Dabbling in Magic Part 2: Keeping It Real and Under Control

Occasionally, I read a story in which the writer has lost control of the magic, often by creating unforeseen complications arising out of giving a character so much mojo that the writer finds herself trying to invent clever or at least sneaky and convoluted ways that Our Hero can thwart or be thwarted. 

This also can happen in SF, of course. Take the mysterious little port on the Death Star that leads directly to the heart of the planet killer. Fans wondered for decades how anyone would be dopey enough to build such a thing into this colossally powerful weapon. It wasn’t until Rogue One that we learned that the dopey port was an intentional feature built in by a renegade scientist on the DS project specifically so that it could be destroyed. (This is actually a very nice retcon (retroactive continuity) IMHO.)

One of my first cautionary notes to a writer of speculative fiction that involves magic or outrageous tech is to set limits. There are a number of ways you can set natural limits to your characters’ abilities. If the character was born with magical abilities then his magic will reflect who he is. If he has to learn the magic, how well he learns and uses it is also a reflection of his personality.

J.K. Rowling does a great job of this with her Harry Potter characters. The way Ron Weasley’s magic is likely to go awry amounts to a personality trait. Harry’s magic is spotty and prone to succeed or fail brilliantly as an outgrowth of his adolescent insecurities and natural abilities.

Shouldn’t a character’s magic be reliable? No, but it should be consistent. A character who’s established as a consummate wizard shouldn’t have his magic become conveniently flaky so the writer can put his sweetheart in dire straits. But if a character is confident or insecure, his magic should reflect that. 

A logical factor in the limitation of magical prowess, of course, is simple skill level. In my Mer Cycle series (originally published by Baen), different types of magic take different levels of skill. After all, not everyone can throw 97 mph fastballs, write a story, or cook a gourmet meal. The simple folk magic in these books functions at a different level than the more complex magic of the Osraed, a cadre of especially talented and trained individuals. 

You can also just avoid writing seemingly omnipotent characters. Whenever I create a character who possesses more knowledge, more raw power, better tech or more training than his adversary, I’m careful to reveal to the reader, as early as possible, any weaknesses that may provide the seeds of his destruction. 

In the second and third novels of Mer Cycle trilogy (TAMINY and THE CRYSTAL ROSE), I take pains to show the overweening vanity of the antagonist, Daimhin Feich. He thinks he is irresistible to women, a better strategist than his general, and a more powerful mage than any Osraed. Yet Daimhin Feich, as powerful he seems, is wearing a bull’s-eye on his back—one he begins painting from the first page on which he appears. The reader who sees this is rewarded with an “aha!” moment in the final paragraphs of THE CRYSTAL ROSE.

Use logic. The limitations you place on magic must be as natural and logical as you can make them—a reasonable outgrowth of the environment. 

Let’s say our protagonist—we’ll call him Owl—can levitate. But we’ve put Owl into a situation in which his ability to levitate makes it too easy to escape. So we invent a reason why Owl cannot use an ability that has never before failed him. Owl can’t levitate here because…er, um, there’s a colony of squirrels nearby and Owl’s magic can’t function in the presence of squirrel dander. (Flashback to childhood squirrel trauma.)

This (pardon the pun) won’t fly. Owl’s reason for not being able to levitate must be built into the world before he encounters this dire situation. 

Let’s say that we reveal in early chapters that Owl’s name is “Owl” because the owl is his family totem. He can only levitate in the presence of his totem. He goes into a cavern in pursuit of his nemesis knowing he will be cut off from his ability to levitate and faces his nemesis wishing his name were “Bat.” This creates mounting tension in the story as the reader realizes that Owl is going into battle without a weapon he has come to rely on. 

Some story lines can make achieving this balance especially challenging. In writing the second book of Marc Scott Zicree’s MAGIC TIME series (2003, Harper-EOS), I was working with a world in which the wheels of physics had literally come off. In their place was a primal, almost ungovernable magical power, newly released and largely unexplored. In close collaboration with Marc, I had to determine how this power would manifest itself in the characters. 

We made one of the protagonists, Goldie, bi-polar, which meant his mood disorder became a factor in the way the blossoming magic affected him. While he had built-in moral constraints against abusing the raw power growing in him, Goldie’s emotional unpredictability made him a wildcard. Because he was naturally secretive, the other characters (and the reader as well) were often off-balance around him. 

I had to work hard to keep Goldie from becoming too much of a wildcard—acting conveniently out-of-character because I needed something wild and crazy to happen at a given moment. 

Next: You Just Make Stuff Up, Right?

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