The Making of the Magic System
For me the mark of every great fantasy book is the magic system. How does the magic work? What are its rules? What can it do? What can’t it do? Where does it come from? How does it affect everyday life? How does it affect society? And so on.
When I set out to create the world of Avalon, the magic system was one of the first things I figured out. It lays the foundation for my entire story. In the end I think I created a pretty cool magic system, but it wasn’t easy. Creating a good magic system takes work, a lot of thought, and a lot of trial and error. No one knows this better than my friend C. R. Rowenson over at Crrowenson.com. This guy has an entire website DEDICATED to the science and art of building a great magic system. Like me, C. R. is an engineer by day and fantasy writer by night. I recommend his site and posts to ANYONE and EVERYONE who is looking to start writing their own fantasy book. I promise you’ll thank me you got lost in his site for a few hours.
I recently did a guest interview where I answered all sorts of questions about how I came up with the magic system for The Epic Adventures of the Techno Wizard. It’s a totally nerdy behind-the-scenes look and will be something that all fans of my books should find totally awesome. Click below to check it out! Enjoy!!
Just ordered C.R.’s book on creating magic systems. Thanks for the suggestion, Mike!