Magic is a joyous aspect of fantasy, but without limits, magic will scupper your plot or leave giant plot loopholes. Some ways of restricting magic are that it’s…
- addictive
- drains the person using it
- creates an imbalance
- built-in limits of the aid (eg potions)
- dangerous for the world or the user
- comes at a cost
- the resources to make it are limited
Having the magical power backfire, though, creates a lovely new dimension to it, following law of unintended consequences. This Writing Skill gives you a lighthearted way to play with it, to explore the story possibilities it opens up. I suggest you spend 10–20 minutes on it, whichever suits. Grab your notebook, pen, and a cuppa, and curl up somewhere comfy.
If you’re using this Skill as your starting point
What superpower or magical power have you always really wanted? (For me, that's breathing underwater or flying.) You're going to give someone that magic power – and then explore all the ways it backfires and all the problems it creates.
If you’re using your own story with magic in it
Pick any magic that appears in your story.
Once you've got your magic
That power might seem like such a wonderful thing to have, but it's going to backfire, in all sorts of unexpected ways. For the user, for those around them, in other ways...
I suggest you do this as a freewriting exercise, to explore all the ways it goes wrong. Freewriting means writing continuously and completely non-judgementally, without caring about good / bad ideas, grammar, non-sequiturs. Write anything that comes into your head; just keep writing. Follow it and see where it goes. You’re creating raw material, like weaving cloth which you can later cut up and sew together.
That freewriting might include talking out loud to yourself on paper, writing snippets of dialogue or description, summarising events, dipping into storytelling whatever comes out of your pen.
Allow yourself to discover, and have fun!
The skills you're developing
Freewriting: Freewriting is a wonderful way to create raw material, to develop and explore ideas you might otherwise cut back earlier, and to discover voices and subject matter you would never have consciously planned. It could turn into any of the different kinds of writing. Equally valid and valuable, it could simply be the beautiful art of forming sentences on paper, or an exercise in writing more freely – a freedom you can carry into your other writing.
Constraining magic: As I said at the start, we always need to
constrain magic, in fantasy, so it doesn't ruin the plot. Using the
magic's own inherent properties is an especially satisfying and
uncontrived way to do that.
If you're writing or want to write stories set in an invented world, or an invented spin on our world, and you'd like heaps more ways to develop it, join the Imaginary Worlds course this October–November. It's a live 8-week evening course and you can join on Zoom from anywhere (Thursday evenings) or in person in Oxford (Wednesday evenings). See all the details and how to book here.
Bookings close this Wed 1 October. After October–November 2025, this course will next run in 2028.
