: 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?

@Yeniel532

Vote Up Vote Down

You might want to check out Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic. His tips were a great thing to consider when I was writing my story.

They are in summary:

An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

This means that if magic is used often, the mechanics of it need to be well understood by the reader, and if magic is used rarely then there's no need to go into in-depth explanations.

Limitations > Powers.

Interesting characters are made by what they can't or won't do, as opposed to what they can and will. Omnipotent beings rarely make interesting characters.

Expand, Don’t Add.

It's better to have people with a few well-known and understood magical abilities than people who can do anything they want.

These are obviously very much shortened, he goes into a lot of detail on these points, so the links are well worth a read.

You can obviously choose not to follow these points, and in order to create a work of fiction that is unique to you then it is likely that you will need to break these rules somewhere, but I'd say that it's a great jumping off point.

(0)

Login to post a comment!