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Original posts by Brandon Sanderson on the web:
I like magic systems. Thatâs probably evident to those of you who have read my work. A solid, interesting and innovative system of magic in a book is something that really appeals to me. True, characters are what make a story narratively powerful â but magic is a large part of what makes the fantasy genre distinctive.
For a while now, Iâve been working on various theories regarding magic systems. Thereâs a lot to consider here. As a writer, I want a system that is fun to write. As a reader, I want something that is something fun to read. As a storyteller, I want a setting element that is narratively sound and which offers room for mystery and discovery. A good magic system should both visually appealing and should work to enhance the mood of a story. It should facilitate the narrative, and provide a source of conflict.
Iâd like to approach the concept of magic in several different essays, each detailing one of the âlawsâ Iâve developed to explain what I think makes good magic systems. As always, these are just my thoughts. Though I call them laws, theyâre nothing more than simple guidelines that have worked for me. Just like itâs sometimes good to violate rules of grammar, authors can violate my theories and still have good books. However, I do think that by following these, you can work to develop more potent and memorable magic in your books.
Sandersonâs First Law of Magics: An authorâs ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.
When I applied to be on the programming of my very first Worldcon (following my sale of Elantris, but before the book was actually released) I saw that they were doing a âHow does the magic work?â panel. I eagerly indicated that Iâd very much like to be a part of it, and to my delight, the committee put me on it.
It was my very first panel at the convention. I arrived somewhat bleary-eyed after an extended flight from Utah to Boston, but managed to find my way up to the front of the room, notes prepared, ideas prepared, sharpened, and ready to be unsheathed. I sat on the end of the table, and so was the first to speak when the moderator asked âAll right, letâs begin with the simple question. How should magic work?â
I said something I took as a GIVEN. After all, Iâd read it in Orson Scott Cardâs writing book (I highly recommend the chapter on magic) and had used it as a rule of thumb for some time. It was the thing that I assumed was the first law of magic systems.
âWell,â I said. âObviously magic has to have rules.â
And every other person on the panel disagreed with me violently. âIf you have lots of rules and boundaries for your magic,â they explained, âthen you lose your sense of wonder! Fantasy is all about wonder! You canât restrict yourself, or your imagination, by making your magic have rules!â
I was dumbfounded. Suddenly, I realized that most of the reading Iâd done on the subject had been produced by a segment of the population who liked a particular kind of magic. However, there appeared to be another complete school of thought on the matter. I struggled to defend myself for the rest of the panel, and left thinking that everyone else there must have really weak magic systems in their books.
Then, I thought about it for a while. Canât someone have a good story that does things differently from the way I do it? Canât you have magic without explaining lots of rules and laws for their magic? Tolkien didnât really explain his magic.
Yet, if the stories donât have rules and laws for their magic, donât they risk Deus Ex Machina (contrived endings) in their books? From the beginnings of the fantasy genre, its biggest criticism has been that it has no consistency. John Campbell, one of the most influential and important editors in the history of science fiction, once argued:
The major distinction between fantasy and science fiction is, simply, that science fiction uses one, or a very, very few new postulates, and develops the rigidly consistent logical consequences of these limited postulates. Fantasy makes its rules as it goes along ... The basic nature of fantasy is âThe only rule is, make up a new rule any time you need one!â The basic rule of science fiction is âSet up a basic proposition â then develop its consistent, logical consequences.â
I disagree with this soundly â but in Mr. Campbellâs defense, fantasy has come a long way since the sixties (when he wrote that in Analog.) Fantasy doesnât have to be about stories where the authors simply make up whatever they need. Still, I think that it is a criticism we fantasy writers need to be aware of and wary regarding. If we simply let ourselves develop new rules every time our characters are in danger, we will end up creating fiction that is not only unfulfilling and unexciting, but just plain bad.
And so I began to develop my first law as a way to include magic systems that donât follow very strict rules, but which also donât undermine their plots. Let me state my law again: An authorâs ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.
This leaves room for those who want to preserve the sense of wonder in their books. I see a continuum, or a scale, measuring how authors use their magic. On one side of the continuum, we have books where the magic is included in order to establish a sense of wonder and give the setting a fantastical feel. Books that focus on this use of magic tend to want to indicate that men are a small, small part of the eternal and mystical workings of the universe. This gives the reader a sense of tension as theyâre never certain what dangers â or wonders â the characters will encounter. Indeed, the characters themselves never truly know what can happen and what canât.
I call this a âSoft Magicâ system, and it has a long, established tradition in fantasy. I would argue that Tolkien himself is on this side of the continuum. In his books, you rarely understand the capabilities of Wizards and their ilk. You, instead, spend your time identifying with the hobbits, who feel that theyâve been thrown into something much larger, and more dangerous, than themselves. By holding back laws and rules of magic, Tolkien makes us feel that this world is vast, and that there are unimaginable powers surging and moving beyond our sight.
However, there is something you have to understand about writing on this side of the continuum. The really good writers of soft magic systems very, very rarely use their magic to solve problems in their books. Magic creates problems, then people solve those problems on their own without much magic. (George R. R. Martinâs âA Song of Fire and Iceâ uses this paradigm quite effectively.)
There is a reason that Gandalf doesnât just fly Frodo to Mount Doom with magic, then let him drop the ring in. Narratively, that just doesnât work with the magic system. We donât know what it can do, and so if the writer uses it to solve a lot of problems, then the tension in the novel ends up feeling weak. The magic undermines the plot instead enhancing it.
So, if you want to write soft magic systems, I suggest you hold yourself to NOT letting your magic solve problems for your characters. If the characters try to use the magic, it shouldnât do what they expect it to â as the reader doesnât know what to expect either. Use the magic for visuals and for ambiance, but not for plot. (Unless itâs there to screw up things for the characters. Thatâs always okay.)
On the other side of the continuum, we have hard magic. This is the side where the authors explicitly describes the rules of magic. This is done so that the reader can have the fun of feeling like they themselves are part of the magic, and so that the author can show clever twists and turns in the way the magic works. The magic itself is a character, and by showing off its laws and rules, the author is able to provide twists, worldbuilding, and characterization.
If the reader understands how the magic works, then you can use the magic (or, rather, the characters using the magic) to solve problems. In this case, itâs not the magic mystically making everything better. Instead, itâs the charactersâ wit and experience that solves the problems. Magic becomes another tool â and, like any other tool, its careful application can enhance the character and the plot.
I would place Isaac Asimov on this side of the continuum. Itâs a bit irregular of me to use a man who, from essays Iâve read, was generally disapproving of the fantasy genre. (Asimov argued that fantasy was about dumb people â men with swords â killing smart people in the form of wizards.)
However, I think Isaacâs robot stories are a perfect example of a Hard Magic system. In his robot stories, Asimov outlines three distinct laws, then never adds any more and never violates those laws. From the interplay of those three laws, he gave us dozens of excellent stories and ideas.
Note that by calling something âHard Magicâ Iâm not implying that it has to follow laws of science, or even that there have to be explanations of WHY people can use this magic. All Iâm talking about is the readerâs understanding of what the magic can DO. Take superheroes, for instance. You may be tempted to assume that superhero magic is a âSoftâ magic system. After all, the powers are often ridiculous with reasons for existing that defy any kind of logic or science. (IE: âI got bit by a radioactive spider, then gained the powers of a spider!â)
However, superhero systems are very much Hard Magic systems. Remember, weâre looking at this as writers, not as scientists. Narratively, superhero magic tends to be rather specific and explicit. (Depending on the story.) We generally know exactly which powers Spider-man has and what they do. He 1) Can Sense danger 2) has superhuman strength and endurance 3) Can shoot webs from his hands and 4) Can cling to walls. While in the comics, he does sometimes gain other strange powers (making the system softer), he does generally stick to these abilities in the movies.
Therefore, weâre not surprised when Spider-man shoots a web in a bad guyâs face. Weâve established that he can do that, and it makes sense to us when he does it. It is narratively a Hard Magic system, rather than a Soft Magic system.
Most writers are somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. A good example of what I consider to be near the center point would be Rowlingâs Harry Potter books. Each of these books outlines various rules, laws, and ideas for the magic of the world. And, in that given book, those laws are rarely violated, and often they are important to the workings of the bookâs climax. However, if you look at the setting as a whole, you donât really ever understand the capabilities of magic. She adds new rules as she adds books, expanding the system, sometimes running into contradictions and conveniently forgetting abilities the characters had in previous novels. These lapses arenât important to the story, and each single book is generally cohesive.
I think she balances this rather well, actually. In specifics, her magic is hard. In the big picture, her magic is soft. That allows her to use magic as points of conflict resolution, yet maintain a strong sense of wonder in the novels.
I consider my own magic systems to be perhaps 80% hard, maybe a bit more. My own paradigm is to develop a complicated magic system which can be explained as simply as possible, but which has a lot of background and âbehind the scenesâ rules. Many of these workings donât get explained in the books, particularly at the first. The characters have some good understanding of the magic, but they rarely understand its complete form. This is partially because I treat my magics like sciences, and I donât believe that we will ever completely understand all of the laws of science. Partially, also, I do this so that I can have discoveries and revelations in the novels. I like mystery more than I like mysticism.
So, following this, we have my own Mistborn series. In them, I outline many rules of the magic, then offer up a few unexplained exceptions or inconsistencies which I proceed to explain in further books. The interplay of how the different laws of magic work is vital to understanding major plot points.
If youâre a writer working on your fantasy magic systems, I suggest that you decide what kind of feel you want for your magic. Do you like the techno-magic like you find in my books, or in books by L.E. Modesitt Jr. and Melanie Rawn? Do you like the hybrids like you find in someone more like David Eddings or J.K. Rowling? Or, do you prefer your magic to be more vague and mysterious, like you see in Tolkien or the George R. R. Martin books? I like to read works by all of these authors, but when I write, I prefer to have rules, costs, and laws to work with in my magic, and that makes it more fun for me.
What is the most interesting to you when writing? What feel or mood seems the best match for the particular book youâre working on? (Iâve done mostly hard magic, but my kidâs series has a slightly softer â perhaps 50/50 â magic system. I did this intentionally, both because of the wacky nature of the books, and because I wanted to enhance the feel of the character being thrown into a strange world he didnât understand.)
Resist the urge to use magic to solve problems unless youâve already explained and shown that aspect of how the magic works. Donât give the heroes a new power whenever they need one, and be very careful about writing laws into your system just so that you can use them in a single particular situation. (This can make your magic seem flimsy and convenient, even if you HAVE outlined its abilities earlier.)
If youâre writing a hard magic system, when your character run into a problem, ask yourself âHow could the characters use what they already have and know to solve this conflict?â Then, make them use what they have, instead of giving them something more. This will make the story more interesting, force your characters to stretch, and provide more fun for the reader.
If youâre writing a soft magic system, ask yourself âHow can they solve this without magic?â or even better, âHow can using the magic to TRY to solve the problem here really just make things worse.â (An example of this: The fellowship relies on Gandalf to save them from the Balrog. Result: Gandalf is gone for the rest of that book.)
Most of all, experiment and find out what you enjoy, then make it work for you.
A few years back, I wrote an essay on creating magic systems that I titled Sandersonâs First Law. It had to do with the nature of foreshadowing as it relates to solving problems with magic. In that essay, I implied that I had other âlawsâ for magic systems that Iâd someday talk about. Well, that time has come, as Iâve finally distilled my thoughts for the second law into an explanation that will work.
Iâll start, however, by noting that none of these âlawsâ are absolute. Nor am I the only one to talk about them. By calling them âSandersonâs Lawsâ Iâm merely referring to them in the way I think of them â they are rules I try to live by when designing magic systems for my books. There are a lot of ways to write, and the only real âlawsâ are the ones that work for you.
These work for me. I think they are actually all principles of good writing, not just writing as it pertains to magic systems. However, because magic systems are one of the things I most like to toy with in my writing, I have designed them in such a way that they encourage me toward stronger, and more interesting, magic in my fantasy books.
Sandersonâs Second Law can be written very simply. It goes like this:
Limitations > Powers
(Or, if you want to write it in clever electrical notation, you could say it this way:
Ω > |
though that would probably drive a scientist crazy.)
Letâs do some explaining here. When people describe a magic system, they usually talk about what it can do. Letâs use a very well known example: Superman. (Yes, superhero abilities are a magic system. In fact, many of them make for good examples, since many of them are well known in society and the scope of their powers is fairly well pinned down.)
If I were to ask you about Supermanâs magic, youâd probably talk about his ability to fly, his super strength, the lasers he can shoot from his eyes. You may go from there to his invincibility and perhaps some of his lesser (and more inconsistent) powers. But if we stick with those four, weâve got a pretty strong setup for what Superman is capable of doing.
However, is this what makes Superman interesting?
Iâd put forth that it is not. There are lots of people with magic powers who can fly and who are invincible. There are a lot of strong, fast, or smart people. What makes Superman interesting, then? Two things: his code of ethics and his weakness to kryptonite.
Think about it for a moment. Why can Superman fly? Well, because thatâs what he does. Why is he strong? Comic book aficionados might go into him drawing power from the sun, but in the end, we donât really care why heâs strong. He just is.
But why is he weak to kryptonite? If you ask the common person with some familiarity with Superman, theyâll tell you itâs because kryptonite â this glowing green rock â is a shard from his homeworld, which was destroyed. The kryptonite draws you into the story, gets into who Superman is and where he comes from. Likewise, if you ask about his code of ethics â what he *wonât* do, rather than what he *can* do â weâll go into talking about his family, how he was raised. Weâll talk about how Ma and Pa Kent instilled solid values into their adopted son, and how they taught him to use his strength not to kill, but to protect.
Superman is not his powers. Superman is his weaknesses.
Now, that explanation above is a descriptive point. It illustrates a concept, but is just an example, working backward. And yet youâll find this concept repeated time and time again in fantastical fiction. It isnât what the heroes can do that is most important to who they are, but what they have trouble doing. (Or what they canât do.) The Lord of the Rings is not, when you boil it down, about Gandalfâs magical powers or even Aragornâs orc-slaying skills. Itâs about the Hobbits, arguably the weakest (physically and magically) of the people in the books. Itâs about Aragornâs struggle to become king.
(The films, it should be noted, played this concept up much more than the books did, as the director realized Aragorn became far more interesting when he was reluctant to become king. His weakness gave him much more depth than his abilities.)
Now, this concept wonât hold in every example. And, more importantly, the average reader will miss this concept entirely. Thatâs okay. This law is meant for writers.
When you are designing a magic system, it *is* important to be working on new slants on powers. However, the truth is that itâs virtually impossible to come up with a magical effect that nobody else has thought of. Originality, Iâve seen, doesnât come so often with the power itself as with the limitation. Take the Wheel of Time, for an example. This is a very popular epic fantasy series, and one Iâve long loved and had the privilege of being a part of. The magic system, at its core, is actually rather generic. People can manipulate the Aristotelian elements. Fire, earth, water, air, with the commonly added fifth element of spirit.
This core is not original. Itâs the limitations, costs, and weaknesses of the magic system that bring us its more fascinating elements alongside its best plot hooks. In order to manipulate these five powers, practitioners draw forth âthreadsâ of them and then âweaveâ the different powers into complex patterns, which then accomplish a goal. This is a limitation of the magic. Instead of merely willing something to happen, then having it happen, the practitioners must use skill and knowledge, and take time to create what theyâre making. It also gives a visual component to the magic system (always an excellent addition) and â beyond that â ties the magic into the cosmology of the world. (In the Wheel of Time, the mythology of the setting teaches that everyoneâs lives are threads woven into the pattern of time.)
On top of this, Robert Jordan added one of the most powerful costs to a magic system that Iâve ever read. Men who use the magic go slowly insane. This cost is wonderful, as it makes the magic worth something. It forces the characters to make tough choices, and then it shows real, story-based ramifications.
These are the sorts of things you should be looking for as a writer designing magic systems. (Or as a reader who is curious about the workings of fiction.) An excellent limitation on a magic system will do several things.
It will force the characters to have to work for their goals, which makes the writing simply more interesting and the characters more sympathetic. In addition, if a magic is limited, the characters will need to be more clever to overcome their problems. (And you, as a writer, will need to force yourself to be more clever in writing.) For example: in Mistborn, the practitioners of the magic can move things with their minds. Basic telekinesis. However, there are two important limitations. The objects must be metal and the magic practitioner can only push them directly away or pull them directly toward themselves. The weight of the object is very important â a light object is pushed away, a heavy object pushes you away.
Suddenly, with these limitations, the characters are forced to work harder. And, in working harder, the written scene becomes much more interesting. Instead of a ho-hum scene with a character doing something abstract, the author ends up writing a scene where a character has to be very aware of their surroundings, has to place themselves very precisely, and has to *work* to achieve their goals. The nature of the magic encourages better writing.
An excellent magic system limitation will increase tension. Superman fighting an enemy is, honestly, not very tense. Superman fighting an enemy with kryptonite is far more tense. Batman fighting an enemy is not very tense. Batman fighting an enemy who is playing off of his inner fears (the current Batmanâs biggest weakness being his psychological problems) suddenly becomes far more interesting.
Limitations give us tension. Too often, I see new authors leaving out excellent opportunities like this. From there, they end up writing bland scenes with magic that happens abstractly in ways we canât relate to as readers.
You can do this with powers too. You can do this one with anything. However, my experience has been that great limitations require a little more stretching to explain. That forces you, as a writer, to create more depth to your world and characters. If you have a character whose power is the ability to fly, but then you add a limitation â she can only fly when she is happy, for example â then character depth will result. Suddenly, her mood is directly tied to the plot of the story. Her very personality is going to be involved deeply in her ability to accomplish things with her magic.
I have been lumping all kinds of different things under the heading of âlimitationsâ for this essay. However, itâs useful to consider these elements in different lights. I generally think of the limiting factors of magic systems under three headings.
These are the things that, for one reason or another, the magic simply cannot do. Superman canât see through lead, for example. Every magic has basic limitations, defined simply as the limited scope of the power. If magical glasses can let you see a mile, then the limitation is that they donât let you see farther than that.
However, in regards to designing magic systems, I suggest that the limitations be more encompassing than simple parameters. Yes, those delineations of what the magic can and cannot do are important, and that is where you begin. However, one of the tricks to designing a truly engaging magic system is in the final touches of those limitations. Iâm not saying they always need to be rational â having a rule-based magic system isnât about rationality, but consistency. (Of course rationality is always advisable, but sometimes impossible. We *are* talking about magic, after all.)
Letâs look at a magic system with an interesting limitation, David Eddingsâs magic known as the Will and the Word. Now, this is basically an unbounded magic system with very few limitations other than the strength, skill, and endurance of the practitioner. (Alongside the occasional conservation of energy quirk.) However, it does have one rather intriguing limitation â you can do practically anything, but you cannot âunmakeâ something. You canât command something to âbe not.â
Iâve always liked this limitation because of its flavorful addition to the magic system. Rather than just being another boundary â you canât use the magic when youâre too tired, or a similar basic limitation â it is an evocation of what the magic is about and what it means. This is the power of creation. It cannot unmake, and anyone who tries to use it to unmake is destroyed by the very nature of the power itself.
In seeking limitations, look for things that have good ties to the nature of your world. Also look for things that will force your characters (and you as a writer) to stretch in solving problems. Resist the urge to add new powers or remove limitations in order to solve problems; make the characters use what they have in new and innovative ways.
Without limitations, there is no innovation.
Weaknesses are different from limitations. Weaknesses are things that enemies can exploit â rather than being things the power cannot do, they are things the power is vulnerable to. The obvious example from the essay earlier is kryptonite.
I realize this is a matter of semantics. In a way, a weakness is just another limitation. I believe it is helpful for the writer to look at them differently, however. It is not a weakness that your magic allows you to jump a hundred feet into the air, but not two hundred feet. Thatâs simply what the power does, the bounds it has. It is a weakness, however, if your ability to jump into the air leaves you vulnerable in some way, such as turning off your other powers. (Perhaps one needs to focus all energy on this single act.)
Weaknesses are more tricky to build into a magic system; I find it difficult to keep them from seeming simplistic or silly. As good as kryptonite is for explaining the importance of limitations, itâs become a clichĂ© of easy storytelling. Need a weakness for your hero? Just take away their powers in certain circumstances.
I suggest avoiding such simple weaknesses. Once again, the purpose of building these weaknesses is to create a better story. Yes, a weakness can be a good way of checking a hero who has grown too powerful â but in the case of most magics, I suggest allowing the limitations to be what force this issue, not suddenly added weaknesses.
They can be used for great effect, however â I simply suggest making them subtle. Ways the magic is vulnerable or makes those using them more vulnerable. In fact, one might say that weaknesses are the bridge between limitations and the next category, which is an excellent way to limit a powerful magic.
The One Ring makes you more covetous and paranoid the longer you hold it â and, beyond that, if you use it to turn invisible, the evil powers can sense where you are. These things are what we call âcosts.â Using the magic, or being associated with it, has a cost. These costs can be more abstract (you go crazy by using the magic) or more concrete (if you run out of spice, you can no longer travel faster than light in space). The distinction here is how much wiggle room the author has.
In the first example, what it means to be âinsaneâ is left up to the authorâs discretion. There are lots of different types of insanity, and how quickly someone goes insane â and what it means to be insane â are things that, as a writer, you can play with. In the second example, the cost is more concrete, locking the author into a certain specific cost. If it takes three magic beans to make the doorway appear, your character has to have the three magic beans. Thatâs it.
Both are useful for different reasons. Costs are very important to consider â readers naturally expect there to be a cost, and a lot of times, new writers skimp on giving their magic one. However, do be aware that if your cost is *too* drastic, it can lead to you never being able to use the magic. If casting a spell causes one of your grandparents to die, then weâre just not going to be able to see that spell used very often in your book. Itâs easy to lock yourself in with a cost and it can hinder flexibility.
These definitions are simply ways of looking at the issue. They arenât catch-all categories. You can approach this in another way by asking yourself questions, and not allowing yourself to take the easy answers.
How does one gain access to the magic? The standard two methods are innate magic and learned magic. (Or a hybrid.) You can really make your magic stand out if innate limitations require a different way of gaining access to the magical powers.
How is the magic powered? All magic, to one extent or another, is going to break the laws of physics. However, you can mitigate this by asking yourself about preservation of the laws of thermodynamics. What *is* powering this magic? Where is the energy coming from, and where does the matter go? Once again, there are standards: the practitionerâs willpower is one, the power of the universe, such as an amorphous âforce,â is another. (I used one of these in Elantris, and this is how the Wheel of Time magic is powered. These arenât bad, but â once again â if you avoid the common, it can be a good way to force yourself to be original.)
How often can the magic be used? Does it require special implements? A special state of mind? Special ingredients? Once again, stay away from the standard. Look beyond what your first responses are.
Above all, remember the point of this. It is *not* to simply be more complex. It is to force you, as a writer, to create better stories. Therefore, the best limitations will have real effects on the characters, rather than pretend ones (i.e. the magic requires special implements that have no real effect on the plot, no real emotional or economic cost, and which the characters are never without). Look for things that tie the magic to other setting elements and which make life hard for the practitioners in interesting ways.
Iâll close this essay by turning back to something I mentioned above. I donât see Sandersonâs Laws of Magic as only relating to magic. I see them as storytelling principles, illustrated through ways one can design better magic systems.
So, in reality, this is a larger storytelling concept. Limitations *are* more important than abilities. It applies to characters â what they cannot do, what they wonât let themselves do, is more interesting in general than what they can do. It applies to worldbuilding. The costs of living in a harsh world are more interesting, often, than the benefits. (Think of Dune, for example.) The weaknesses inherent in the flora, fauna, and local building materials of your world are more interesting than what can be found there. (Notice in the film Avatar, the story is not really about the precious ore being mined, but in the difficulties in getting to that ore.)
And, if we bring this out to a broader issue, what your characters have trouble accomplishing in a plot is going to be far more interesting than what they can do easily. Remember that one simple rule, and your stories will be far more compelling.
At long last, itâs time for me to continue my series on how I develop magic systems for my books. If you havenât read the first two pieces in this sequence, check out Sandersonâs First Law and Sandersonâs Second Law.
When I speak about these laws, I often make some wisecrack about how humble I am. (I named them all after myself, you see.) However, the reason I named them as I did is not because I view them as rules that everyone must follow in developing their magic systems. Instead, these are observations about what have made my own magic systems better â in the way I like to design them. Therefore, they are laws that I try to follow in my writing.
At times, Iâve broken these laws â indeed, Iâve figured them out over time by noticing places in my fiction where the magic system doesnât work as well as Iâd like. You could say breaking the laws is what taught me about them in the first place.
Remember that in writing, nothing is absolute. I donât read a book and think to myself, âI wonder how well this magic system follows Sandersonâs Laws!â When I read, Iâm there to enjoy the story. However, when I analyze why something works or doesnât work â particularly in a book Iâm working on â often these concepts will come into play.
Anyway, without further rambling, the third law is as follows: Expand what you already have before you add something new.
There are a lot of potential worldbuilding pitfalls a fantasy and science fiction writer can stumble into. One of these is making your story boring by overburdening it with too much expository worldbuilding. This, in turn, is often a symptom of a writer who spent years and years practicing worldbuilding â but not much practicing the actual craft of writing.
Because of this, I sometimes warn about what we call âworldbuilderâs disease,â which is a little like warning a bodybuilder friend not to skip leg day. Practicing worldbuilding is important, but to have a well-balanced story, a potential writer will also need to practice prose, characterization, and plotting. Youâre not a pianist if you only learn to play one song, even if you can play it really well â instead, youâre a party trick.
(Now, Iâll add the caveat that worldbuilderâs disease is only a problem for writers who want to make a professional living writing books. If your goal is to have fun worldbuilding, and the writing of a book is something secondary to that, then thereâs nothing at all wrong with focusing your time on your setting. Do what you enjoy.)
Anyway, because I talk a lot about the dangers of over-worldbuilding, you might think that Iâm against it entirely. Not at all â I like stories with massive worldbuilding, intricate worlds, and clever use of magic.
Thatâs where this law comes in.
Often, the best storytelling happens when a thoughtful writer changes one or two things about what we know, then extrapolates purposefully through all of the ramifications of that change. A brilliant magic system for a book is less often one with a thousand different powers and abilities â and is more often a magic system with relatively few powers that the author has considered in depth.
This is something Iâve come to realize over a long time. I often fall into the trap of thinking that âBigger is better, and more is more awesome.â Films have this trouble all the time. How often has a sequel been ruined by this mentality? (An example comes from the Spiderman franchise of last decade, where the third film was widely panned for trying to cram too many villains into the space â when one very dangerous and compelling villain often makes a better story.)
In epic fantasy books, itâs not the number of powers that creates immersive and memorable worldbuilding â itâs not even the powers themselves. Itâs how well they are ingrained into the society, culture, ecology, economics, and everyday lives of the people in the stories.
In short, this law challenges me to create deep worldbuilding instead of just wide worldbuilding.
Iâll talk about expanding a magic in three directions Iâve found useful.
In developing your magic, your job as a writer is to look at how the changes youâve made will affect the world as a whole. Keep this within reason, depending on your storyâs goals and lengths. Epic fantasy has space for looking at history and economics, while a tight urban fantasy may instead want to look at one specific factor â such as how synthetic blood might affect vampire culture.
Extrapolating, to me, is about asking the âwhat happens whenâ questions. âWhat happens when a wizard converts to Christianity?â âWhat happens to warfare when a magic can create food out of thin air, enabling much more mobile armies?â âWhat happens to gender dynamics if magic causes all of the men who use it to go insane?â
Often, both in my own books and the books I read, if the worldbuilding comes out in a jumbled mess itâs because the writer is trying to shove far too many powers into a tight space. Instead, picking several of those powers and showing the problems they create in the lives of the different characters might make more sense. Instead of giving every character a new power, can you have different takes on the same powers, used in different ways?
Everything Iâm talking about can be taken too far, and that goes for this law as well. In some of my own works, Iâve enjoyed having a large list of powers to draw from â it has helped me create a more unique experience for my storytelling. Some of my favorite series, such as the Wheel of Time and Discworld, involve a massive amount of worldbuilding and a story world where tons upon tons of things can happen. We want a fantasy epic to be immersive and evoke an entire world full of dozens, if not hundreds, of different cultures and peoples.
The second piece of advice I have here, then, is a suggestion that you tie your powers, cultures, and themes together in your story. If I am going to have multiple magic systems â or multiple powers available to a single character â I ask myself how I can connect these powers so they work together, rather than feeling like separate âisnât that coolâ abilities given to a character.
I try to avoid using too many examples from my books, as these essays arenât intended to be me bragging about what Iâve done well. At the same time, I do think occasionally I hit the target â and when it comes to interconnection, the Mistborn magic system very much came together.
When developing the system, I knew I wanted a wide variety of powers. The first attempts at it had some very odd powers that didnât fit with the others. In designing the magic, I realized that if I themed all of the abilities toward things a group of thieves would want to be able to do, I could name each power after a role in a thieving crew. This cohesion formed the core of what brought the magic system together.
(Further pieces of interconnection included designing the table at the back, with different categories of powers â though I certainly donât think this is something you need to do for every magic. It lent strength to the sub-theme in Mistborn of a society on the cusp of industrial revolution.)
Tying your powers together thematically, and asking yourself how they play into the themes of your novel, will very much help you worldbuild and expand, instead of adding. Youâll end up with a magic system that feels like an important part of your book, and less like it includes âeverything and the kitchen sink.â (A problem that was common to many early magic systems, like those of early superhero comics.)
Do note that this works very well for other types of worldbuilding as well. Asking yourself how your economy interconnects with the religions of your world can help you develop both in a more interesting and way â and then asking how those interconnect with your theme, and the challenges of your characters, will create a much stronger book as a whole.
The third and final suggestion in this area is to look over your cultures, magics, and even characters and ask yourself, âWhere can I combine these?â
This is particularly applicable when it comes to magic systems, and characters with powers. Iâve started asking myself more and more when developing a culture, âHow can I take some already-existent piece of this world, and show a new cultureâs reaction to it?â Instead of developing a brand-new religion, I ask myself if a schism in an already existent religion would not work better. Instead of adding a new character with a new power, I ask if this character can approach one of the already-existent powers in a new and interesting way.
In another example, my experience has been that if youâre going to visit ten kingdoms in your novel, your first instinct might be to create ten new quirky magic systems to distinguish them. Instead, you might want to consider creating one distinctive thing magic does in this world, then have each culture use it in a different way. A simple magic â such as some people being able to change their skin color at will â could spawn religions, influence social mores, provoke wars, play havoc with caste systems, create new kinds of jobs.
Streamlining in this way helps with a number of things. It keeps down complexity creep in your stories â something that is not as big a problem in book one as it becomes in book seven. It helps your narrative be more tight, and it has (with me) forced me to reach deeper into character design. Instead of a character being âlook at this wacky powerâ it has become, more and more, âletâs have someone who looks at the world differently explore their problems with society and the setting.â
Harriet tells a story about this regarding Robert Jordan, who had originally intended his Wheel of Time series to be about four young men who are thrown into something above their heads. Partway into the first book, Harriet pointed out to him that one of the young men was never really doing anything. Robert Jordan kept saying that heâd be important in later books.
Harrietâs wise advice: âIf the first one isnât good, there wonât be any later books.â Robert Jordan cut the character and gave his parts to the other characters, and in so doing made them all increase in depth.
Now, there are ways you can take this one way too far. One example is giving all of the growth, interesting new powers, and adventures to one person â essentially ending up with a single hero who has been through *way* too much and had *way* too many experiences. It can strain plausibility. (Though, then again, some series are built on just this idea.)
A larger problem of streamlining can be developing each culture of your world to be identical, except for one little defining trait â such as how they look at religion. Thatâs streamlining way too far.
However, this rule of thumb has helped me a great deal over the years.
Expand, Donât Add.
It can be tough to decide when to apply this idea. For me, Law Three is a constant balancing act â much like the balancing act between showing and giving exposition. Exposition is important; it can move the narrative forward and can establish setting elements quickly. Taking time to show a concept, instead of explain it, often requires a lot more words â though it usually creates a more powerful scene.
Getting the balance right takes effort, and the ârightâ balance will be different for every story. The same goes for pushing your worldbuilding depth, as opposed to adding more breadth to it. When do you spend time making an existing culture more deep to add to the strength of the storytelling, and when do you introduce a new culture to improve the sense of wonder and scope of a book?
I will tell you this, though. When I stopped thinking of the Stormlight Archive along the lines of âI want to add more awesome magics!â and instead started thinking, âWhat are the common themes to the magics, and how can I interconnect and consolidate those themes?â my worldbuilding got stronger.
Itâs okay to go big. Itâs okay to go epic.
But be sure to go deep as well.