world-building #1: magic system (source, rules, and limits)

starting an overambitious series of world-building posts with my favorite: magic!

This post breaks two promises: first, the votes in my previous post asked for a craft post about dialogue; second, I told myself I would take a break. But, consider:

• I don’t want to write about dialogue right now. Sorry!

• I left my earbuds at home and can’t binge a TV show at the cafe.

• Also: I FINISHED DRAFT TWO OF MY “WARLORD” HISTORICAL FANTASY!!! I spent months planning the story before beginning to draft, so world-building is on my mind right now.

• I just love world-building!! I am That Writer who has a 20 page world-building doc and a shittily self-drawn map before I even begin drafting.

So I’ll get to the dialogue post someday, but for now, world-building! This is such a broad topic that I’ll separate it into multiple posts: magic systems, general setting, and then specific genres (historical, horror, sci-fi etc). For magic systems, I’ll go through the categories of magic system-building that I usually work out before drafting:

• source: where it comes from & who has it

• using magic: rules, limitations, and costs

• — divider: I wanted to do this all in one go but I yap too much! so the following segments will be in the next newsletter —

• magic & status

• magic & the world

• bonus: thematic relevance

Note: these categories don’t have to be brainstormed in sequence! This is just me organizing my thoughts. And I may only have vague notes on some areas or skip them entirely. It really depends on what kind of book and magic system I’m writing. But I’m listing everything in order to be comprehensive here.

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source: where it comes from & who has it

Source of magic can be interpreted as either the origin of magic itself, or the cache of power that individual acts of magic draw from. Both are important, and often they’re linked in some way. For instance, if magic is granted by gods, then individual acts of magic might require gods-blessed items or prayer.

Depending on what type of book you’re working on, the source of magic can be vague or not even known to the characters, but it’s good to have at least a general idea of what it is, because it will ultimately help with building a logical magic system.

first, the origin of magic itself.

Here are some common examples:

• Gods or other divine beings

• Specific items (eg: precious metals or a specific animal/plant)

• Innate talent (people / some people are born magical)

• General environment (magic suffuses your whole setting)

This leads me to something I love pondering when figuring out the origin of magic:

What’s the difference between the reality of magic’s origin, versus what people believe about it? Do different nations or different (potentially religious) groups of people have different beliefs about it? Is there a difference between what the general population believes, versus what the main character believes or comes to believe?

Answering these questions has often helped me flesh out the lore of magic, the wider world, and the mindset of different groups of people apart in this world. Through that, I can derive a lot of tension and conflict. My mind exercises usually go like this:

• Why do people not know the truth of magic’s origin? Was it intentionally hidden? If so, why? And what conflict could this cause down the line?

• How does magic manifest? How would different people interpret this? How might their backgrounds affect their interpretations? What conflict would this lead to?

where doth the juice come from?!

Energy doesn’t come from nothing, so every magical action must draw from a source. Broadly speaking, it can come from the magic user, or outside of the magic user.

• From the magic user: This could be vague, such as their general energy or something more specific, such as they need to be in a certain mental state or sacrifice something physical.

  • Drawing from the user itself has great potential for making the cost of magic feel really physical and impactful BUT runs the risk of things feeling hand-wavey and convenient. More on this in the next section.

• Outside of the magic user: Loads of options here! Perhaps the magic user needs to drink magical spring water. Perhaps they need to hold a magical object or ingest a magical thing. Perhaps they’re drawing magic from their surroundings.

  • This is good for establishing an external obstacle for using magic.

  • » example: In Mistborn, Allomancers eat metal to perform magic, with specific metals having specific abilities.

  • » example: In Jade City, jade has magical powers.

• Or, it could be a combo. For instance, the magic user must reach a meditative state to speak to their god and gain approval / tap into a godly well of power.

  • » example: In Eragon, initially Eragon believes he can only draw from himself to use magic, but eventually learns that he can draw from his surroundings, though that comes at the cost of killing the flora and fauna around him.

who can access magic?

Of course, in some magic systems, humans can’t wield magic at all, but in the systems where they can there are two broad categories: people are either born with it (internal), or earn it (external) … or if it’s a mix.

• Born with it: The usual question I ask myself here is whether this is hereditary or random or both, as in there are magical bloodlines, random magical people also crop up.

  • Other possibilities exist as well, of course, such as only people born under certain circumstances (in a magical place, for instance) are magical.

  • » example: In Legendborn, magic is passed down through bloodlines.

• Receive or earn it later in life: This can be further split into everyone has potential (magic can be gained through education or praying to the right god or having access to a magical item) vs only some people have potential.

  • » example: In The Knight and the Moth, orphans are brought to Aisling Cathedral and, through drinking its spring water, can divine futures. Any orphan is eligible for this.

  • » example: In Babel, theoretically anyone can do silverworking if they can translate languages.

In deciding who has magic, one point of consideration is whether or not magical users are physically or mentally different from other people. This isn’t necessary, but developing it can be help contribute to the next sections (cost, status, and world):

• If magic users are more long-lived or physically powerful → this could improve their social standing.

• If using magic physically or mentally harms the user → this is a cost.

• If magic users have a physical attribute that makes them stand out in a crowd → this can amp up class disparity between magic users and non-users.

I also ask myself:

• Are these alterations set in stone from birth / when someone becomes magical? Or do they change according to magic usage? What’s the trajectory and what influences it?

• If different types of magic exist, how does that affect each type’s users? Can this contribute to how each type is viewed by society?

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using magic: rules, limitations, and costs

This is a category that I always brainstorm before starting a story. One piece of advice I like a lot is from Brandon Sanderson: limitations are more important than powers. Having to learn how to make magic do what you want it to do (rules), navigate its shortcomings (limitations), and contend with the stakes of using it (costs) is what forces the characters to be creative and to make hard choices.

rules

Some magic systems feature intricate rules and rituals, layers and steps and whatnot for how to perform magic (or interact with / use it), whereas other systems are more simple. Both are fine! It depends on the book and how you want the reader to experience the magic.

However, my general recommendations are:

• Don’t overcomplicate it on-page. Sure, there are some readers who want to read a magic manual. But too much can become overwhelming or feel scattered. Can the rules be condensed into a short, simple list? If not, work on doing that and ensuring that this is clearly presented to the reader, and their knowledge of magic can build up from that.

  • This is not a suggestion to dumb down your book! Rather, the key is to figure out how to converse with the reader. Establish the basics first, then layer in details to add depth and color later.
    >> example: I loved the magic system in Blood Over Bright Haven, where mages use magical typewriters to code commands (eg: move this box), then they view a magical landscape of energy, from which they choose coordinates with an appropriate energy amount for their command. Although there’s a lot of lore and detail, the central premise is clearly established, so even if you can’t wrap your head around everything, you can still follow the story.

  • How detailed to go depends on your target audience and the story’s focus.
    » example: In my middle grade fantasy novel, I kept the rules of spell-working to its basics because it’s a middle grade and because the story was mostly about dragons and not spell-work. But if I were writing an adult fantasy novel or one featuring epic magic duels, I would have gone into more depth.

• Rules are always needed. From a logical standpoint, unless your magic is operating in a completely random fashion (which I don’t recommend), there will be rules that govern it. From a narrative standpoint, rules allow the characters to exert agency and for the plot to maintain a cause and effect trajectory.

  • On character agency: Even for soft magic systems or unpredictable magic, my recommendation is to establish rules wherever magic intersects with character choices. Even if those rules are simple, they allow your characters to navigate a magical world in an intentional way rather than crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.

  • On cause and effect: If magic operates randomly, then it can easily feel convenient. It works whenever it suits the plot’s needs, and doesn’t work whenever the plot doesn’t want it to work. This decreases reader anticipation because there’s no guarantee a certain attempt to do something will work.
    » example: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries is a great example of wild and nonsensical (fae) magic that nonetheless establishes broad rules that the main character uses in her interactions with the fae.

limitations & costs

Putting these two together because they’re correlated. It goes without saying that being able to wield unlimited magic—basically letting your magic users become overpowered—can be fun for wish-fulfillment purposes, but can lead to things feeling too easy for your characters. So ask not what magic can do but what it can’t do.

Again, broadly speaking, the limits and costs of using magic can be internal or external (or, of course, both). Here are some common types for both:

Internal:

• Knowledge: the magic user needs to learn spells and apply the mental fortitude with which to learn magic.

  • Question: Who has access to knowledge? Among people with the same amount of knowledge, what makes one magic user better than another? (See: Babel, and how only select people can receive the education required to perform silverworking.)

• Physical toll (temporary) such as “fainting from overexertion” or causing pain.

  • Caveat: This can feel hand-wavey and convenient if your characters faint when it’s important to the plot that they fail, and don’t faint when they have to succeed. To mitigate this, establish levels of difficulty to magic and show your characters training to become better. Or spice it up with other costs.

• Mental toll (temporary) such as needing to reach some state of immersion or needing to focus on a really painful memory, etc.

  • Note: There’s a lot of potential to link this toll to character arc!

• Physical & mental toll (permanent) such as using magic being toxic or causing pain (permanent pain this time) or altering one’s body or losing memories (such as literally having to sacrifice happy memories to perform an act of magic) or losing one’s grip on reality.

  • Question: How do I make this cost feel real without also making magic undesirable or unusable? Or if the goal is that magic is taboo or undesirable, what would make someone willing to risk themselves to use it?

External:

• It’s just not that powerful. This doesn’t need much explanation. My only note is that what magic cannot do should stem from the mechanism of how it works.

• Lack of resources: if magic is tied to a particular material or resource, then acquiring that thing is a limitation. This can also lead to …

• Environmental toll: if using magic draws on nature, then nature itself might be harmed, as in the Eragon example of taking power from one’s surroundings.

  • Note: Potential here for the magic system being a metaphor for pollution and other environmental issues.

• Fuck around and find out. As in, doing magic wrong will incur backlash. Simplest is something explodes. Or a spell will be misinterpreted and instead cause damage, as is common in books consorting with fae. (Holly Black and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries type fae, not growling smut fae.)

Wait! There’s a third category: emotional. This is not a limit of magic itself, but an external or internal pressure making people wary of using magic. Though if this is the only limit, that will probably not be compelling enough. Examples:

• Social stigma or punishment: magic is taboo or outlawed.

  • Question: Why is it? What’s the history here? Who’s fighting against it?

• Literally emotional: the main character has had a bad experience with magic or some other reason to dislike it, and must overcome their internal hurdles.

  • Note: This can help link magic to character arc nicely.

For all of the above—rules, limitations, and costs—I would also consider how these elements can be used to enhance your main character’s journey by asking myself:

• How do I make things especially hard for my mc?

  • » example: In my aforementioned MG dragon fantasy, aside from having to learn general spellwork, my mc is a strange case where she has no magic at all and must borrow magic from the dragon she’s bonded with.

• How can these hardships interact with my mc’s character arc? This is easier when the hurdles of magic are internal, but even if they’re external, overcoming them can still rely on your mc having to dig into their emotions in a difficult way.

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All right! That’s it for now. Next post I’ll yap about broadening magic systems to the surrounding world: how magic can and should interact with class, politics, economics, and more. If nothing goes awry (life, my attention span, etc) I will try to continue on with these topics:

• Setting (basic): Choosing between grounded vs secondary world, how to make your setting feel real (basic version).

• Setting (nitpicky): Sorry! I’m a STEM major and love to tell people where their world-building doesn’t make sense. So I’ll go into both big and little things that bug me. Rants will include: Is it different for a purpose or is it just distracting?!; Do you know where sewage goes?!; and I can tell your Fake Language is Fake.

• Historical spec fic world-building: research, choosing where and how to diverge from history, with extra thoughts on retellings.

• Horror world-building: fear & character arc, importance of setting, etc.

• Sci-fi world-building: soft vs hard sci-fi, visions of the future (that don’t feel cliche), making your fake science look plausible, how scientists actually conduct experiments, etc.

If the above sounds interesting to you, do subscribe to catch the next episodes! And feel free to comment suggestions for topics, where I could go more in depth, or world-building struggles you’ve been having.