The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy Vol 1: Alchemy with Words by Darin Park & Tom Dullemond

Author:Darin Park & Tom Dullemond [Park, Darin & Dullemond, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Writing, Reference
ISBN: 9781896944098
Google: kIIhPwAACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 19383456
Publisher: Dragon Moon Press
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Magic

Tom Dullemond

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is

indistinguishable from magic.”

—Arthur C. Clarke

Introduction

Magic is an inextricable part of fantasy—be it a heroic romp through the woods to defeat an ancient wizard with your mystical blade, a simple downtown suburb where the neighbors lurk in strange shadows, or a highly advanced technological society whose citizens teleport with hardly a thought.

Magic is arguably the common theme that binds all of fantasy literature together—if not literal magic, then a sense of wonder and immersion in a fantasy environment. For practical purposes, however, this chapter will focus on literal magic. Although other chapters in this book will invariably deal with magic in their own way—magic being as integral to fantasy writing as it is—this chapter will analyse magic and the impact of magic on your fantasy world, denizens, wars, and societies.

You’ll see how fundamental factors of magic in your society—scarcity, difficulty, and price—affect the kind of ‘workable’ or ‘believable’ societies that can exist in your world. If everyone has access to cheap, easy magic, why would anyone need a wagon, or ride a horse?

This chapter is divided into two parts—the first will introduce a tool to help define the magical properties of a fantasysociety, and the second will discuss both the impacts of magic on society and some basic ‘types’ of magic.

By the end of the chapter you should feel confident enough to step into your fantasy world without fear of being overwhelmed by technical questions such as, ‘Why are your evil wizards still using swords when the Skull of Garghul gives them all the offensive power they could possibly need?’

This chapter is not intended to define magic, but rather to refine your understanding of its almost limitless power in fantasy literature—and to give you an understanding of how to write about your realistic magical worlds or societies.

Section One—So Damn Powerful!

The presence of Magic has a greater impact on society than we can possibly imagine, living in our mundane little world. We have no direct experience of true ‘magical’ effects, and so when we wish to write about a magical society we need to examine several important factors to help define our framework—completely separate from whether a wizard needs to wave a wand and mumble his grandmother’s secret name. Without at least a basic framework, the power of magic may unbalance our world and make it far more difficult to create the kind of conflict from which great stories are made.

This is a little system I devised for my own writing, and one I will share with you now. It’s a quick and simple little tool that looks at three factors of magic: scarcity, difficulty, and price. Any magic system can be said to fall on a point somewhere in a big three-dimensional space, with ‘Scarcity 0, Difficulty 0, Price 0’ in one corner and ‘Scarcity 10, Difficulty 10, Price 10’ in the opposite corner. The bigger the rating, the more powerful, rare, wonderful (and perhaps terrifying) that magic is perceived to be in your society.

So what

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