The fun part about writing fantasy or magical characters is the feeling that you can break just about every rule of physics and nature. However, too much fun can get you into trouble. If your hero is too powerful or has the exact right spell or trick prepared for every scenario, your reader could lose interest or – worse – find your story laughable. This is especially true if you set your story in a world close to ours.
In a post on Writers Helping Writers, Liz Keller Whitehurst offers advice for writing about magic in a real-world setting. “Whether you’re writing magical realism, fabulism, or an undefined genre in a similar vein, you’ve got to thread the needle when it comes to blending magic with the real world,” Whitehurst writes. Her tips include:
- Maintain the mystery. Don’t explain too much about your magic system or magical characters too soon. Readers like to figure out questions, including whether or not the supernatural is in play and what kind. Your characters who observe but don’t use magic should also have questions, and might not even believe their eyes.
- A little goes a long way. Don’t bombard your reader with magical set pieces. Dole them out over the course of your story to create a sense of expectation and some big pay-offs.
- Make it make sense. You have to have rules: how magic works, who can use it, its limitations, and its costs. Your reader doesn’t need to know every rule, but should have some ideas about the basic set up.
- Make the world real. If you set your story somewhere approximating the real world, you need to spend as much time worldbuilding the mundane sets as you do creating the magic.
- Make your characters real. This should go without saying, but we will: create strong, multi-faceted characters. You might be tempted to go full-on Dark Lord, but don’t. Give you heroes and villains enough light and dark to make them compelling and memorable.
- Make your story real. While the magical elements should be integrated into your characters and plot, you should also have a story that works without them. Be especially wary of plot twists that rely on magic; they can easily feel contrived.
