unity of magic
Jan. 19th, 2023 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliMagic can not do everything.
This is not only because it ruins the plot and requires you to come up with contrived reasons why the wizard didn't win on the first page, or (worse) why this wizard won over that wizard. It's also because it would lack unity. The story would not hang together because the world would not hang together because the magic would not.
This creates a problem when the story idea starts with "someone can do this, and someone else can do that, and this third guy can do the other thing."
So you work backwards. What is the central notion that can pull it all together?
I think this world is going to be, loosely, nature powers. Fire, air, water, earth, but also distance and time, and plants, and animals, and even people -- but their bodies, not their minds. Which I will not spell out in the novel but I think can be convincing. (As long as it's convincing it does not matter what else it is.)
This is not only because it ruins the plot and requires you to come up with contrived reasons why the wizard didn't win on the first page, or (worse) why this wizard won over that wizard. It's also because it would lack unity. The story would not hang together because the world would not hang together because the magic would not.
This creates a problem when the story idea starts with "someone can do this, and someone else can do that, and this third guy can do the other thing."
So you work backwards. What is the central notion that can pull it all together?
I think this world is going to be, loosely, nature powers. Fire, air, water, earth, but also distance and time, and plants, and animals, and even people -- but their bodies, not their minds. Which I will not spell out in the novel but I think can be convincing. (As long as it's convincing it does not matter what else it is.)