FROM THE HANDYMAN - Writing Magic
Writing Magic: An Overview
by Danielle Ackley-McPhail
(originally published in Broad Universe’s Broadsheet.)
How many ways can you imagine magic?
Really? That many? Now how many of them can you describe so someone else knows what the heck you are talking about? Yeah…that always gets me into trouble too.
What is it like?! It’s MAGIC! It’s like…magical!
You know what you envision, but unless you put it in a clear, concise descriptive manner, you are going to leave your reader with a vague dissatisfaction that can take away from whatever you’re trying to accomplish with the magic. Whether it is magic or a landscape or how a character feels, you have to portray it in a way the reader can identify with. One of the ways to do this is to relate what is going on to one or more of the five senses. Correlate what is happening to a visual, auditory, olfactory, taste, or tactile experience. These are concrete references, things most people are familiar with. In other words, they’re going to get it.
Now for the purpose of this article, let's take things a step further and apply this not only to how magic is, but how it is worked, because let’s face it, it really doesn’t matter if the reader understands that your character’s magic is “like sizzling, electric-blue ribbons twining themselves up his arms” if the way he’s working the spell makes absolutely no sense to them. Throughout the history of mankind, there are seemingly endless means by which magic is worked, and countless tales of items and beings of magical nature. Given this, even if, as a writer, you are striving to create something new and original, there are certain characteristics that will prevail.
In one of my past columns entitled “Soul Food” I wrote about Vehicles. No, not planes, trains, and automobiles, or-as we are talking fantasy, right now-ornithopters, caravans, and carriages. No, this type of vehicle a devise you use to convey the object of your true goal. In the case of the article, the example used is popcorn as a butter vehicle to parallel the written word as a passion vehicle. Now don’t get dirty minded here; we're talking intellectual passion, not erotica. That same concept can be applied to our current discussion. Magic is an ethereal thing, often intangible, even inconceivable. After all, what real frame of reference do most of us have? To overcome that challenge as an author, you need to find the proper magic vehicle for the universe you’re playing in. Before you can do that, it helps to know your options.
Magic 101: Types
There are three basic types of magic: nature (natural), imposed (applied) and absorbed (contamination). Now, whether it is in popular fiction or world lore, those lines have been known to blur and overlap from time to time, but for the practical matter of simplifying this article…and maintaining my sanity…we won’t be focusing on complex magics just yet.
Nature - for the purpose of discussion, this type of magic is that which already exists. Independent of man, beast, or god, natural magic simply is. It can affect its surroundings through prolonged exposure or interaction, or it can be employed by others for their own ends, but regardless of that, this magic would exist without outside interference. A good example of this is Jim Butcher's Codex of Alera series where everyone has some ability to do magic facilitated by an elemental fury but in addition to these personal furies there are wild ones as well that impact the society living near them by causing storms and other such natural disasters. Different type of natural magic are:
- Elemental magic-magic tied to one of the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, or Water, depicted as raw elemental force, or as a host of element-specific creatures.
- Ley lines-said to denote lines of cosmic energy running through the earth,
- Latent centers-features of the landscape said to cultivate living neighborhoods when properly accommodated in the development of a community, or
- Spirits-such as the Irish sowlth, a supernatural being without form; or the Polish Rusalje, spirits that live in the waters from Fall to Spring and are said to bring moisture to land.
Imposed - this is applied magic worked by man, magical being, or god through the use of inherent ability, the natural potential of the person working the magic; or ritual, a prescribed series of actions that a practitioner must learn in order to create a desired magical outcome. A natural aptitude for working magic may or may not be required, depending on the restrictions you place on your universe. The degree of success for both types of imposed magic generally depends on skill, belief and the availability of magical energy from either an internal or an external source. Many variations on this can be scene in Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde Investigations series. Types of imposed magic would be:
- Numerology-divination of a person’s past, present, and future through numeric values assigned to key personal details such as name, birthday and so on.
- Astrology-divination of the same by means of reading the planets position in the heavens at the time of key events.
- Scrying-the use of water or other reflective surfaces to communicate or uncover details of faraway or past events.
- Channeling/possession-where a person is taken over by a spirit, god, or demon; and native American rain dance, a combination of faith, ritual, dance, and incantation.
Absorbed - this, as I have read of it, is a passive magic; primarily, objects or locations that become imbued with rogue magical energy through proximity or repeated exposure. In other words: magical by contamination, rather than nature. In some cases, the absorption creates a power repository that those with the ability can tap into to work magic without calling on their personal energy. Though mentioned above under Nature, ley lines could also be considered an example of absorbed magic in a sort of chicken-or-the-egg argument. In other instances, there is a more chaotic affect where the rogue energy does not remain passive but causes magical effects to those that encounter them. Examples would be sacred magical groves, or cursed regions where travel is banned because of the detrimental affects on those that pass through them. There are plenty of literary and gaming examples of this, such in Cecilia Dart-Thornton’s The Iron Tree where a direct route via a cursed suspension bridge is forsaken in favor of a longer, more roundabout path, and areas of the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu are left to the fae spirits that inhabit them; or the Cursed Lands of the Dragonblade game, where dragons hide their treasure from all but the most brave and greedy, but darned if I can find any examples in my research of real-world magical beliefs. The closest I can come is the folkloric warning to avoid faerie rings, denoted by a circle of mushrooms and other such natural formations.
The Ever After Part
Okay, not really. It's the until next time part. Once you have determined the source of magic in your work you can determine what kind of challenges and restrictions it places on your characters. The most important thing is to be consistent and to make sense. If you have a bracelet that holds the absorbed power of instant beauty you have to determine does it work on everyone, or just the first person to wear it? Is it a constant thing, or does it only last an hour? Are there any ill effects or signs that might betray the fact that a spell is responsible? Think out the details even if you don't use them all because that way you understand what is and isn't possible.
Few things just are. There are always pluses, minuses, and prices to pay, in fact it seems even more so with magic. Don't use magic as a convenient fix or a cool device. Carry it through and let the reader see the impact. Show the flaws, the failures…let us as the reader experience your magic as we experience all of life: as imperfect and often a pain in the ass. Don't let your characters get trapped in the “magic fixes it all” mentality because lets face it, then what's left for them to do? Have fun with it but recognize it as the tool it is. Let your characters be the driving force of your story.