I watched this today. It’s one of Sanderson’s lectures at BYU, where he goes into what he, tongue-in-cheek, calls Sanderson’s Laws of Magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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They’re really guidelines for telling certain kinds of stories in a way that produces a particular effect, which he’s quite upfront about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Sanderson’s Laws are: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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1: An author’s ability to solve conflict in a satisfying way with [magic] is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said [magic]. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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(It’s also possible to have “soft” magic, which isn’t used to solve problems but may be used to create them, and which mostly creates a sense of wonder in the setting.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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2: What the [magic] can’t do is more interesting than what it can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The limitations and flaws of the [magic] create an interesting place to explore, because that’s a place where problems are hard. The space where [magic] can solve problems is less interesting, because that’s a place where problems are easy, and there’s no tension. One way to develop your story, of course, is to show the characters finding clever and interesting ways to make the [magic] solve problems that it initially seemed like it couldn’t solve, because of its limitations and flaws. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The flaws also provide a cost<\/em> to [magic], which both explains why it isn’t used all the time and also makes using it significant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3: Go deeper before you go wider. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s more interesting if you thoroughly explore the implications of one or two elements and how they impact on everything else than if you superficially explore a whole lot of them (the same could be said of characters). <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s also Law Zero: <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n 0: Default to what is awesome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don’t lose sight of why we put [magic] in our stories in the first place: because it’s cool. You can break the other laws if it’s in the service of something awesome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n In all of the above, you can substitute other terms for “magic” (which is why I put it in square brackets). <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n What I realized, watching this, was that even though my novel City of Masks<\/em> doesn’t have any magic in it, it has an element (the social convention of the masks) which behaves exactly like Sandersonian magic. It produces effects according to certain rules, and I set out these rules for the reader and then explore how they both cause, and can (and can’t) be used to solve, problems for the characters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Because it’s a social convention, it exists only within the characters’ minds; it doesn’t change the laws of physics, as magic usually does. Nevertheless, in story terms, it works the same as magic does in a more conventional fantasy novel – or as technology does in many SF stories, or as real-world forces of various kinds, including social conventions and technology, work in books written in other genres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It got me wondering how else one could do the same thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n By the way, if you haven’t read City of Masks<\/em> and you’d like to, I’m currently doing a giveaway of it for new signups to my mailing list: <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.instafreebie.com\/free\/l9j1q<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jXAcA_y3l6M&feature=share<\/a><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I watched this today.
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