I start this post giving two warnings. The first is that it is part of my experience as a reader, more than as a writer, since in the second I still consider myself a novice. The second is that I’m going to get a little nerdy (geeky), but I include it because it’s part of the experience of having written a fantasy book, you have been warned.
As I have said in other articles, I wrote The Sound of the Night thinking of making a story just as I like to read them, and magic is an important part of it because it is one of the things I like most within a fantasy story.
According to the stories I have read and what I have investigated, magic in stories can be divided into two types:
1. Soft Magic: It is the one we see in stories like Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones, three of the best fantasy stories of all time in my humble opinion. If you have seen these stories you will remember that magic comes “out of nowhere”. The sorcerers cast a spell with their wand, maybe say a few words and BOOM! literally by magic a ray comes out against their opponents. There is no explanation. What is the “Flame of Udun” that Gandalf shouts when he is fighting against the Balrog in Moria? What happens inside Harry’s wand when he shouts “Expelliarmus”? We don’t know, and the truth is that we don’t care, it is not the purpose of the story that we know, simply it is magic that we do not understand but that is very cool to see and being practically unlimited causes more awe. Not for nothing have these movies had the success they have, in fact, soft magic is the most known in the world of cinema.
2. Hard Magic: This is a less known type of magic. It is the one we see in stories like FullMetal Alchemist, The Name of the Wind, and Mistborn by Sanderson. Here, although magic is still magic, it is given a form of explanation, for example in FullMetal Alchemist the Elric brothers can do extraordinary things through alchemy, but only using the law of equivalent exchange, that is, to be able to obtain something they must contribute something similar, that is why the catastrophe happens when they want to revive their mother 🥺. Hard magic tries to make sense by establishing a type of laws or rules to carry it out. This type of magic is less used in movies, perhaps because it must be explained at least superficially.
Normally stories don’t go for one type of magic, but make a combination of both.
The magic in The Sound of the Night is mainly of the hard magic type, which not only comes out of a wand like in Harry Potter (don’t get me wrong I am the number 1 fan of HP), but is partly based on rules and physical laws, specifically the laws of conservation of energy, but I didn’t want to get into complex things either, but everything is treated with colloquial language and that feels organic within the story, don’t expect to find formulas or anything like that. The book also includes some soft magic, although to a lesser extent.
Why did I decide on this type of magic? Because I like it a lot when it is included in other stories. When you read that there are certain rules to do magic it gives you reason to think what can be done and what not. The characters are not all-powerful, they won’t pull a trick up their sleeve to save the situation, but they must use their wits to know how to use the established rules and I love that. Besides, I like that it makes me think as a reader: how would I use magic in those circumstances? Could this be done or not?
I will give an example from The Sound of the Night. Here magic is called Duality, why? you will have to find out 😉, but basically a warlock can obtain energy from his environment and then release it in some way, either through his whole body or just a limb, but this has several limitations:
- You cannot obtain more energy than your body can withstand, this is called Overload, something like when you get more electricity than your body resists, it wouldn’t be something pretty.
- You cannot release more energy than you took or your body will be the one that pays for it, this is called Drainage.
- You cannot store energy for a long time because it “rots” inside your body and can be like a poison, this is called Corruption.
Among other limitations and rules.
This allows you to do cool things, imagine you take energy and release it mainly from your arms and legs, you could push something very heavy, or if you only focus on your legs you could run very fast for a while.
Now, no story is saved from a little hate, but I think especially in a story with hard magic everything must fit like clockwork or else it is more prone to criticism, for example if something goes outside the imposed rules. An example that could happen in The Sound of the Night is: what happens if you accumulate energy in your right arm and hit a rock? your arm will resist it but what happens to your torso or other parts of your body? They are things I had to consider when writing the story, I was careful to handle these kinds of details, we’ll see if I missed something, I would love to discuss it with whoever has the opportunity, if someone wants send me a message 😁.
Also in the book there is another type of magic called Balam, but we will talk about that in another post.
In the end, as I always say, let’s remember that it is still a fantasy story, the main thing is to be entertained and have a good time.