: Re: Gratuitous use of magic: poor writing and/or unenjoyable? Many of my characters, main, side, and recurring all have a suite of magic abilities. So will them constantly using magic be annoying?

@Nimeshi163

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My largest magic pet peeve is when a character uses a previously unintroduced magic for every sticky situation they find themselves in. So, if a character has to defy death 10 times, and then they have 10 unique ways to get out of the death trap and the reader has never seen that magic before that comes across as a lazy author using magic to keep a character from suffering any actual detriment.
Magical surprises are okay, but not an array of new ones, especially at just the serendipitous last minute.

A character shouldn't always be able to rely on magic to solve problems
A character should have a predefined list of magical talents, and then stick to those... UNLESS, the story involves learning new ones
sometimes a character has a magical ability to disarm a bad situation in a subtle and elegant way, but many authors will write a lavish and dramatic magical moment to show off the awesome magicalness of magic magickery.
Characters that can use their one trick, but in a variety of ways, are very interesting magical characters because they show cunning and skill instead of always being lucky or being perfect without having to try
magic characters necessarily will have a trade off with their magical skill. What regular-joe type of thing does this magical character not know about or had to learn because they're magically gifted? How does the lack of those every day sensibilities hurt the character? How do they make up for it?
Magic shouldn't be used to keep your character from harm's way, or to keep them from having to develop as characters
Magic should also allow the character to develop in ways that non-magical beings couldn't
The character's magic has to have limits in strength and endurance. You don't always have to show us the limits, but the reader needs to know that the character could suffer if they're not well matched to the task.
Also, it helps if there's some code to how the magic works... even if it's not clear at first or loosely defined. It's more fun to know that magic has a back story and a root, instead of being an omni-present force with no internal mechanics
I'd say create some rules for how magic in your world works, and bend them when you want or need to, but don't break those rules without very good reason. You don't have to tell the reader what you're rules are.
If your magic does have rules, it is sometimes more fun if the reader has to slowly learn what the rules are by reading how magicians follow or break the rules. Much better for the story than putting all the rules in a single expository chapter; that would get boring.

This is all I can think of for now. Good luck!
Post your finished work if want.

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