Magic Systems II

The previous chapter gave a general overview of magic systems. The different terminology and things to watch out for. This chapter will get more specific than that. Let’s talk about questions to ask yourself and steps you might want to take when constructing your own magic system.

The Four Questions

To me, these are the four core questions for a magic system.

• Who uses it?
• Why would you use it?
• What is the source?
• What is the cost?

WHO: Can everybody do magic? Is it a (genetic) talent? Is it trained?

WHY: For what purpose would they use the magic? What can or can’t it accomplish?

SOURCE: What do you need to execute it? A specific resource? A wand? An artefact? A specific movement? A connection to the “magic core” at the center of the planet?

COST: How do you pay for using it? Limitations? Sacrifice? Disadvantages or downsides?

The answers to these questions will usually be related. For example, if the source of magic is hard to obtain, then surely not everyone will use it. If the cost is too high, then only people who can pay it will use the magic.

In fact, one might argue that a system is better if the answers are related. It means the system is simpler and more streamlined.

The part that most (beginning) writers forget is the cost. The introduce powerful magic and how to do it … but give no reason to not do it. Which you really need, otherwise characters would use magic every day, all day, and soon conquer the whole world and grow infinitely powerful!

Most ideas for magic systems come from your worldbuilding twist and how it answers one of the questions.

For example, if you invent a world where “you can yell into the sky to get a gift from the gods”, you have basically answered the question of “what is the source?”

Then say “but if you yell the wrong thing, or something they don’t want to hear, you are cursed”. Now you’ve answered the question “what is the cost?”

Finally, notice how the magic itself—what it actually does—is only tangentially related to the questions. As you’ll see in the “three laws” below, the power of magic isn’t actually that interesting. It’s mostly considered in the question of “why would you use it?” More interesting are the limitations, the flaws, where it comes from and who is allowed to use it.

An example

Let’s just ask ourselves the questions, give random answers, and see what we come up with.

What’s the source? A special artefact that needs to be on your person (in whatever way). If you have that, you only need to touch it.

Who can use the magic? Only those with access to such special artefacts. That’s a very small group of people. The artefact is usually passed down within the family, though crimes committed to steal one are common.

Why would you use it? While touching the artefact, you can read other people’s thoughts by looking at them. This obviously has many uses. To uncover secrets, to see if somebody is lying, to find pressure points for negotiation/persuasion, to figure out if your crush also loves you back, etcetera.

What’s the cost? Well, you’re always at risk of being attacked by somebody who wants to steal the artefact. But that’s too indirect a cost. A more direct, tangible cost would be that touching the stone drains your energy and holding it too long will just make you faint. Maybe your eyes also turn red, indicating you’re spying on other people.

This took me two minutes to write down. But I think this can actually be a great magic system to support a story and a world.

Not only do you get magic with clear (and consistent) rules, you immediately get consequences for society, character, family, and more.

The Three Laws of Magic

These laws are from Brandon Sanderson. I see no reason to change them or add my own, as his laws are perfectly fine and have helped many writers. Do remember, though, that he writes hard magic systems. While the laws still hold true for soft magic, their vagueness makes it often pretty irrelevant to apply rigid rules to it.

The First Law

Your ability to solve problems with magic in a satisfying way, is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.

This is about setup and payoff. If you haven’t explained that something exists or a rule holds true, you can’t use it later to solve a conflict. Conflict is only fun if it has a satisfying resolution. Without a resolution, or with one that seems random or out of nowhere, it’s just annoying.

If you’ve read this whole course, you know that “understands said magic” doesn’t mean you have to dump all the details of the magic system into the book (pages of information) just before using it.

It means you have to slowly provide tidbits of information, from the start of the book, up until the moment it all combines into this mini-climax where you use the magic in a satisfying way.

This is still true for soft magic! Setup and payoff are a core part of storytelling, no matter the genre or magic system. But if you go that route, your setup should be “this person randomly has spells for everything”, so audiences can expect them to also have a spell to resolve this new conflict.

The Second Law

Flaws or Limitations are more interesting than Powers.

As demonstrated with my four questions. Without a limitation, powers would immediately spiral out of control and lead to wizards with basically infinite power. Without a limitation, when and how you use magic would be random instead of informed by personality and choices.

Humans are more interested by what they can’t do than by what they can. Think of the typical teenager who, when told they may not do something, gets an incredible desire to do that one thing. Even if it’s stupid, dangerous, and they didn’t want to do it before.

This doesn’t mean your magic should be “weak”. Making your magic something useless with a very high cost is the best way to frustrate or bore your audience.

Instead, remember that people like contrast. Stories become more clear and impactful if they visit extremes.

So what do you do? Make the magic incredibly powerful, but add an equally incredible cost.

Now the two cancel each other out. Sometimes the power wins, sometimes the cost. But both of them are significant and interesting in many ways.

The Third Law

Before adding anything new, see if you can instead expand what you already have

This harkens back to my point about “deep over shallow”. Prefer deepening your existing magic system over tacking a new system or idea to the side. Prefer finding creative ways to use the few ideas you already have to establish something new over outright adding the new thing you want on its own.

It makes the story focused, streamlined, simple, coherent. It also simplifies your life as an author. You need to explain less information and can assume the reader remembers what you tell them more easily.

Simpler is better, in all of art. Focus your magic system on only a handful of core rules, and let all the details and story flow from consequences of that.

Conclusion

The actual power can be anything. It’s the other things (user, source, cost, reason) that make it interesting and naturally lead to story.

Usually, the magic automatically flows from the twist you put on your own world. It can also go the other way: you start with a fun idea for magic, then think about the world that would need to exist around it to work.

Also notice how this general idea can help you craft other systems.

Maybe your world needs a financial system. The same questions can shed a light on its details:

• Who runs the system and who is allowed to use it?
• How does it work and what is its purpose?
• Where does the money come from?
• What’s the cost for running this system?

And the same three laws hold true.

• If your financial system is relevant to the plot, the reader needs to know how it works first.
• If you don’t add clear limitations, there’s the obvious problem of infinite money. (And if there are no interesting limitations, it would just feel like a copy of the common financial systems in the real world.)
• If you already have other systems in the world, tie the banks into the existing ones, instead of inventing something new entirely.