Five Simple Steps to Creating an Amazing Magic System
Magic systems: Love them or hate them, they are one of the most important parts of worldbuilding in speculative fiction, but also one of the areas that most people seem to really struggle with!
In this blog post, I’m going to show you how to create a cohesive, believable, and compelling magic system by answering five simple questions:
Where? – Where is your story (and magic system) taking place?
Why? – Why do you want magic in your story?
What? – What does your magic do?
Who? – Who has magic in your story?
How? – How do they perform it?
Why are magic systems so hard to get right?
In my personal opinion, there is no real ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ when it comes to creating a magic system, only what works well for your story and what doesn’t. However, knowing what works can feel complicated and overwhelming if you don’t know where to start.
So, how do you go about creating a magic system that works for your world, supports your narrative, adds conflict and nuance, and ultimately, absorbs and transfixes your reader?
Begin at the beginning
People often confess to struggling with their magic systems, and when we discuss it for a while, I discover that they added in the magic system after they had already drafted the book.
I’m sure we’ve all been a little guilty of writing those notes to our future selves, saying ‘add cool magic in here!’ because we didn’t want to disrupt our flow. However, trying to shoehorn in magic after the story is written can really complicate matters, and sometimes results in magic that feels out of place or even hard for the reader to believe in.
Creating a magic system that truly complements the world and the story you’re trying to tell means taking into account the world that the magic and the story takes place in.
Ideally, you will want to spend time thinking carefully about your world and magic system as early as possible in the writing process, so that you can clearly see the ways in which the world, the magic and the story all affect each other as you’re writing.
Already finished your draft and struggling with the magic system? Don’t panic! Creating or refining your magic system after the fact might be more complicated, but it’s not impossible! A lot of us are ‘pantsers’, and we may not even know that our book has magic until we’re partway through writing it!
If this is you, all the information in this post still applies. However, as you work through the questions, you may discover that your narrative needs to change shape a little to accommodate the development of your magic system.
Why does it matter?
The current trends and popularity of sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, and speculative fiction in general mean that readers increasingly expect the magic in the books they read to be elegant and sophisticated. It’s no longer enough that there is magic present in the story – they want to understand it and the role it plays in the world of your book.
If your magic system is inconsistent, undefined, or apparently limitless, for example, this can make it very difficult for your reader to be able to suspend disbelief and lose themselves in your story.
Worldbuilding and magic system maestro Brandon Sanderson has even created a ‘law’ about this:
Sanderson’s First Law of Magics: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.
Essentially, if you’re planning on having the magic be a large part of how your characters will be overcoming conflict in the plot, then you have to make sure you convey the ‘rules’ of the magic to the reader, and stick to them! If you keep changing the rules on your reader, they’re going to notice. At best, this will break them out of the story and perhaps annoy them, at worst, they will not finish the book, or leave you a negative review, or both!
So now that we have an idea of why we need to take our magic systems seriously, let’s look at the 5 questions to ask ourselves as we’re creating them.
Where? – Where is your story (and magic system) taking place?
The world that your magic system takes place in will greatly impact on the magic and the way that it is treated in the narrative.
Is it the ‘real world’? Or a completely fictional one? Is it a futuristic world dominated by technology? Or is it a medieval-style fantasy world with lots of magic? Is it a highly political world? Or very religious?
All of these worlds will interact with the concept of magic very differently, and so the role a magic system will play in any one of these worlds will vary accordingly.
For example: Imagine a magic system that is linked to the natural world, and where magic wielders can make vegetation grow. This is a skill that would be treated very differently and hold different value depending on the world the magic system inhabits. If the world is a lush, verdant one, where plant life is abundant, then the ability to make plants grown may not be valued in the same way as it would on a world that is almost barren.
However, depending on the source of the magic user’s power, the reader might discover that the magic user’s abilities to help plant life grow are much weaker on the barren planet, for all that they are much more valuable, whereas on the verdant planet, the magic user’s abilities may be stronger, but of less use.
ACTION POINT: Write down a short description of your book’s world, and then brainstorm how this may impact upon the world’s attitude towards magic and magic users. If you have a specific idea of what the magic system might look like, include this, and how this might interact with the world.
Why? – Why do you want magic in your story?
If you want to be able to do your magic system justice, then you have to know why you want to have magic in this story.
A lot of people think that there’s a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ answer to this, but there really isn’t.
You want magic in your book just because you think it’s cool? Great!
You’re writing a high fantasy book and you just don’t think it will feel complete without magic? Sounds good!
You’re writing the book because of a really cool and unique magic system idea you have? Fabulous!
Whatever your reason for having magic in your story, what matters is that you recognise that, and then include the magic into your story in a way that compliments your reasoning.
If you have a very specific idea of the magic system, then the chances are you will have a very strong idea of what the ‘rules’ of your magic system will be and how they will impact upon your narrative, and so you’ll essentially be creating a ‘hard’ magic system.
On the other hand, if you’re just wanting magic to inhabit your world because you’re writing a fantasy novel and magic’s cool, but you don’t really have any specific ideas of what that magic is going to look like, and it’s not going to have a great deal of bearing on the plot, then you’ll be creating much more of a ‘soft’ magic system.
But what happens if you don’t have a good idea of what your magic system is going to look like, but you do know that you want to use it to help your characters resolve conflict and move the story forward, but just not as a main plot point? You might find that your magic system falls somewhere in the middle, and that’s fine!
ACTION POINT: Write some notes to yourself about why you want magic in your book, and what role it is going to play. Is it going to be instrumental in moving the plot forward? Is it going to be background detail that adds extra complexity and dimension to your worldbuilding? Is it going to be one skill among many that is used by your characters? Try to pinpoint how crucial your magic is to the plot on a scale of ‘not at all’ to ‘pivotal’, which will give you an idea of how ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ the magic system will need to be.
What? – What does your magic do?
Now that you’ve worked out what kind of environment your magic system will be occupying, and what role it will have in your story, you’re now in a much better position to decide what your magic will actually do, and what rules and restrictions (if any!) there will be on it.
This is often the point in the decision-making process that has people become overwhelmed with the possibilities, or just drawing a complete blank.
Don’t panic. Remember, as with all writing, it isn’t about getting it ‘right’ straight away. Just as you will refine your story through revisions, so you will finesse your magic system throughout the drafting, revising, editing process.
Right now, you’re just coming up with the idea. And what you already know about your world, your story, and the role of magic will help you to work out what this will look like.
If your world is a highly technological one, your plot is going to involve something complex like a heist or an investigation, and you know that you want your magic system to be instrumental in your characters overcoming conflict, then perhaps you will want your magic system to involve the manipulation of electricity, for example, and you will know that this magic will need to have some specific ‘rules’ to abide by.
But if your story takes place in a very religious, medieval-era world, where magic is seen as evil, and you know that you don’t want the magic to be integral to the plot itself, then perhaps the magic in your story will be less specific, more nebulous. Perhaps here, the role of the magic is simply to introduce conflict, not solve it, by having one of your characters be a magic user trying to hide their magic from the authorities.
ACTION POINT: Re-read your notes for the first two questions, and brainstorm some ideas of what the magic could look like based on the world of your story and why magic will be present. Make a note of how important the magic system will be to resolving conflict in your story, and how ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ you think the magic will need to be.
Who? – Who has magic in your story?
Now you have a better idea of what your magic does, it’s time to think about who will have access to it.
Is it a gift that is intrinsic, or is it a skill that is learned? Is the magic linked to age, race, gender, intelligence or determination? Will magic users be plentiful or rare in your world?
Think back to the first three questions and the information that you already know about your magic system – this should tailor the decisions you make about who will be using the magic.
For example, if you know that your magic system is complicated and difficult to use, and your world is suspicious of or perhaps even violent towards magic users, then you might decide that in order for your narrative to work the way you want, that you cannot have a large percentage of your world’s population openly using magic (although this is entirely possible too!)
ACTION POINT: Using your notes about your magic system, and thinking about the story you want to tell, ask yourself questions about who uses magic in your world, and why they have magic. Note down all your answers, and then use them to elaborate on what you already know about your magic system and users.
How? – How do they perform it?
Hurray, we’re on the last question – your magic system is very nearly complete!
Now that you know all about where the magic is taking place, why the world has magic, what the magic does and who can use it, you need to decide how users will perform the magic.
Ask yourself lots of questions about the mechanics of your magic system. Interview yourself about the details of performing your magic based on what you already know.
Some example questions might be:
Does the magic work through thoughts?
Are spells or incantations used?
If so, does a user need to understand/remember them or can they just read them from a spell book/sheet of paper?
Are special potions or ingredients consumed?
Do users perform magic alone or with others?
Is energy used when performing magic, and if so, where does this energy come from? The user themselves? The world?
How does the magic being performed ‘appear’ to the non-magic user? Can they see the magic happening, or is it an invisible force?
Once again, you want to build on the information you’ve already created about your magic system to inform these final details.
Remember Sanderson’s ‘First Law of Magics’ from earlier? If you want your magic system to play an active role as a tool to resolve some conflict in the narrative, then you ideally want to make sure that there are complications and difficulties involved in performing the magic, so that the tension in your story isn’t lost!
ACTION POINT: Ask yourself as many logistical questions as possible about how the magic will be performed, and make sure that your answers tie in with what you know about your magic system, your story and your world. If you are struggling to come up with questions, and the suggestions above aren’t enough, consider asking a critique partner or friend to ask you questions.
And there you have it! One well-developed, cohesive magic system that will add to your plot, rather than detract from it.
Remember though, just because you’ve created your magic system doesn’t mean that it won’t change over the course of drafting and revising. It needs to be able to change shape, gain nuance and detail as it weaves into your story. You might find that you want to come back to these questions as your story progresses, and that’s perfectly normal. The best magic system is one that serves your story, and as the story changes, so will the magic.
If you’re still not sure about putting these steps into practice, not to worry! In my next blog post, I’ll be using these five questions to come up with a hypothetical magic system so that you see the process in action.
Hi, I’m Alexandra.
I’m a developmental editor specialising in helping authors of fantasy, sci-fi and all kinds of speculative fiction bring their worlds to life, and make their books as immersive, compelling and enjoyable as possible!
Follow my blog for writing craft tips specifically tailored for speculative fiction authors.
