: Re: Multiple POV novel - introducing rules of magic I have an urban fantasy story that is told from multiple view points. I'm wondering on the best way to introduce the rules of magic within this

@Lee1909368

I believe you must set up all the rules of magic, and the story world as a whole in the first act. Even if you're not doing 'acts' as such, you should set up the rules before your protagonist begins his/her problem solving. You can hide them like a whodunnit hides clues, but they must be there from the start otherwise the readers will feel you're making things up whenever you get stuck.

Since I assume that you don't have a narrator to relate the rules, you can only do it via action or dialogue. A very direct route would be to have an exciting scene which is almost entirely about what magic cannot do in your world. You may have two characters trying to rob a bank, and they just can't do it because of rules A, B and C. In explaining what you can't do you get to quickly imply what you can do without all the plodding exposition, or showing stuff your readers will have read a hundred times before. e.g. 'But we can't get inside there because dislocation spells don't work through solid walls'.

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@Lee1909368

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: Re: Multiple POV novel - introducing rules of magic I have an urban fantasy story that is told from multiple view points. I'm wondering on the best way to introduce the rules of magic within this

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: Recommendations for reputable writing critique site for non-native English speaker? I am non-native English speaker, living in US for 25 years. I have a long professional career, and, therefore,

: The rule of writing states "Don't break the fourth wall". That means don't remind the reader they are the reader, they read a book, the characters are in a book. Immersion is a volatile

: How do you describe the sound of someone being dragged across the floor? So I'm writing this story and got stuck on the part where two of my main characters arrived at this house and they

: Based on where I put a comma in a long sentence, can it confuse the readers from the way its supposed to be read? One bad habit I have when writing sentences is that I make them too long

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