The Secret History of Magic

If you are writing a fantasy novel, you undoubtedly have already spent some time considering what the rules of magic are. There is nothing wrong with making the rules of your magic very simple, by the way. You can have the only magic in your world be a wishing well. Or dragons. Or an enchanted book that sucks you into the pages of its story. In fact, I think that changing only one rule about our world and then looking at all the implications of that change can be a better way of making fantasy than trying to make too many changes and not following all of them through.

But no matter how you build your rules of magic, don’t forget to write the history of that magic. Magic doesn’t come to be in one sweep of the hand. If there is magic, there are stories of magic. There are warnings against magic. There are whispers among children about what they think magic is and what it can do. There may be laws written about what to do with those who have magic. Write your myths of the creation of magic. Write what everyone knows about magic, and what they fear and love about it.

Then after that, consider where the lies are in all the stories you are telling. Because real magic should never be what is expected. Even those who think that they know the most about magic, even those who teach and work magic—they should be surprised by it. So after you write the myths and fairy tales that your characters believe in their own world of magic, write the secret history of magic, as well. This is the real history that has been covered up, either by those who are afraid of magic or those who are afraid of people knowing magic too well.The secret history is what really happened, and it needs to be written alongside the official history of magic.

Make sure that your magic has the capacity to change. Because if you are going to write more than one book, you need to keep surprising the reader. And even if it is only one book, the magic should be like anything in real history. It crumbles when you touch the remains of it, and seems to recede the closer you get to it. We can’t know any real history. The only thing we know is that it isn’t what we tell ourselves that it is. It isn’t comforting. It isn’t as simple as it seems. And it definitely isn’t the story that people who want you to learn their rules tells you it is.