Helping Authors Build Marvelous Magic Systems One Stage at a Time
Welcome to Part 7 of Building a Viral Magic System Today is going to be fun! Why? Because today we’re talking about one of my favorite parts of the magic building process. Today we’re building the viral magic boundary conditions! It might not sound fun or glamorous, but I love this part. Everything so far was about exploring options. Now… now we discover the shape of our system. Even a
I usually start Stage 3 by considering the magic system variables. The thing is, we’re not going to walk through all of my answers. As tempting as it is for me to dump all of my brilliant ideas on you — Hey! My mom says they’re brilliant, so there! — that won’t help much with your system. So instead of sharing my indisputably genius ideas, I’ll focus on how I went about addressing and answering the variables.
I’ve got lots of ideas and I have the bones of a story. What I need to know is which type of magic system I need to build… and I suppose you already know the answer because of the post title… Maybe I could have planned that better.
Today, we will look at how I took the knowledge gained from my research and developed more ideas for the viral magic system. That’s right, more brainstorming!
I told you before this post would dig into the details of the magic in Stage 3: Definition… well, I lied.
I didn’t mean to! Let me explain.
Today we’re taking a stab at aligning our virus-based magic system using the speed-dating exercise. We’ll still have plenty of gaps in the end, but this is another step forward.
Generating Deadly Ideas for Our Viral Magic System Part 1 of Building a Viral Magic System I’m so excited! This system has been kicking around in my head for over a year; I can’t believe I’m finally building it. This will be an awesome series, and I can already tell. Whenever I work with someone starting a new magic system, I always recommend beginning with Stage 0 to pinpoint where to
Did you know we’ve been talking and working on building better magic systems for over two years now? Crazy how time flies when you’re talking about something you love. We’ve covered lots of information in those years, and I mean a lot, so this year I thought we’d do something special. I’m taking that age-old writing advice “show, don’t tell,” and I’m putting it to use right here and now.
Before you can move on to defining your magic in Stage 3, you’ve got to do a basic alignment check on your magic system first. Today, we’re going to walk through a high-level alignment exercise to do exactly that, AND we’re going to do it in nine minutes.
