Lesson 5-Using Magic

Knowing when to use magic doesn’t help unless you know how. The knowledge for how can help you for when. let’s think a moment about how magic is used. In harry potter its magical items and wands with a certain movement and weird words spoken (or thought). In Eragon it’s with a symbol called the gedwey igasia and words in an ancient language in some books by Elizabeth Haydon it is through singing true names and what race you are a part of. In another book series called mistborn it is using metals. All of these (except Eragon though that may be similar) are traditional beliefs about how magic works. There is another belief that comes up a lot which is that of magic draining power or even your life. If it drains your life you have a decent reason to limit the use of Magic. You need to decide what your magic is and how it will be used, perhaps you will use many different forms maybe just one or two. This is one of the easiest aspects of writing a Fantasy novel with Magic. As it is something Supernatural used for doing things that would otherwise be impossible There is no limit. It is not needed but sometimes it can be fun to go into small details for instance if your character uses metal for magic it may take more metal to lift a boulder than if they were to lift a rock, but what would take more metal lifting a boulder or using magic to push on the ground so you go high into the air? This is perhaps a little harder. Don’t be afraid of writing out a scene a few different times trying out what would happen depending on what magic is used, this could help you decide on how magic will be used in your story.