chat about what we like and don't like to see in magic systems this time I posted a community tab asking about magic systems and saying that we could talk about hard or soft magic systems what we like what we don't like I'm gonna start this video off by giving a definition for a hard and soft magic system because I know that that's something that a lot of people still don't know so let's talk about the difference between them and let's go into what we like and don't like to see a hard magic system has specific rules surrounding its use and can be used for creating interesting world building by affecting the culture government or society at large within the fictional world clear costs and limitations are outlined for when magic is used and throughout the story the reader eventually understands what they are and how they work hard magic needs predictability and consistency when magic goes wrong it's from the characters lack of knowledge misuse or mistake when using magic not because the magic is inherently unpredictable hard magic does not have to follow the laws of science and there does not have to be an explanation as to why people are able to use magic in the first place hard magic is categorized by the readers understanding of what the magic can do whereas a soft magic system is vague and undefined any existing rules or limitations of said magic system are never being explained it creates a sense of awe and deepens the fantastical setting the focus of these types of stories is not usually on the magic itself and the main character usually isn't a magic user the main conflict is not solved by magic instead it's solved by valuable lessons the main character learns throughout the course of the story often when magic is used to solve a problem it will actually make the problem worse in these types of stories the reader is never certain of the dangers and wonders that the characters will encounter and the characters themselves never truly know what can and can't happen so those are definitions read off to summarize hard magic has boundaries and rules that the reader clearly understands that the book follows and soft magic systems aren't clearly defined and don't a lot of times the characters and the books also have no idea how magic works or at least a very little understanding and are learning along throughout the story but it will never have hard and fast rules from start to finish because that's not the point usually systems are about the story and the characters and the magic itself is only there to create a sense of wonder within the world and the magic is simply a tool to help enhance the story but the story itself is the main point whereas with hard magic systems usually the magic is kind of just as important as the plot and the characters it's like the third thing that matters in the world and it is a part of the story itself as opposed to a helping hand to the story both are good both are interesting to read about both are valid people have preferences both are great so now that we have definitions laid out let's talk about some of the community things that readers like and don't like seeing I like when magic always comes with a price is used by authors it makes the plot more interesting because usually the main character can't just magic to get themselves out of a situation and if they do they pay some kind of a price so I love magic with consequences this is definitely a preference thing and not all magic has to do this but especially some sort of physical consequence the unkindness of magicians is a really good example of that Full Metal Alchemist is another good example of that where characters actually have to give pieces of themselves or even the name of the wind is a good example because you have to create something it's something logical and it's something physical and not just something magical and if it's misused or even if you just use it in day to day life you have to give over a part of yourself to it which I think just makes it so interesting and it also makes the stakes a lot higher because it makes it so that the magic isn't just something that you can do to get to your goal but it's something that you have to think through and weigh the cost and it's something that hurts a little to use and I I love that when that's when that's in a book what works when the reader understands how it works and what it can and can't do also a big plus when the magic has some cost associated with it the be it economically socially or personally or something what doesn't work is when the author just waves the magic wand and says oh my sim Sala Sim Sim Sim salabim this character shall not win okay so this this commenter obviously likes hard magic systems wanting to have clear defined rules and that's that's fine I tend to prefer hard magic systems as well I like like boundaries and laws so that I can understand what's happening and not just have something random chucked in there at the last moment that kind of disrupts the flow of everything that's been happening but soft magic can be great as well I think the main thing whether you're creating a hard magic system or a soft magic system is consistency and thoughtfulness no matter what kind of magic system you're creating this commenter is correct you can't just win when stakes are high and when we're at the climax of the story we can't just wave the wand and then BOOM I won because I did no matter what kind of magic system you're creating that will not be satisfying I love seeing how magic affects the culture of the world does their religion revolve around a God who gives them magic does the amount of power you've been born with determine your class show me more of this world building I agree I love good world building and I love seeing if you're going to add a magical element to the world I love seeing how it affects the world not the world looks exactly the same as it does to you and me except also they have magic it's cool to see the world that has matched in it actually be affected by that magic fight things with magic shouldn't be as simple as about a Kedavra turning your magic system into a gunfight isn't magical okay so I do think that Harry Potter has some great fight scenes and while it's true that Avada Kedavra is quite a trump card just because you do have something like that doesn't mean that it turns into a magical gunfight because there are so many good fight scenes within the Harry Potter world and within worlds that have these sort of curses that seem like they would be the end-all be-all there are other elements that you can put in play to make the fights more dynamic but I do agree with the base point of this comment and that's that it's not interesting to see two magic users face-off and it's essentially like a draw in a south western movie if you're gonna give me a fight scene with magic I want to see how fighting with magic somehow makes it more scary or higher stakes or just different in some way but definitely don't do it in a way that makes me say oh the muggle way would have been better why are you even using magic I mean the non magic way it's nice don't give me rules to your magic system just to show how the protagonist was able to break it and be the most powerful being around it impoverishes your magic system and takes away attention to your plot since anything can happen being powerful despite pre-existing restrictions is more satisfying because it shows how much endurance and self-control a character needed to have to reach such capacity so this is a really good point creating rules and giving the reader boundaries only then to break those boundaries because the protagonist is now doing them so they can do what they want he's definitely unsatisfying more times than it's not having boundaries and restrictions that then makes me think how is my how is this person going to make it through this how are they going to get around this and then they're able to find whether it be loopholes in the magic system or just some creative way to use the magic to get around their boundaries that's really satisfying but breaking the magic system because they're the protagonist so they can super unsatisfying I actually like it if we don't know or grasp of the whole magic system in the beginning but it's revealed bit by bit and well thought through so that it all ties perfectly together in the end okay so I 100% agree with this and this is applicable for both hard and soft magic systems I don't mind info domes when they come I recognize them I see that they're not ideal but I don't care because I am a hard magic system reader primarily and I like having rules and boundaries and when they're all given to me right up front I don't mind it because I'm happy to have the information that said you probably shouldn't do it my my fella my guy Brandon Sanderson he likes his info dumps he likes giving you as much information as he can right there at the start of the book and he has some of the coolest magic systems and the greatest plots and I love his books but man does he like his info dumps and while I don't mind info dumps and that's why it doesn't bother me that he does them I will agree that when the magic isn't handed to me in an info dump in the start but instead I get the amount of information that I need in the beginning and the magic feel soft but throughout the book it gets its boundaries and its limitations and its rules and by the end of the book it's bigger by the end of a couple of books it's become a hard magic system it is it is it is better getting information dvt you and not in a careless way not in a I just thought about this that's part of the magic now but it's been thought out the whole time and by the time you get to the end of it you see how it's all worked together and it's all been very very intentional it's just been given to me intentionally as well instead of given to me easily at the beginning yeah it is better this is obviously talking about hard magic system soft magic systems you never need to give me all your boundaries and you are going to give Divya to me a little bit by little bit throughout the novels but it's an obvious piece of advice info dumps they're not the best way to do it some readers are really bothered by it some readers are less bothered by it but regardless it's not it's not the best way to do it I hate when the author just suddenly reveals that the magic magic system can do something that we didn't know about for example suddenly someone can be resurrected when they've that when we've never been told that the magic system involves resurrection it feels really lazy and that kind of information should be given to the reader yes there's nothing wrong with withholding information from the reader for a certain point of time there's nothing wrong with giving us information not at the very beginning but divvying out through the novel like we just discussed however if something is going to be important to the story we need that information more than one page before it becomes important that feels not just lazy but very very sloppy this is something that comes up a lot more frequently than I would expect but it's a reality I think that it's not necessarily that the author just thought of it just now and then chucked it into the book but I think it's just more that the author didn't know how to seamlessly put it into the story if there's going to be something that's developed about the magic about the world about the characters it really doesn't need to be magic this could be any element of the book if there's gonna be something that's going to be really important to this story than the information about that thing the rules about that thing the setup of that thing has to come earlier on ideally throughout a couple of little hints this happened recently and a critique I was doing there was this big character moment and one paragraph before we got information on oh yeah the family's already kind of broken so then this happened and it's like no I needed that at the beginning of the book I needed mentioning of it throughout the book I doesn't this like it feels sloppy when it's the information is given to us right before the big thing happens we need it to feel intentional not immediately before we don't need weed we shouldn't get information right before we need the information I hate when offices of a magic system suddenly become an expert / top of their class in the book it makes the magic system too easy totally agree I get that the main character has to be great eventually but they need to be great over a period of time they cannot be the like oh when when somebody doesn't even know about the magic system at the beginning of the book and then halfway through the book they've had a few classes they've had a little bit of instruction from their mentor and then boom they're facing off against someone that's been doing this for years but they win it's like we've talked about in so many of these other dear author videos no it has to feel earned you have to fight for it otherwise I'm not invested and I couldn't care less if you live or die because it's too easy for you logic and or consistency if you introduce equality or power in the magic system and it could be used to solve a problem but it's not used it should be well explained why it couldn't be used - they're less the story starts to fall apart same thing for the opposite situation if a new power fixes a problem but we've never seen it before it should be well explained why we haven't seen it until now and if it can't be well explained what is it doing in the story again this is applicable for hard or soft magic systems and it's it's kind of piggybacking off of what I was just talking about is that there has to be setup if you're gonna have some thing come in at the end or at a pivotal moment to fix the problem it has to have been hinted at before this moment we need set up we need hints of it even even if this is a moment where it's revealed oh my goodness I didn't know this element of the magic existed until this moment when it is introduced in the moment the reader should say wait a second I didn't know this existed but now that I know it exists that makes this this this and this makes sense even if it's gonna be a big reveal even this even if this is the first time that we're gonna read about it there should be hints throughout the story that are small enough that we are fine with them until the moment and then we should look back at those little moments and say aha this has been here the whole time I just didn't know about it until now magic doesn't necessarily have to be perfectly explained but it should always have limits if magic feels limitless then every time magic solves a problem it just feels like the writer is saying a wizard did it and moving on magic should be understandable enough that the reader can look at a problem and see how magic can be used to fix it so I'm assuming this is a hard magic reader but this is applicable in soft magic systems as well both hard and soft magic systems do need limits and do need some sort of structure to them that the reader can understand soft magic systems will leave things more open-ended and that's fine it'll make the world seem more magical and whimsical and a little bit unpredictable and exciting and fun and it'll give you a sense of wonder and that's amazing but we do need some sort of form to it so that it's not just because magic that is not good a magic system that gets me excited is one that I can actually imagine being able to use in real life even if the world built in the books is high fantasy and very clearly not our world it needs to make me wish inside and out that I could have and use that magic system now I fully agree with this all the magic systems that I talked about in my favorite magic system video are magic systems that make sense to me and that I can see if magic were real I could see how I could applicable use it and and I can I can come up with scenarios of how I could use it in my real life one of my favorite types of magic systems is elemental magic and that's because it's so realistic and applicable and I can just I can see how that could work for me whether it's a hard magic system or a soft magic system I think explaining it to the point where it feels tangible is the most satisfying for a reader I think what I mean here is explaining it to the point where it feels tangible for example Wheel of Time is a magic system that's so huge and so massive and so it's so expansive that it's hard to wrap your head fully around it especially in your first read-through and yet the way it's described in such a physical way weaving a pattern is pulling different elements into a weave in a certain intricate way and then you're able to create something from that weave that's a very visual thing elemental magic systems the Lightbringer magic system it's also tangible and it's something that I can actually see in my mind and feel myself doing even though there's no way I could ever do it and I do agree that that's the most satisfying is when I can understand it whether hard or soft to the point that I could see it being a reality even though it's obviously not I'm gonna end it on this kind of funny comment this spell is ridiculously hard master magicians slash Wizards have trouble doing it some kid new to magic does it perfectly the first time most of the comments in this thread this endear authors thread were about preferences I like this I like that it wasn't hard and fast rules this is what authors should be doing this as how authors are making sense are making mistakes and the reason for that is because magic systems are something that are going to appeal to some readers and not to others there are hard and fast ways you have to do your magic this way and a lot of elements to creating a magic system however the things that we're very consistently coming up and the things that I think are more hard and fast rules are to keep the rules that you create it's okay to layer them and build on them and learn more about them you may have a rule at the beginning of the book but fiving into the book it looks different because it's been built on and learned about so much that it's changed the perspective of it but the base rule is still there don't create rules only to break them think through every magical element in your book does it make sense to the rules I've already created is it going to make sense later on is it going to be a part of the magic now or is it going to be a one-off and then leave create boundaries and consequences for your magic whether it's hard or soft you don't have to have a list of boundaries and consequences but they do need to be some so that magic doesn't seem like this all-powerful force that can get you out of every situation easily but that there there are things to learn about it and obstacles for it and limitations to it and don't please don't make anything too easy learning the magic should be something that takes time and effort if the main character didn't know about magic or didn't know how to use magic at the beginning of the book they better not be a master at it by the end of the first book if there's some massive evil force or big obstacle to overcome make it a challenge for them to overcome it we don't need it to be to be over now because magic I'd love to continue chatting about this in the comments this is probably one of the hardest videos to make because magic systems are something that have infinite possibilities to them and there's something that a lot of people just have preferences this is what I like to see and this is what I don't like to see which means that there's an audience for most things and really the hard and fast rules that I can think of that are just like don't do this thing are applicable in most elements of books don't make it too easy don't make it too abrupt make it make sense magic systems are an interesting thing to me and I'm very curious to continue talking about this so be sure to chat with me more in the comments what are some things that maybe I didn't address that you will want to continue talking about what are some things that you love and don't love to see I post videos every Sunday Tuesday Thursday Saturday I'll see you guys [Music]

Channel: Merphy Napier

Views: 208,246

Rating: 4.9660025 out of 5

Keywords: dear authors, read, reads, reader, reading, book, books, booktube, booktuber, writing advice, how to write magic systems, how to write, how to write a book

Id: WcMQk4ltJa0

Length: 21min 34sec (1294 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2020