On Nov 19, 2011, at 5:26 PM, jshkay wrote: > One of the things I've noticed about working on fantasy is magic has no true > founding in reality. I've seen many systems of magic. Yours is the Greater > and Lesser Arts, other books have been through the use of metals, or through > strings of runes and many other things. I would say about half of the > systems of magic I've seen have no founding in logic. They just are. Other > systems I've seen have been extremly logical and try to connect to the real > world in some way. > > So I guess my question is this. How do you go about creating something like > magic from nothing? Perhaps that is one form of magic in itself, being able > to create a whole new concept, a whole new idea, that doesn't exist in the > real world. I've got quite a few ideas myself with what kind of magical > system I want in my world, but I would love to hear from an established > writer how you went about creating the magic system in your world. Also, how > are you able to connect reality to fantasy so that readers can feel like the > magic you write about is believable? > > Also, with the dragons, the elder elves, and other races, they seem to have a > magic that is outside of the greater and lesser arts, but neither of these > magics are gone into detail from what I can see. You look at the Pantathians > and their magic is more death aspected, and then the elves and their magic is > more life aspected. The Cho-ja don't seem to have any focus to their magic, > but it seems to be more advanced than other races. That being said, most of > this isn't explained in any coherent way, but instead just is.
I won't generalize; magic is pretty much "that which can't be explained." However, the old "a sufficiently advanced technology is undistinguished from magic . . . etc." has a serious foundation in my approach to the subject. "There is no magic," came to me at the end of Prince of the Blood and I wondered for a while why I wrote that, and then I got it. My subconscious was again at work. Let's say when you're the writer, magic is whatever you want it to be. You just have to find a balance within so it makes sense to the reader. If Harry Potter can blow away a battleship, it makes no sense he can't fry Voldamort unless the author stipulates a reasonable explanation as to why he can't. There's an old axiom in writing: the reader will accept the impossible faster than he will the improbable. Best. R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
