The 6 Worst Magic System Mistakes New Writers Make

Summary

In this enlightening video, Jed Herne breaks down six common mistakes new fantasy writers make when crafting magic systems. These pitfalls can lead to predictable storytelling and diminish reader engagement. Herne uses examples from various well-known fantasy works to illustrate how diverse and creative magic systems can be. He emphasizes the importance of creating limitations, integrating the magic into the plot, and avoiding instant mastery by characters. Herne also contrasts hard and soft magic systems, highlighting the need to choose one that suits your story's theme and world-building.

Highlights

• Mistake #1: Using magic in a repetitive way, like sending foes flying the same way. 🌪️
• Mistake #2: Not considering limitations leads to boring omnipotent characters. ⚔️
• Mistake #3: Belief that only hard magic systems are effective. 🧙
• Mistake #4: Lack of integration between the magic system and the plot. 🔗
• Mistake #5: Creating overly complicated magic systems with no clear focus. 🤯
• Mistake #6: Characters mastering magic instantly without struggle. 🌀

Key Takeaways

• Avoid repetitive solutions in fight scenes by varying magical uses. 🎯
• Create compelling magic systems by focusing on their limitations. 🛡️
• Hard magic systems offer clear rules, while soft ones embrace mystery. 🌟
• Integrate magic deeply into your story's world and theme for richer narratives. 🌌
• Simple, focused magic systems often excel, avoiding the 'sloppy buffet' problem. 🍽️
• Show character progression in mastering magic for reader satisfaction. 📈

Overview

Jed Herne shares his insights on the art of crafting unique and engaging magic systems in fantasy writing. Through his detailed analysis, he uncovers the common mistakes that many new writers fall into, such as relying too heavily on repetitive magical solutions and not establishing clear limitations.

Herne emphasizes the balance between hard and soft magic systems, encouraging writers to align their choice with the story's overarching themes and narrative style. By using examples from popular fantasy books, he illustrates the importance of integrating magic into the core of the plot and character development.

With practical advice on focusing magic systems for simplicity and progression, Herne's video serves as a comprehensive guide for fantasy writers eager to captivate their audience with innovative and well-integrated magic systems.

Chapters

• 00:30 - 01:30: The "Everything's a Nail" Problem The chapter discusses common mistakes in creating magic systems in fantasy novels, based on the author's experience judging and editing numerous magic systems and books. The main focus is on the 'everything's a nail' problem, which is the tendency to over-rely on a single type of magic, similar to having only a hammer and seeing every problem as a nail.
• 01:30 - 06:00: No Consideration of Limitations The chapter titled 'No Consideration of Limitations' discusses the repetitiveness in storytelling, specifically in the context of a magic system. The main character possesses the ability to alter gravity, an ability initially presented as an engaging and unique mechanism to defeat adversaries by sending them into the sky. However, the narrative loses its impact due to the repetitive and predictable use of this power in consecutive fight scenes, highlighting a lack of creativity and evolution in problem-solving within the storyline.
• 06:00 - 11:00: Thinking You Need a Hard Magic System The chapter challenges the notion that a hard magic system is required for engaging storytelling. Instead, it emphasizes the importance of creativity and variation in problem-solving within narratives. Through an example, it describes a scenario where a character uses gravity-altering magic to stick to the ceiling and attack from above, which introduces uniqueness and unexpected solutions to the story's conflict.
• 11:00 - 16:00: Not Integrating Magic into the Triangle of Story The chapter discusses the common mistake in fantasy novels where magic is used without limitations, leading to unengaging stories. Characters who can solve problems effortlessly with their powers result in lack of tension and interest. The narrative emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries and challenges for magical abilities within the story.
• 16:00 - 18:00: The Sloppy Buffet Problem The chapter titled 'The Sloppy Buffet Problem' explores storytelling dynamics, particularly focusing on characters with extreme magical abilities. The text suggests that when characters possess overwhelming power, their challenges need to be non-magical to maintain narrative engagement. This implies that the conflicts should be interpersonal or internal. For example, Superman's struggle is not about his physical capability like catching a plane, but more about personal issues, like a breakup with Lois Lane. The chapter argues that fantasy stories gain depth and become more captivating when they introduce interesting limitations to characters' powers.
• 18:00 - 20:00: Instant Mastery The chapter discusses the concept of 'Instant Mastery' in story development, focusing particularly on magic systems and character abilities. It uses the example of a character akin to Superman, who can fly without apparent limitations or costs, to illustrate potential pitfalls in story engagement. A character with limitless abilities can quickly become uninteresting because their powers may not offer new or engaging dynamics after their initial showcase.

The 6 Worst Magic System Mistakes New Writers Make Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I'm about to show you six magic system mistakes that new fantasy riters often make I saw a lot of these when I judged over 100 magic systems as part of a contest that I ran last year I've also seen many of these erors in the dozens of fantasy novels I've edited for my clients and in my own fantasy books I've also explored a ton of different magic systems which has taught me a lot starting with mistake number one the everything's a nail problem when you've only got a hammer everything looks like a nail what does that mean and how does it relate to fantasy writing well let me explain with an example here let's say
• 00:30 - 01:00 you have a magic system where your main character can change the direction of gravity either on herself or on someone else in a fight scene she uses this to send her opponent flying into the sky to defeat him okay that's kind of a cool setup but then let's say we go to a second fight scene and she beats her opponent in the exact same way then in our third fight scene again it's the same solution she sends him flying off into the sky to beat him this is boring because you're using the magic to solve
• 01:00 - 01:30 problems in a repetitive way but we come to stories to be delighted by unexpected solutions to tricky problems so let's imagine that in our second fight scene instead we set it indoors so she doesn't have the ability to use the magic in the same way instead maybe she decides to use her gravity altering magic to make herself stick to the ceiling so then she can attack from above that's in a much better Direction because now we're seeing variation and uniqueness in how she's using that magic to solve the problems of the narrative fortunately
• 01:30 - 02:00 there's a simple way that you can make sure you're fixing the everything is a nail mistake in your own fantasy novel and to discuss this we need to move on to the second mistake no consideration of limitations when you see characters just snap their fingers and instantly magic away a problem with just Godlike powers and zero effort you probably feel really bored it's hard to make a story interesting when your fantasy character is vastly overpowered and they can just use magic to do whatever they want of course there are counter examples as with all mistakes in these videos you
• 02:00 - 02:30 can always find examples of characters or stories that do the opposite but for the most part when you have characters with vastly overpowered magic the only way you can really challenge them is by making the conflicts non-magic related so by making them sort of interpersonal or internal perhaps so for example with Superman it's never a challenge whether Superman can catch a plane or not but it might be more of a challenge if lowest Lane decides to break up with him generally speaking though your fantasy book will be more compelling if you create interesting limit ations around
• 02:30 - 03:00 your magic system so taking a character like Superman for example let's say you're riding a similar character who can fly they can just sort of zip around anywhere there doesn't seem to be any cost or any limitation and the problem with this is there's not going to be that many interesting ways they can use their flying you know the first time they fly cool that'll be a nice moment but then after that it might just get a bit repetitive or it just Fades into the background of your story now let's imagine instead that your characters can telekinetically push or pull themselves away from sources of metals so perhaps they can can drop a coin on the ground
• 03:00 - 03:30 and then they can use that coin to propel themselves up into the air you're still getting 80% of the benefits and interesting aspects of flying but there's way more interesting limitations and combinations of this ability here and of course if you know what story I'm talking about here this is essentially the Alo mancy magic system that Brandon Sanderson writes about in mistborn to quote from serson himself the question what can't the magic do is more interesting to me than what the magic can do that's what gives a magic system compelling plot hooks so that in mind
• 03:30 - 04:00 here's eight interesting ways to develop limitations for your magic system so that you can be telling a more interesting and unique fantasy story number one resource dependence to use the magic perhaps you need some special herbs or crystals or maybe the stars in the sky need to be aligned in a certain way and without access to this resource you can't use the magic number two a physical or mental cost perhaps using the magic creates rapid aging or memory loss or makes you really tired this limits how often the magic users can use
• 04:00 - 04:30 the magic without facing severe consequences this means that every choice to use or not use the magic is going to tell you a lot about your character about what they value and about what they're willing to sacrifice meaningful consequences are so interesting I love magic that takes a toll because it stops magic just feeling like an easy solution an easy fix to all the problems in the story and instead it makes it feel weighty and meaningful number three innate ability perhaps in your fantasy book only certain people can can use magic due to genetics or
• 04:30 - 05:00 Divine selection or some other kind of innate ability now personally out of all the limitations on this list this is the one I find the least interesting because there's limited ability for character agency to kind of come into play when they've just been selected by some Godlike being not to say you can't do it well but I personally prefer some of the other limitations that I'm going to include here number four knowledge and skill maybe your magic requires a lot of training and a lot of study in order to become good at It generally speaking
• 05:00 - 05:30 this tends to be baked into almost every magic system out there number five cultural or legal restrictions perhaps your Society has rules around how your magic is allowed to be used this could be due to fear or religious beliefs or something else entirely six magical interference maybe there's certain conditions that interfere or disrupt the ability to use magic seven time and place restrictions perhaps your magic can only be used in certain times like when there is a full moon out or in specific places like maybe you can only use it in an ancient ruin or you can
• 05:30 - 06:00 only use it below sea level or you can only use it when the temperature is between a very specific range and then the last kind of limitation is number eight binding agreements so maybe in order to use the magic you have to make a deal with the devil or some higher power or perhaps with other magic uses and it creates this kind of binding contract that prevents you from using the Magic in certain ways of course with all of these limitations I've just listed out hard magic systems generally do a good job of forcing you to really consider the uh restrictions and rules
• 06:00 - 06:30 around your magic however it doesn't mean you need to use one of those which actually brings me to the next mistake thinking you need a hard magic system now hard magic systems where you have sort of defined rules restrictions and limitations are awesome I've written a ton of them in my own books in particular in fires of the Dead you've got the pyromancy magic system and in the Kingdom of Dragons you've got the kind of sun-based magic system that the sun wardens use so I really really love hard magic but soft magic systems where the rules aren't always clearly communicated to your reader can be
• 06:30 - 07:00 awesome as well and again I've explored those in Kingdom of Dragons there are soft magic systems in that story as well and in across the broken stars as well in the modern era I think we've tended to see fantasy shift more towards the harder magic side of things I think this can be really accredited to writers like Brandon Sanderson who I absolutely love um of course there are many other writers that do great hard magic systems as well and many writers who did hard magic back in the day too and before we can talk about the unique benefits of soft Magic we should first understand
• 07:00 - 07:30 why hard magic systems are so popular and why they are very effective for your writing here's the main one when readers understand the rules of your magic you can then play with those rules to create inventive Solutions so for example in fire the dead my pyromancy magic system allows Sorcerers to basically drop their blood into different fires to connect with those Flames they can then draw energy from those fires to project their own Flames out of their hands and this sort of thing so there's a scene where wisp my main character is trying to
• 07:30 - 08:00 Ambush some bandits in a forest what he does is he Pricks his thumb with an arrow to get blood on the Arrow shoots that Arrow into their campfire thus bonding himself with that flame he's then able to suck the energy out of the campfire plunging them into darkness so that he can then attack now when this happens the reader doesn't feel cheated they don't feel like I just made up this rule it feels like a natural consequence a natural extension of the rules that we both agreed upon earlier and if you've read the climax of fires of the Dead you'll see how take this even further
• 08:00 - 08:30 later on and as a side note I actually had a reader email me about my pyromancy magic system the other day just saying how much he enjoyed it which was really really cool I love getting emails like that so hard magic makes it really easy for you to create interesting promises and satisfying payoffs it is a great foreshadowing tool but soft magic systems can be amazing as well and to explain the benefits and the kind of unique attributes of soft magic I want to walk you through two of my favorite soft magic systems the first is the spice in June I recently saw June part 2
• 08:30 - 09:00 the deanville new movie in London and it was just phenomenal utter Perfection it blew my mind so much that I was basically wandering around London in a days for an hour afterwards just listening to the hand Zimmer soundtrack and then a couple of days after I saw it there I actually went off to the desert in Morocco so I felt very immersed in the June Universe behind me here is the Sahara Desert now June revolves around this spice that lets you see into the future but we never really understand the rules around this spice there's no see where the characters sit down and go
• 09:00 - 09:30 one g of spice lets you see 1 hour into the future but two G lets you see 2 hours or anything like that and this is just based off having read the first four June books maybe it changes later on I kind of doubt it instead the magic is way softer some people aren't affected by the spice at all other people like Paul trades the spice allows them to see thousands of years into the future and gives them these huge kind of prophetic powers and this very chaotic mystical spiritual nature of the spice
• 09:30 - 10:00 hugely contributes to the Psychedelic and hallucinatory nature of this book keeping the spice mysterious is the right choice for this story and that's what you always want to be doing with your magic system asking yourself is this the right choice for the story I'm trying to tell here the next soft magic system I love comes from the Name of the Wind by Patrick rothus this book is interesting because it actually has quite a few hard magic systems in it but the most mysterious and interesting one revolves around naming this concept that
• 10:00 - 10:30 if you know the true name of something you have power over it this magic is super mysterious and it's shrouded in myth when it's used it creates these huge epic moments because of how rare it is and how hyped up it is earlier in the story but again we don't really know how it works there's clearly some limitations because sometimes quo is able to call the Name of the Wind other times he isn't yet again it works because it just feeds into the wider nature of how this story deals with topics of myth and and Legend and
• 10:30 - 11:00 mystery however and this is a really key point for you to be considering here it probably wouldn't work if quo was using it every couple of pages so again this is why when it comes to you picking a hard or soft magic system it's never a clear-cut choice it's going to depend on so many factors like how often you're using the magic what kind of emotion you're trying to create and so many other things as well always consider how the magic relates to the rest of your story which brings me to the next mistake not integrating your magic into your triangle of story now I've been
• 11:00 - 11:30 writing for a really long time at this point I've put out four books a video game a bunch of short stories and all up I've written well over a million words worth of first drafts and the more I have progressed as a writer the more I have realized at the deeply interconnected nature of story what do I mean by that well fantasy stories are fundamentally underpinned by Three core elements plot character and setting with theme created by the intersection of these three things I call this the triangle of story and if you're
• 11:30 - 12:00 wondering what themee is I simply Define it as a moral argument about how best to live in the world it's not about you shoving a concept down readers throats or preaching to them it's about giving your characters a difficult moral question to Grapple with so for example the theme in a story like the blade Itself by Joe abomi would be war and politics corrupts even the noblest of intentions you're going to have some characters that Express agreement with that theme through the actions they're taking you're going to have some characters who Express disagreement with
• 12:00 - 12:30 it some characters who go from disagreeing with it to agreeing with it vice versa all these different combinations to explore this theme from many different angles and what's key with the triangle of story is that when you think about great fantasy novels you probably can't describe one aspect of the story without touching upon everything else that's involved so in something like a lot of the Rings for example when you think about Frodo who is a character you immediately think about his journey across Middle Earth so that's setting to destroy the one ring that is plot when you think about Harry
• 12:30 - 13:00 Potter so that's a character you immediately think about Ron and herione also characters and their struggles to defeat Voldemort that's plot and character and you probably think about Hogwarts as well which is setting when you think about Ned Stark you think about the Cutthroat politics of Westeros so that is plot and setting integrate your magic so that it feels essential and embedded into your story that is it is essential and embedded and a key part of your plot and your characters and your setting this will make your story feel so much more resonant and cohesive
• 13:00 - 13:30 it also leads to a lot of epiphanies and writing breakthroughs I I find this a lot with the students that go through my fantasy outlining boot camp in the recent cohort which we wrapped up about a month ago at this point Christine found herself unexpectedly creating an entire plot outline for one of her characters and this came after she was looking at how this character intersected with her theme here's what she said about the rest of the program it was incredible it probably has saved me months or years of wandering with the story it was a complete road mapap that took
• 13:30 - 14:00 uh my story from the idea all the way through a finished outline I think this is probably the best investment I've made in my writing and I'll definitely refer to um the recordings of this again and again so if you're looking for a way to level up your writing and have a clear path to a fin finished manuscript I can't recommend this um boot camp more highly thanks so much Jud you can apply for the next cohort of my fantasy outlining boot camp by clicking the link in the description down below each
• 14:00 - 14:30 cohort is really small I keep him just to eight students so that you get a ton of personal feedback and attention from me in there and I absolutely love running these things on the recent trip I did uh over to London Morocco and Spain actually caught up with two of my students from previous cohorts of the program so I really really love this program uh and I hope to work with you in there soon if it's a good fit for you so how can you integrate your magic system into the triangle of story so that you can be writing a more cohesive fantasy book here's five questions I often ask myself to achieve this number one how could this magic system force
• 14:30 - 15:00 your character to make a hard choice that reveals their true nature for example in Blackstone height by Michael R Fletcher who I used to host the wizards warriors and words podcast with he has this really cool magic system where you can summon demons and sacrifice human souls to them to get various bonss so this creates a lot of interesting tension it's like do you want to create a lightly Enchanted shirt with some minor magical Properties or do you want to build a entire magically Enchanted suit of armor the difference between those two things could be the
• 15:00 - 15:30 difference of hundreds or even thousands of souls that you're sacrificing so how badly do you want that armor that's going to tell you a lot about the characters when they're making this kind of choice number two how might this magic force your character to have to grow and change in mistborn Vin has to open up and begin to trust kelia if she wants him to teach her how to use her allomantic abilities number three how might this magic create conflict between different characters in the opening scenes of Harry Potter and the philosopher stone the conflict between
• 15:30 - 16:00 the Muggle doley and Harry's burgeoning magical abilities creates a tremendous source of tension and is sort of the driving Conflict for the first couple of chapters of that book number four how might this magic influence Society in Jade City by fonde you have the city of Jan Lon controlled by these criminal Clans uh and these Clans are basically controlled by people with Jade Jade has magical properties in this world and the amount of Jade you wear determines your sort of status and hierarchy in this Society because the more Jade you have
• 16:00 - 16:30 the more Powers you have but also the greater chance of the Jade turning you insane and so when someone walks into a restaurant in janon you can instantly tell their status by how much Jade they're wearing or not wearing and then number five what interesting set pieces and action scenes could this magic create using these questions will make your story far more creative and interesting and unique and if you want to be writing the most unique fantasy novel possible you also have to be very very careful to avoid the next mistake which I call the sloppy Buffet problem
• 16:30 - 17:00 okay so a bit of a funny name let me explain what I mean here have you ever been to a buffet where you just see every single food imaginable and in a fit of glut in you shovel a bit of every single food you can see onto your plate however when you actually start eating you realize that while there's a lot of food none of it is particularly good by comparison if you go to a fine dining restaurant your meal might only have a couple of simple ingredients here the chef has focused on doing just one thing but they do that one thing so so well
• 17:00 - 17:30 and sometimes when I'm editing fantasy novels for my clients or I'm helping writers outline their stories in my fantasy outlining boot camp I see people make this mistake of just creating a magic system that is this huge Buffet where they've got a bit of elemental powers in here cemental powers in here some telekinetic powers in here some Demon summon summoning powers in here maybe even some time travel pieces as well and the result is it just feels like there's so many things going on here but nothing is working particularly well and of course there's nothing wrong with those elements I just mentioned you
• 17:30 - 18:00 can do any of them well and there are stories that do combine these things in interesting ways I'd say Rob Hay's uh the war Eternal Series is actually a very good example of this generally speaking though great magic systems are simple they take one principle and they expand from there in the lightbringer series by Brent weeks you have this idea that you can look at different colors of light and that allows you to then produce luxen luxen is this kind of solid light that you can shape into various different forms to create different items or objects or different
• 18:00 - 18:30 functions now different colors of luxen have different physical properties blue luxen tends to be quite hard and rigid while green luxin tends to be sort of springy and flexible Bren weeks then extends this further if you summon a lot of one type of luxin it begins to affect your personality so if you summon a lot of blue luxin it begins to make you very cold and rational and emotionless if you summon a lot of green luxin it begins to make you quite wild and Rowdy so there's great consequences baked into the magic and from one simple principle you can
• 18:30 - 19:00 see how we extend out into many different variations and permutations and different abilities that all feel logically coherent and consistent and speaking of logic this brings us to mistake number six instant Mastery seeing your character just instantly Master a new magic system and be a pro at it with no training is usually kind of boring we tend to sympathize more with characters who have to struggle to progress and gain skills and level up seeing them struggle to learn experience setbacks and then eventually reach a
• 19:00 - 19:30 point of Mastery or progression is intensely satisfying to read because we love stories where we see the underdog progress against tough odds this works particularly well if you can give us a hint of where the magic might be heading at the start of your story so a technique that I really like and I've used this in some of my books is to show a side character who isn't the main character so perhaps a mentor figure or an antagonist or a secondary character display the upper limits of what the the magic can be kind of showing what the
• 19:30 - 20:00 the level 10 magic looks like then you contrast that against where your level one main character is this creates a curiosity Loop will our character progress up to this point or will he fail if you want further inspiration to craft interesting magic systems then check out this video where I share 18 ways to write unique Magic systems in your fantasy novel