Making Magic Real Part II: What Is It Like?

Once you’ve hammered out your consistent rules for magic, you need to write it so the reader believes in it. And that means understanding it in the same way your characters do: from the inside out.

That means you need to know how it feels. There are a number of ways to achieve this. Deciding who is going to use that magic, and what sorts of effects it has on the plot is essential. If it’s going to be used by someone whose viewpoint the reader does not see, you need to know what it looks, feels, tastes, and smells like to the non-viewpoint characters. If the magic is used by viewpoint characters, you need to know what it feels like internally to use magic. Whatever your writing style, it’s important to know these things, because that will help you make them believable to your readers.

Knowing how much detail you want to add is part of the process. My personal style is detailed, but it’s not a requirement in order to create magic that feels real. The important part is that you understand well enough to give those details that will create the illusion of reality in the reader’s mind. How many details is your choice, but the ones you select should be clear and understandable, as well as salient. What details you choose will affect how much the reader believes in it.

For instance, if your magic is made up of wizards casting lightning bolts, you need to know what it feels like, either to cast a lightning bolt, or to see someone else cast it. You don’t need to write five paragraphs about it; you do need to make clear how this magic is original to your world and your writing. Otherwise, your readers will probably default to the last time they read a book or saw a movie about wizards casting lightning bolts, which may not be the effect you want to achieve.

How does this work in practice? Say your wizard’s lightning bolts are purple, and can only be cast in twilight. Someone watching them might see a wizard try to cast a lightning bolt, and fail because it’s sunny; they may notice that the lightning bolts are purple; they might feel the ozone in the air when the lightning bolt is cast; they might find that the air tastes like licorice. These little details say that this magic is yours; that there is something unique about it that makes it worth reading. After all, it’s those unique details that make it worth writing.

Magic from the inside is much the same thing, only with a different point of view. If you get it right, it can be very effective, because your readers will experience something that doesn’t exist in their everyday lives. Those purple lightning bolts with ozone and licorice: how does it feel to cast one? Here’s a wonderful opportunity for those individual details to take on even more life. Does twilight affect how the lightning is produced, or are those things two separate conditions? Are you drawing lightning from the clouds? Does it come from an internal pool of magic? Is there a purple-colored amulet through which lightning is summoned? Is there a god involved? And most importantly: how does your character experience any of these conditions?

There are numerous ways to approach this issue, but your job is to make the reader experience these things through the character. Say the twilight sets up a special condition that enables drawing purple lightning from the clouds. Your character may experience this by a growing tension that creeps up on them until it bursts out at twilight. The purple may be caused by a sense of heavy darkness in the caster, which expresses as purple rather than the natural white forks. Alternatively, you could have it streak through the character, leaving magical burn marks, or be called from the outside with great care so that it doesn’t rebound on the caster. In each of these cases, the character perceives and feels something that adds verisimilitude to the story. That flavor of licorice may be experienced by the character as the taste a demon-borne parasite, or anise may be a necessary spell component and actual present in the character’s mouth.

From the outside you simply see the details; from the inside you feel them. It’s still not necessary to be verbose in describing the magic. My style isn’t everyone’s, and I only use half as many words as some authors. But knowing and strategically adding these details will create a clear sense of what magic is in your world. Your purple-lightning casting wizard won’t come across as indistinguishable from a person wielding a laser gun, but will project a sense of both magic and wonder.

And isn’t that what fantasy is about?