Fantasical Elements that Shouldn't Be Explained

[marycatelli]

I was in the audience for this one.

How much of your magic system do you explain?

The panel stuck mainly to the magic your characters can wield -- things get even more interesting when you get into things that happen to your characters, when I brought up ambiguously magical things, a panelist want to know if there were any such things -- and how clear to make it and how to avoid an SF effect.

Tolkien vs. LeGuin:  LeGuin made her POV character the wielder of magic, and so had to make it clearer than Tolkien did, who put it in the hands of a secondary character.

Comments

[izuko.livejournal.com]

Watch Aria. This is almost the poster child for keeping magic mysterious.

[marycatelli]

some people can really pull it off