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@josiah @daeus-lamb @hope-ann @karthmin @taylorclogston

Great thoughts guys. And good distinction between hard magic and soft magic. I definitely lean more towards soft. I see the merit in hard magic, and it certainly has a lot more wiggle room for cool originality instead of just ‘ooh, spiritual giftssss’, but soft magic definitely fits with my world, style, and stories better.

Not that soft magic shouldn’t be presented originally, but it definitely usually comes from a fairly generic source.

Martin, with your example of the hobbit povs, you touched on part of the mechanics thing I was talking about. Let’s see if I can elaborate a little.

So, this theory began as a strong aversion to the ‘sit down and explain the magic to the newbie’ scene trope. That trope is for the reader’s benefit, and is basically a glorified information dump. As I studied it, I realized this mindset of ‘the magic must make sense!’ permeates entire systems and leaves readers flopping about in a sea of information with no emotional directives that help them form attachments, forgive flaws, and enter wholeheartedly into any symbolic significances hidden in the system’s structure. It’s almost as if the author is convinced that the more logical sense their system makes, the easier it will be to accept. This may be true to some extent… but the logic of a system is not necessarily what’s most important.

After mulling quietly over this for a few months, I came to the conclusion that there are two steps to designing a magic system. Think of yourself, the creator, as a watchmaker. To begin a watch, you have to make, align, synchronize, and set in motion all the gears. This is the rawest, most basic and most important part. Without these gears, the watch will be useless. This is the logical, physical structure of your magic system.

However… very few watch buyers are going to care a lick about what lies behind the face. If we sold watches without faces, and simply told people they’d have to learn to tell time by understanding how the gears work together and counting off the seconds based on the movement of the wheels, no one would use watches. The end product with such a universal use is very much simplified. Almost, as it were, disguised.

This is the second step in writing a magic system. You, as the author, need to know what lies beneath the surface. That’s your foundation. But you also need a face for it. The easiest and most effective way to do this is to introduce human elements.

We already looked at Allomancy; let’s take a peek at Surgebinding. If the bones of the system were all we had— Surges of Progression, Surges of Illumination, Surges of Division, etc.— we would get lost pretty quick. But the focus of the system is not on the surges themselves, but on the spren who give access to the surges. Something that could have been very technical and boring is given elements of whimsy, humor, friendship, unpredictability, a certain air of childlike mystery, and above all the potential for change.

The system becomes more than a system; it becomes something ‘alive’ in terms that everyday humans can relate to. The key is relating. None of us can relate to wielding magic. None of us are particularly deeply interested in understanding magic. We only care about it because of the potential it has to change the characters we love and the course of their future. But if it’s just a technicality, tossed around like a rubber ball, connecting it to the character’s inner lives and struggles becomes very difficult.

We the creators can help with that by giving our systems human faces. This may not mean anything remotely close to spren, though the spren are a good example. Perhaps this means that none of our pov characters understand the magic, and every time they ask about it they’re put off with something ignorant, condescending, or even outrageous.

‘I can’t tell you about it. Your hair isn’t blue. Only people with blue hair understand it.’

‘Oh, yes— the formula for invisibility is three cloves of garlic buried in a barnyard until they’re niiiiiiceeee and ripe’.

‘Dude yes! Let me tell you about the time I…’ *spins long, ridiculous yarn about visiting two old gods who wanted to get married and gave him their immortal powers in exchange for his cottage and sickly old cow*

If a system has realistic accomplishments and realistic consequences, it doesn’t have to be realistically explained. At least not right away. There’s no need for the ‘talk to the newbie’ trope. If we sprinkle bits and pieces of the truth between our elements of human nature, we can slowly weave a larger picture. By misdirecting the readers around the truth of how things are, withholding information and giving false information, when the time comes to reveal that truth they will be relaxed, eager, and entirely ready. Their heart has accepted it; now we move to engage the head.

The man who is first romanced by the simple, orderly face of a watch will eventually wonder about the engine that makes it run, and find himself ready to open the back and take a peek inside.