Hour 4, let's talk about magic. Specifically, let's talk about how to write magic.

Magic is fucking cool, I don't think I have to convince anyone of that. However it's also really tricky to write. If anything is possible in a story without any rhyme or logic, then there are no stakes and no continuity whatsoever. Why would anyone be invested in a story if a character can just come back to life at random, or get killed off as the narrative decides? Contrary to what a lot of people believes, the audience could never see this coming is a bad thing. People like to see the natural conclusion of a buildup, otherwise they'd just be mashing action figures with their kids.

One way to fix that is to have a robust magic system. Establish early on what is or isn't possible, and stick to it. This way the audience will never feel coped out. One exemple would be ATLA: the show goes by a simple rule, some people can manipulate one of the four elements. While it does fuck around with that magic system, it's still within the confines of that bigger rule. No one is gonna throw a tantrum when someone starts maniulating blood, because it does fit under "water manipulation."

I wanna add an alternative, less obvious solution though: you don't need to establish a full catalog of what can or can't be done with magic in your story (this can in fact get really boring in some cases.) However, if a big plot twist hinges on some shit being possible through magic, what you do need to do is inform early on that this is in the realm of possibilities.

Exemple! In the video game Ghost Tricks, your character goes around talking to ghosts. At some point you talk to a ghost who takes the appearance of a guy she admires, until you remind her that nope, wrong body, she's the ghost of the girl laying on the floor. It's a funny gag, it says a lot about the characters. But most importantly: it informs players that "ghosts look like what they believe they are, not what they actually are" is within the realm of possibilities for this world. So when later you learn that a different ghost has been unwittingly committing identity theft, sure you'll be shocked you'll be surprised you'll go "whoa I never saw that one coming!" but you won't feel cheated by the game. The game hasn't laid out all the magic system to you, but it did tell you that fucking around with appearances was possible.

If you don't lay out in details the specifics of your magic system, readers will still make assumptions on how it works based on what you've shown them so far. If you only ever have magicians using laser beams and suddenly one of them shows up as a necromancer out of nowhere, they'll feel like you broke an unspoken agreement with them. If you do the same thing but you sneak early on the info that necromancy is possible in that setting, (can be through a joke! Through a story! A character telling a fairytale! A character explicitly telling you necromancy isn't possible unless xyz is solved!) then you are planting the idea that necromancy isn't off-limit for that story. And that works load better.

Ofc you can stick to the explicit magic system if you want, but I do find that second solution especially useful if the magic system is unclear to the characters themselves, or if you don't wanna tie yourself down by extra rules.

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