Things I've Learned Along the Way: Moments of Magic

As a rule, I don't have any of the stereotypical characteristics associated with being a writer. My characters don't appear fully formed in my head, talking to me constantly. I am not overflowing with story ideas, and I don't operate under the assumption that my characters tell the story and my fingers simply channel it.

Not that there's anything wrong with that attitude. In fact, not feeling that way makes me self-conscious as a bit of a misfit in the writers' world. I craft my stories extremely carefully, being sure to give characters flaws that will most hinder them, and I build a conflict around various story frames rather than letting characters "hash it out."

From what I've seen, when writers with voices in their heads get to the end of a first draft, they find holes that need filled, subplots that need expanded or axed, and characters that need combined or added in order to make this channeled story make sense. When I get to the end of a first draft, it doesn't matter how much planning I've done: I have exactly the same issues.

This is the point where what I call "normal writers" and I switch vantage points. I watch my friends who write fluid first drafts struggle with pouring craft into them. And me? I find the magic. Because here's the thing: storytelling is always magic. While first drafts are hard for me and require me to use crafts, almost invariably I fill holes in "aha! moments" that present themselves out of nowhere.

I sat in church one Sunday, half paying attention, but unsure how my nearly complete story could end. I skimmed through the Bible in front of me, read a verse, and felt a light bulb switch on in my head. The room around me seemed to dim and fade, I stopped hearing the pastor, and I opened the notes app on my phone and typed as fast as I could manage. The verse was hardly related to the solution, but it came. Another plot hole filled while I was coloring a picture. (On a barely related note, I highly recommend coloring. It's cheaper than therapy and good for plot-hole-filling.)

Filling in plot holes while filling in the marigold in my coloring book.

So what have I learned? That my logical brain is a dragon that in itself needs defeated sometimes in order to make a story truly come to life. I've had solutions come to me that I couldn't explain, or solutions that adhered the entire manuscript in a way that I'd never imagined when I wrote the thing. Whether the magic comes in the beginning or during revision, I've definitely learned that there is no story without it.

Fantasy World-Building: Magical Rules

Magic Circle by  J.W.W. Waterhouse

World-building is different for those of us who write speculative fiction than for people who write stories based in the "real" world. Rather than examining the past for factual details, we have to make up alternate worlds. One of the most important tasks, then, is to establish the world's "rules," or perhaps more accurately, the laws.

By laws, I mean the factual kind that recur in nature. You can jump upwards as many times as you want to, but as long as you’re dealing with a g of gravity, you will always come back down. You can do your darndest to stop the ocean tides, but as long as the earth keeps spinning and the moon keeps pulling, there will be tides.

The same thing has to happen with magic. There must be laws to any magical universe, and to create them, a writer must ask herself things like

* Who can use magic and who can’t? Only people who are trained? Only people who have certain genes? Only people of a certain gender or race or culture? Why only those people? Must the power be awakened, or is it there from birth?

* What is magic? Where does it come from? Is it a force of nature, neither good nor evil, or is it a spiritual or eschatological kind of power only angels or demons can grant?

* How is magic used? Must the user cast spells, or is magic more of a generalized energy? Must he rely on herbs, or blood, or eye of newt, or are spell components obsolete in your world? Are sigils, runes, or incantations used?

* What price must be paid? If you fight gravity by jumping, eventually you’re going to wear yourself out. That’s the price. So what happens when one uses magic? And are the consequences the same for any kind of magic, or do they vary with the kind of spell?

* What are the limits on magic? If your character can do anything and everything, there’s no tension in the story, so what can’t she do with magic?

* Are there different types of magicians with specialized powers -- like necromancers and alchemists and prophets -- or are they all the same?

Your answers can’t be random, either. They have to make sense, just like the laws of our universe do. And you can’t be whimsically changing them because your character suddenly needs to be able to do this or that kind of magic. You should write your rules down and pretend they're set in stone.

One more thought: It's challenging to come up with new rules if you write in multiple fantasy universes. When you have a logical, well-defined set of rules that you carefully abide by, it can be hard to think beyond them for another story. This is part of the reason many authors set different stories in the same universe. If you have trouble coming up with multiple sets of rules and keeping them straight, don't feel bad about setting things in the same universe!

Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD's book, THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment, and Human Behavior helps writers avoid common misconceptions and inaccuracies and "get the psych right" in their stories. You can learn more about The Writer's Guide to Psychology, check out Dr. K's blog on Psychology Today, or follow her on Facebook or Google+!