What makes a good system of magic?
Recently I came across Writing Excuses (a 15 minutes pod cast series by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells and Howard Tayler) and their episodes about magic.
The magic system has always been one of my favourite parts of a fantasy setting. Magic is one of the things that set fantasy apart from other types of fiction, and as a kid I would often loose myself in daydreams of having magical abilities. But even though I have always liked magic I have never thought too much about what sets a good system apart from a bad system.
I have always seen a well defined system of magic, with clear rules and boundaries, as a good thing in. It makes it easier for me to associate with the magical users in the story, and it gives me another tool to use when I try to figure out how the characters are going to get through the next chapter. It is also important that the magic comes with a price, both when using it and when learning how to use it. Finding a balance between that and the amount of magic you want to have available in the world is a really hard balance act. Too little and you will end up with everything done by magic. Too much and no one uses magic. Each of the two extremes might work in their own stories, but I tend to find the magic systems that fall a place in between the most exciting to read about.
A great example of a well defined system that makes the story better is the system used in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn. The rules for the magic is well defined and explained in the beginning of the books, so when it is used to solve problems later on you are amazed by the creativity of the characters as the apply the know rules in ways you would never have imagined.
My stance on the unclear systems is a bit more vague. Some of them I like, some I don't. Until I heard those episodes from Writing Excuses, and through them got introduced to Sanderson's first law, I had not tried to articulate my preference either. And after thinking it through I agree with Sanderson's approach to magical systems. An unclear system is fine, but it can only be given a minor role in the book. If an unclear system is given too great of a role in the story, it becomes a deus ex machina and hinders the readers from investing in the characters and the story.
I think that is why I love the use of magic in Tolkien's work, even though that is a very unclear and undefined system. On the other hand you have the magical system used in the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, which I did not like. The magic in that series is unclear and often overused, so it comes off as a crutch to keep the main story going more than anything else.
Ending a dialogue
After I started writing I have become more aware of all the little skills that go into writing a good book. The varied language, the right amounts of tension on each page, and all those things.
One thing in particular has struck me lately, as I have been struggling with myself. How do you end a dialogue?
Writing dialogue is hard enough to begin with. It has to sound natural, while leaving out all the boring and repetitive parts that we actually say. Ending the conversation is not that hard when the characters talking walk away from each other, then the ending comes naturally.
The problem comes when the interesting part of the conversation is the beginning, and then the rest of the conversation is them doing small talk while they finish their dinner. Do you abruptly end the dialogue section with "and then talked about the weather for the rest of the dinner" once the interesting part of the conversation is over? That might work if not done too often, but I think the reader would start to feel left out if it happens all the time. Every once in a while it might be possible to end the scene and change to the next interesting event after the dialogue is done, but that feels like a brute force method as well.
After I became aware of the difficulty I was having with dialogue endings I started to take note of how other authors did it. Some kept their conversations going on forever, but with enough flair and interspersed action to keep it interesting. While impressive, that is not something I am hoping to accomplish just yet. At times something happened that forced a stop in the conversation, like the room they were in catching on fire. But most of the time the scene would come to a natural conclusion right after the dialogue ended.
So maybe that is the great skill that I have overlooked. I place the conversations I write in the wrong context. Instead of having the conversation only last half of the dinner, I should spend more time explaining everything around the talkers, so when the last line is said dinner is over and they can go and do something else.
The Sea Watch – Adrian Tchaikovsky
This is the sixth book in the "Shadows of the Apt" series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Writing a review of a book this late in the series without spoiling anything from the previous books will be more or less impossible, even if I do try. So if you haven't read any of the previous books I would recommend that you skip this review, and instead read my review of the "Empire in Black and Gold", the first book in the series.
In this book we follow Stenwold Maker. Of all the characters Adrian Tchaikovsky has to draw on Stenwold is not the one I had hoped this book would be about, especially not after the last book.
The first part of the book follows his play at the politics in Collegium. After the grander story plots of the previous books this feels a bit dull, but before it drags on for too long Adrian Tchaikovsky draws the floor out beneath our feet and we fall into the real story and driving element of this book - the sea-kinden.
Once the first part of the story is gone the book starts to shine. The description of the society and the people living beneath the waves is amazing. In a believable fashion he manages to draw this new part of the world into the setting, using some old characters and plenty of new characters. The setting he creates beneath the waves feels very unique. There are clear resemblances to the people living on land, but everything has enough of a twist to fit perfectly into the underwater world.
Stenwold has never been my favourite character, and I feel that his lack of development is the biggest hurdle in this book. A few of the character interactions surrounding him seem a bit forced as well, since they end up resulting in nothing changing by the end of the book. But the lack of interest I have in Stenwold was easy to ignore since a lot of new characters were introduced. A favourite of mine from this book is probably a crew of mercenaries that reminded me of the crew from Firefly.