Dabbling in Magic Part 3: You Just Make Stuff Up, Right?
A question I get asked fairly often is: Do you just make up the magic you use in your stories?
The answer is: I never make it up—at least, not out of whole cloth. Every form of magic I’ve used has been suggested by the real world and further informed by the world the characters live in.
The magic of my fourth novel, THE SPIRIT GATE (originally published by Baen), had its roots in the glassmaker’s craft; it echoed the way glaziers combine different elements to achieve particular colors.
In the MAGIC TIME series, the peculiar ways in which magic is manifested are suggested by simply turning perfectly mundane things inside out. In the case of the Blues musician, Enid, the magic arises out of a twist in an entertainment contract.
The mundane world offers much raw material for the writer to mold into the fantastic. Obscure religious beliefs, and beliefs we’ve come to take for granted, provide a rich diet for the imagination. So do the inner workings of the stock market, the nuances of baseball, or the mysteries of neurology.
Magic is literally everywhere: in the pages of science texts, history books, and how-to manuals on everything from glassblowing to gardening. It’s up to the observant writer to ferret it out, mold it, and bring it to life in fantasy fiction.
I can say from experience that when you’ve done that, dabbling in magic is rewarding indeed.
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2 thoughts on “Dabbling in Magic Part 3: You Just Make Stuff Up, Right?”
Is that blue glasswork in the picture a Dale Chihuly? And if so, have you been to his museum in Seattle yet?
That is a Chihuly glass sculpture. I took that picture with my iPhone on our last trip to Seattle. We always visit the MoPop, but that was the first time we’ve toured the Chihuly exhibit. I got a very cool shot of the Space Needle reflected in one of the glass globes in the garden area. Very cool.