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Saxon Scribe, ahoy!

I’m rubbing my hands that I get to tell you about Sanderson’s third law today. Brandon Sanderson is, of course, a famous fantasy author and he developed three laws for how to develop magic systems. You may enjoy reading all his three laws, but today we’re going to focus on law #3 because it applies to spec-fic writers and non-spec-fic writers alike.

Sanderson’s 3rd law. https://brandonsanderson.com/sandersons-third-law-of-magic/

This is tremendously helpful in developing your plot. For instance, I just wrote a scene where one of my characters drew a picture for his friend (and he’s an amazing artist so he attracted the attention of some bystanders). I wasn’t planning to take that anywhere, but then I realized my characters needed to get into an important guy’s office for plot reasons. How are they going to do it? Well, I could have invented all sorts of ways, but I chose to reuse what I already had. I decided my character’s art piece attracted so much attention, that he got asked to draw portraits for a lot of important people, including the one whose office they need to raid.

The more connected your story is, the more impressed your readers will be. They’ll know that almost everything is foreshadowing, and they’ll constantly be excited about what is going to happen.

But isn’t this about worldbuilding? Yes, but worldbuilding must always express itself through plot. Allow me to illustrate with some rudimentary thoughts I’ve been piecing together for a future story.

In this story, a major theme revolves around marveling in the glory of all things (as opposed to viewing the world through materialistic eyes). I wondered, could I highlight this with some sort of magic system (even if it’s something simple like being able to see the glory of something by touching it)? Currently, I don’t know if I will develop a magic system, but if I do, here’s my thought. How does one become a magic user? For this world, I’ve developed a pygmy, city-dwelling dragon, so (per Sanderson’s third law) what if these dragons could somehow grant the glory-power? Now, somewhere in this story, some bad guys are going to discover a way to turn a pygmy dragon into a giant dragon for their malicious instrument of terror. But, per Sanderson’s 3rd law, why make this some random dragon? Let’s make it the MC’s pet dragon. Now, if the dragon becomes a giant dragon, will that make the glory-magic stronger?

As you can see, this idea is still in development, and I plan to use Sanderson’s 3rd law many more times before I’m done with it!

Now my challenge for you. Give me 3 for 3. Now that you understand Sanderson’s 3rd law, see if you can come up with three new ways to use it in your WIP, then share below!

@ethryndal @corissa @raemarie @bama-rose @kate @r-m-archer @literatureforthelight @j-parkhurst @gabbyj @cassandraia @chalice @noahlitle @julianne @germaine-han @sesi @r-j-karas @rosemarylouise @msqueen8 @timothy-gullett @eden-anderson