Rules (Schmules) of Magic

I’m a pretty laid back person.  Really, I am.  There are a few things in this world, however, that really really  drive me crazy.

One of those is people who start putting rules on writing before they even put pen to paper. This is especially true for fantasy and it makes me want to kick something.  Now, I’m not talking about rules of grammar or punctuation—not the technical stuff—but rather content. Fantasy is fantasy for a reason.  It’s a time to let your mind and imagination run wild.  If there is anything unique about fantasy, it is that there are no rules.  It is completely up to you!  However, the moment you think, “things must work a certain way” before you begin to even plan your story, you limit  yourself to no end!

 For example: your magic has to have rules

I hear this one a lot. And it makes my brain explode a little bit. I call bullshit

Really?  Magic has to have rules?  Really? Who says?  Is there some great infallible committee that dictates how all writing must be that says  all magic use must have rules? Where is this coming from? 

The reasons people may say this is because they a) can only imagine a society where magic has rules b) prefer that system or c) don’t want the magic to be too powerful.

The last point may seem reasonable, but here’s the thing. Any writer worth their salt knows not to make their magic too powerful.  In fact, think how hard it is to write a story where magic will just solve everyone’s problems.  When that’s the case, you don’t have a story because you eliminate conflict and tension.  Thus using ‘don’t make magic too powerful,’ as a reason for forcing rules on magic is stupid since it probably won’t happen anyways.

The second point I want to bring up is if magic must have rules then how come there are so many successful authors out there whose magically systems don’t seem to have much rule or structure?

What was the magical system and rules that governed Gandalf’s magic in the Lord of the Rings?

What about all the magic in most of McKillip’s books?

What about the magic in Oz?

You see, there isn’t one way to write, and when we lay down a blanket rule on how magic should and should not work, we limit our imagination and show an incredible ignorance stories and plot lines.

Instead of laying down these rules, we should, instead, try to see how using magic in different ways, rules/no rules/some rules, will affect the world and story we write.

If you want your magic to have a system of rules, that’s fine.  As a result though, the magic  you use will make your society (usually) seem a bit more structured in response and thus effect the tone of the story.

A great example is, of course, the Magic of Recluse series by L.E. Modesitt jr.

On the other end of the spectrum, having no rules, or ill defined rules allows for more flexibility in how it manifests.  Not allowing the reader to see all the mechanisms and internal workings of the magic allows a world and tone of the story to seem more mystical and fantastical.

Most of Patricia A. McKillip’s works are this way.

Sometimes, using a combination or not having much in terms of explanation, is great when you don’t want magic to be a big focus or a bit part of the story.  Rather you want other things, like character, to be emphasized and the use of magic only helps to establish a tone.

You see?  Look how much we learned about writing by actually examining magic instead of establishing absolute rules.

Next time someone tells you ‘magic must have rules’ ask them why.  Challenge them.  Have a dialogue.  See what happens.

Descriptions with a Purpose and a Note from my Nerd File

Okay, before I talk about something writerly, I need to mention THIS ULTIMATE COOLNESS.

They fitted it out with so many sensors that they’re getting pretty accurate readings. I’ve already friended it on Facebook and its daily updates about photosynthesis and the weather totally make my day!

…Did I mention I was a nerd?

Anywho, in the few spare minutes I had this week, while cruising around the internet I was reminded of something I’ve noticed a lot:

Some people who critique writing just don’t like description.  No, scratch that.  In truth, they claim they don’t like description.  “It’s too much!” they claim.  “Just give me the plot.  Get rid of all those descriptions!”

The thing is, though, if we stripped out all the descriptions—in a good story—we’re left with something skeletal and uninteresting.  You see, people claim they don’t like description, but, in truth, they really do they just don’t know that they like them.   You see, descriptions do more than simply describe a person, place, or thing.  They help set a mood or a tone or fascinate the readers and support the plot.  They help make it meaty and wonderful. Descriptions are much more than just adjectives, they can be verbs or sentences or phrases.

What people see, however, and claim they don’t like, are, usually, descriptions that are used poorly, or focus soley on adjectives.  These are often sneak attack descriptions or descriptions that are made too obvious and overshadow the plot.

But wait!  What?  Obvious descriptions?  Huh?  Descriptions are descriptions, right?

Well on the surface…kinda.  As I see it, in my own humble opinion, that there are two sorts of descriptions: obvious and not so obvious.  What is obvious and not obvious depends on the purpose of those adjectives

Obvious descriptions:  These descriptions are used when the entire purpose of them is to describe something that you want your reader to see clearly.    If you want to describe the man your MC just met, come out and say it!  Say:

He was a tall man, with sandy hair and brown eyes.  There was something strange about him though, as if the bones didn’t fit into his sallow skin quite right.

The purpose of that paragraph is to describe something the MC is seeing to the reader.  Since the MC is seeing this man, and the whole purpose is to describe, you don’t have to sneak descriptions.  Just be direct about it.  BAM.  Here’s what this man looks like.

Not obvious descriptions:  This sort of description are the sort where you want your reader to picture a scene clearly, but not get distracted by it that you forget the plot.  Not obvious descriptions usually hold  a double purpose.  They will describe, but they will also tell the reader something else necessary about the scene or explain part of the plot.

Example:

Lirael pushed the door open.  Cold air rushed in, so she went through quickly.  If there were any other people about they would notice a cold breeze more quickly than anything else.  The Clayr might live in a mountain that was half smothered by a glacier, but they didn’t revel in the cold. ~Lireal

This paragraph doesn’t seem over described but it’s full of descriptions.  The reason it doesn’t feel over described, however, is because all those descriptions serve a double purpose and are hidden as something else.  For example, the cold air lets the reader know that the MC is going outside.  The mountain half smothered by a glacier, gives the reader a visual but also gives support to what the author told us about the Clayr.  Combine those two thoughts, and we understand that there truly is a danger of Lirael being discovered which gives urgency to the paragraph.

You see, everything works together, complimenting one another.  If it weren’t for those descriptions, this paragraph would just be Lirael opening a door and we wouldn’t understand why that was so terrible.

This is why I get annoyed when I hear people warning others in these declarative statements: don’t use too many descriptions!  Strip them out!   People who say these things clearly don’t understand descriptions, their importance, or the artistry required in writing.

I hope the Talking Tree eats them.

Fear me!

On Group Writing--Horror Stories pt 3

When you group write, there are several things that you need to do to ensure that you:

a) successfully add to a story

b) gain the respect of the writers you are working with

c) not annoy everyone

Most of these things are common sense, but it’s surprising how many people over look them.  What’s worse is you get one person who seems to overlook all of them.  This a horror story about this person.

Before I start, I do have to give her a little bit of credit. She wasn’t as bad as some others.  She never made our characters do completely off the wall things, like make them drug dealers or change their back story.  But she still didn’t do a lot of essential things, like:

Pay attention to setting

At one point, a few of the characters have just recovered from a fight.  The group leader’s MC is the leader of a group of people, so, his archers had surrounded the group for protection while they recovered.

This person’s character (let’s call her Dee) then arrives on the scene.

She rides into the circle and dismounts, telling people she senses that “I am still needed here, whether or not you believe it.”

Then suddenly she is attacked from behind and fights off her attacker. 

Excuse me. 

Remember she’s in the middle of a circle of highly trained archers, who would know if someone was coming.  How did this mystery villain get into the circle?  Did he just go up and say “Excuse me guys, just let me squeeze by so I can wail on this woman.  Thanks.”  I don’t think so.

Then, if we pretend this nameless attacker does get by this circle of archers, everyone is just standing around as she’s fighting this guy off!

Then, because, ‘what the hell’-ness of the situation is still in full swing, she turns to the leader’s MC, rattles off a bunch of questions at him and then goes “Do not lie, for I can easily kill you.”

Hokay, you’re threatened a chief while surrounded by his own archers?  REMEMBER YOUR SETTING!

But this leads me to another point.

Interact with other characters/its not all about you

One of the challenges involved in group writing is working with other people’s characters.  You have to interact with characters that are not your creation and a good writer will try to get their fellow writer’s characters down.   It’s hard because you don’t want to mess things up, but if characters don’t interact with each other a story doesn’t happen.  Therefore, you have to make your character interact with others, you can’t make the other writers do it for you.  Not only that, but you can’t make the interactions solely about you.

I’m sure you can see where this is going.

Most of the time it seemed like this writer was waiting around for other people to pay attention and interact with her.  Most of her additions were spent with her character just watching other characters with internal thoughts about how she missed her past and how tragic she was.

The other writers didn’t usually take the bait unless it was good for the story line.  The writer actually dealt with her character being ignored very well.

In one memorable addition, the character decides that she doesn’t want to be the other characters anymore and rides off.

The other writers ignore her.

In her very next entry she writes that her character decides to come back because she needs the MC’s protection

That’s it. Two whole entries devoted to that when she could have been advancing the story or plot, instead are devoted to her leaving, and then coming back when she realizes no one is going to come after her.

Now let’s examine this a bit more closely.  Remember what I said about paying attention to setting?  Well the other characters were nowhere near this girl’s character and so they would have had no clue she ran off.  What?  Did the writer expect the others to drop what they’re doing and go after her for attention?  No, that’s asinine and selfish.

When she actually does interact with characters it’s to try to instigate a romance with the group leader’s male MC.  Unfortunately, she does this by making the male MC look at her.  Like a creeper.   Luckily the group leader quashed that almost immediately and gave her another character that she could use for her sorry romance purposes.  Which leads me to…

Romance.  Make it believable.

I think that statement speaks for itself.  No matter what you’re writing, if there’s romance involved, if its not believeable than it can come off as incredibly bad.

For this girl, she took her stock character and gave us whiplash with the romance.

Her character (Dee) first meets the love interest when (as she herself writes) he comes over and threatens her.  Yes.  He doesn’t exactly threaten her life but he tells her she had better not to hurt the male MC, his son, etc.

Great start huh?

Their next interaction is where they stand awkwardly next to her and asks if she’s always standing alone. The answer is yes because she refuses to interact with other characters. Some more awkward silence then he asks her why she refuses to love (wtf?).  Then she says something about how every time she’s loved someone she’s lost them (gag).  More awkward silence occurs and he turns to leave.  AND THEN SHE TELLS HIM SHE LOVES HIM. 

WHA???? 

And then they decide to get married.  It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever read in terms of romance.  Even worse than the weird twisted Twilight style love.

Just by reading this summary, I think you can learn from this.  DON’T DO THIS WHEN YOU WRITE.

Remember the name of your character

This is my last point.  I know.  Common sense.

Not for this person.

First, the name of Dee’s horse changes three times.  Then the name of her mentor switches from Bard to Galahad to Bard again.  Then she changes the name of her own character for a paragraph for no discernable reason.

Yes.  This actually happens.  I think that sorta speaks for itself.

Okay, the point of all this wasn’t just to complain, but more to point out that it is because of people like these that I have learned what is annoying in a story or a character.  I learned what doesn’t work when it comes to writing and why it doesn’t work. 

Although, I’d like to point out, that I knew to remember the name of my characters :)

On Group Writing—Horror Stories pt 2

Next in my series on group writing is another horror story.  Oh yes.  I can tell you’re excited.

The good thing about group writing is that you learn what not to do, not only with writing, but with character creations and interactions. 

Group stories are character factories.  They’re great places to start the creation of a character and watch them grow, develop, and evolve.  Not only can you watch your own character do this but you can pay attention to other people’s characters.  You can analyze and determine, not only what you like, but why certain characters annoy the heck out of you.  You see where people make fatal flaws in the creation and development of their characters, flaws that turn them into pointless cardboard.  Then you, in turn, can avoid that in your own writing.

This is one of those stories about failures with character.

The Story of Baden

A couple of years ago I joined a group writing story that had a lot of potential.  The plot revolved around a small country that was going to be overrun by an evil queen, who would then try to take over the rest of the world.  The young daughter of the evil queen thinks this is nonsense and runs away from her mother to try to find some way to stop her.  She then hears of a prophecy about a chosen child who will is destined to put an end to her evil mother.

I thought the part about the one character being the daughter of the evil queen was a nice twist.  The other thing interesting about this group writing story was that the leader allowed the other writers to design their own nation to fit into the world. 

So again, I thought this had a lot of potential.  Not only would we get diversity from the characters but also diversity from the different nations, which would in turn allow for a lot of different plot arcs.

Like I said, a lot of potential

I joined and created my character: a wandering prince from a nation of my own creation.

It started off well until on writer joined and, in one entry, made my character a drug dealer.

*blinks*

Yes, you read that right.  A drug dealer.

When you’re writing with other people’s characters, check with them before you make their characters do random things.  Ask yourself, would I like it if someone did this to me?

There was a silver lining to this whole Baden is a drug dealer fiasco.  This person’s entries were so odd and convoluted no one in the campfire had any idea what was going on in them, so we could safely ignore them.  Which I did.  Later, I had the opportunity to straighten out this issue and inform the writer that there was no way Baden would be given drugs to his subjects.

That mini story is actually an aside from the main point of poorly done characters. But I mean come on, I had to throw that in there.  A drug dealer??

Anyways, we’re talking about poorly made characters, right?  Right.

So I had my wandering prince character, Baden, and several entries in a new writer joined, and from the start I could tell she was going to be a problem.

How?

Because it was obvious she designed her character for the sole purpose of being Baden’s romantic counterpart.

*headsmack*

While developing romance in group writing is fine, to make good romance, in any setting, you need well developed characters with their own personalities, goals, hopes, and dreams.  Love is such a human emotion that your characters need to feel human to the readers (and other writers) to make it work.  When one of the characters is only developed for the sole purpose of romance then we lose some of that essential humanity.

In this case, my character had a distinct connection to the physical land of his little nation.  It was part of the magic that ran through his House and family. 

This other writer created her character to be an elf queen (remember my character was a prince?) who loved nature and had a magical connection to it.

As soon as I read that in her character bio, my writerly senses started tingling….in fear.

Did I also mention that she was very beautiful and fair and everyone loved her?  And that she was the chosen child of prophecy as well?

Now doesn’t this description alone make your stomach churn?  It did mine.  This is the classic case of making a character too powerful and perfect.  No one likes perfect people.  We don’t like them in real life so why would we like them in characters?

Anyways, let’s move on to the writing.  My instincts were correct, she kept trying to make my character be interested in her.  However, unlike the writer in my previous horror story, she did not take over my character and get him involved in a ridiculous romance.  Instead, she kept hinting at how her character thought my character was handsome and how she felt there was something about him.

Ugh.  My character, Baden, did not respond.

The main reason for this was that there was absolutely nothing about her character that would have attracted my character.  This was mostly due to the fact that her character didn’t do anything.  She spent her entire time trying to be attractive rather than acting like a real person.  Seriously.  She fainted a lot so she would have to be picked up, she let everyone make decisions for her, she even almost got everyone killed which caused my character and another writer’s character to yell at her.  Not exactly the most attractive characteristics, I’d like to point out.

She literally did nothing.

Because she did nothing, my character didn’t react to her.

Now here’s the kicker.  I guess she thought that I hadn’t notice how awesome her character was, because in one of her last entries before the group story died out, she devoted two long paragraphs to her character’s pure AWESOME WIN.

The first paragraph was how she had noticed she had changed and had become wise and smart and just and her magical powers were even greater and more awesome than before!  The second paragraph was about how much more beautiful she had become.  Remember, she was beautiful before, but now she is extra super beautiful!  No, she was literally, and I quote “a celestial beauty that seemed to emanate authority tempered by gentleness.”

This leads me to another point.  You can’t tell your reader how wise and how beautiful a character is.  You see, your reader has been following your characters story and they know what they’ve been doing.   It’s not like telling us one thing will erase our memories of who you’re character is and what they’ve done. So, you can’t pretend your character is one thing when you’ve shown us something completely different.

Shortly after this, the campfire died out.  Which was probably a good thing.  This girl’s character was about to explode with her own wonderfulness.