It may be extremely easy to just put magic into a story youâre creating, or explain away things with the excuse of âmagic.â But if that is how magic is handled in your world, readers are going to find major plot holes in your story. Magic needs rules and guidelines, even in stories where itâs not in the foreground. Without rules, magic could be the solution to all, or you end overpowering a character because he has no restrictions on how he can use his magic.
But where do you start when setting ground rules for how and when magic can be used? My goal in this post is to give you some ideas while you map out your world of magic.
Who can learn magic? Is magic a thing that all people can learn, or certain people who have a knack for it? Is magic something that can be learned at all? Perhaps itâs only readily available for those who are born with it, such as the wizards in Harry Potter. Or magic is contained in things, such as charms, amulets, or unicorn horns. People may have to learn how to access the magic contained in these items, but they are solely reliant on items in order to use magic. Perhaps magic can only be learned by certain races.
How is magic learned? In Harry Potter, wizards go to school for seven years to learn how to use magic. Other books wizards have apprentices they train.   Can magic be self-taught? How does a person access magic? Through emotion, thoughts, something else? Perhaps learning magic requires a large sacrifice.
Does the magic need to be channeled? Once again, using the example of Harry Potter, wizards need wands in order to use magic. Other common themes involve wizards using staffs in order to use magic. But there are stories where wizards donât need an item to channel the magic, such as the wizards in the anime/manga series Fairy Tail. Perhaps magic does need an item to be channeled through, but it doesnât have to be the traditional wand or staff.
How often can a person use magic? Does magic use up a personâs energy, and therefore a personâs magic is limited to how much energy they have? Perhaps they have a different âenergyâ, such as mana, that restricts how much magic they can use? Maybe you want to go the Once Upon a Time route and magic isnât used in excess because it comes with a price. Perhaps how magic is used is why people donât use it so often. Maybe magic is used very often.
Does magic need incantations? Harry Potter uses incantations, whether is it is verbal or non-verbal. There does not seem to be an incantations in the magic that the Witch uses in the Chronicles of Narnia. Incantations are used quite often in the Septimus Heap series. And there no incantations in Lord of the Rings. Or maybe incantations are reserved for the more powerful, older spells. Perhaps incantations make a spell more stable.Â
Can magic be invoked by using items? Potions is one of the common ways this is used. But sometimes certain spells can only be invoked by using ingredients, like in the show Charmed or the movie Practical Magic. Perhaps itâs only used occasionally, such as some spells performed in the show Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Maybe items are used in only certain branches, such as Divination in Harry Potter.
What cannot be done by magic? With the Genieâs magic in Disneyâs Aladdin, he could not make someone come back from the dead, fall in love, or grant more wishes. Food cannot be created out of thin air according to the rules of magic in Harry Potter. Actual love in Harry Potter canât be created, but enchantments that cause the victim to have an obsessive type of love does exist. Perhaps the dead can be raised, as evidenced by stories with necromancy, but it canât actually bring back the person completely. Somethingâs missing. Perhaps only skeletons can be brought back, or the person comes back in a zombie like state. Perhaps you would go so far as to say that magic cannot create permanent things out of nothing.
Does magic have categories/a way it is organized? Potions, Divination, Transifiguration, Charms, etc. Or light, dark, chaos, order, water, fire, etc. Or human magic, dragon magic, unicorn magic, elf magic, etc. And it doesnât have to have only one way of organization. It can have several levels, just like when science organizes living organisms.Â
So these are few things to consider when creating magic. The nature of your magic may not necessarily fit into all of these questions, and thatâs fine. But donât be afraid to have long explanations for your magic. You probably wonât fit it all in your story - in fact, youâll want to be careful how you incorporate magic rules as you donât want to infodump on your readers - but having the rules there will help you create your story and give you some answers to the why questions that might come up, such as, âwhy donât they just magic themselves out?â
