There is less than a week to my first book publishes, and at the same time, I have two other stories in the woodwork.
My book Imperfect Creatures, tells the story of two siblings. They were raised in an orphanage for assassins, taught to be skilled mages, and were later released into the world with their training in both magic and assassination. Despite the obvious fantasy setting, the word 'magic' does not appear in my book as a descriptor of the spells performed. The word itself is used only a handful of times, but what the characters do is not referred to as magic. This decision made writing hard some times, and it must surely seem like an odd decision for me to make, given the setting.
There was a lot of revision process that occurred in the years it took me to write this book. It has oscillated between fantasy and sci-fi, and the one it ended on was not the one it started as. Over time, the powers used were considered mutations, evolutions, magic, sorcery, and as it is now. More than just the name, the method of how I made characters cast spells changed dramatically (with the mutant period being more of an organic movement, and the current style being a supernatural phenomenon). At some points powers were random, and now, they are character chosen. The reasons for these changes were often whimsical, except for the last set.
After I realised how faulty my earlier version of the book was, I choose to redesign my power system (among other changes). I had moved away from a soft power system (defined as one which lacks a precise set of guidelines that regulate magical use and creation in the fictional world) and moved towards a hard magic system (a set of strict established laws that regulate how magic is used and produced within the fictional universe) (definitions from https://fantasybookfanatic.com/hard-magic-system-vs-soft-magic-system/). But a hard magic system is much harder to create the groundwork for, and it took a lot of thinking for me to do.
I think soft magic systems are great, and can be made fantastic for different purposes. I also think what makes a good soft magic system makes them much harder to write competently, but their lack of structure makes them easier to conceive of. I say this not as a dig to soft magic systems, but simply as a realisation that for what I wanted my story to be, it needed to be a hard magic system.
Rules were built for a system of magic that were strict and logical. I could probably give a TED talk on my magic system it has enough details. That is not to say all those details are explored in the course of the novel, or that their detail is made clear. I know how everything operates, and make clear what needs to be made clear. For example, during my novel it is clear that making your power weaker makes you stronger. The exact rules behind this aren't fully explored, although that notion is present. In short, the details of this magic system are so specific, that every action needs to be made to fit within the framework, which is almost stifling at times.
Then we come to another story. With Imperfect Creatures days away from publication, I am now working on my forth draft of my next novel. In this story, magic still exists, but I have taken a wholly different philosophy to its creation. Similar to my first novel, this one is also a hard magic system, although it too was not originally designed to be so. But the system used is so extremely different, because the purpose of them are chalk and cheese. The system is used for social metaphors and character exploration; the sort of things often done well through soft magic systems.
The thing is, while soft magic is great at this sort of thing, it's not the only way to explore it. Hunter X Hunter is a great example of a story with a system so complex and 'hard' that it requires two episodes of explanation, and lots of charts to understand. Yet this system excels both at the traditional benefits of hard magic systems, and of where soft magic systems excel.
For my next novel, the goal of the magic system was simple; to explain, highlight, and function for the characters. I could have made it anything. I made it a system of science. Guided by the famous quote by Arthur C Clark "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" I formed a magic system that was very much magical, but at the same time, almost biological in its adherence to a scientific structure. How much this will make it into the final book remains to be seen of course.
The system I am writing now would work in Imperfect Creatures, although it would not be able to show off the depth of some of the characters as the current one does, however, the system from Imperfect Creatures would simply not function in my next book. It would be incapable of showing off the character progressions, fit the school setting, nor link into the social metaphors the book is built around. For a book where categorisation and data basing of individuals is an important theme, the magic system has to lend itself to this. Yes, in Imperfect Creatures there is a data base of people's powers, but it does not extend beyond a registrar. For my next book, it needs to be something embedded into the fabric of social interaction.
Within this work, the name given to those who practice magic is also different. Here they are referred to as a magus (magi for plural). Writing the drafts so far, I have realised that the difference between a soft and magic system is a matter of perspective sometimes. For one character, who understands what magic is and knows what she is doing, it is hard. For the other character, it is simply 'magic', and that is what it is. For an audience, which category it falls into changes throughout the story.
Now there is also a witch.
I have began work, alongside my next novel, on a short story, only about 5-6 thousand words. As mentioned, the name given to this magic caster is different again. I do not expect to continue to change with every story, especially if I continue to write short fantasy works going forward, but so far, that is how it is. The witch makes no attempt to explain the magic system. In part, this is because for a tight word count, such stuff is superfluous. But more importantly, it is unhelpful to the story being told. The witch can do certain magic because that is what magic does. It is the most traditionally fantasy setting I have yet created.
The difference in function of this witch to my previous forms is rather vast, for the purpose of the story and her magic is different. It is a story about a witch being taken to be burned at the stake. The requirements of this are not the same as a story about twins trying to live a normal life but being dragged into danger, or school girls in a magic school. It is short, and requires quick description to cover all the ground. This story after all, is the length of about two chapters, but has to fit the entire story into its run.
It has long been my conclusion that contrary to many arguments I have heard in fantasy discussion, that there is no best form of magic system. I have heard people insult Fairy Tail for not expressly explaining the ins and outs of its system, but it doesn't need to. Similarly, I have heard defences of stories like Black Clover that seem to think the quality of its magic system is in spite of the fact that it isn't a hard magic system, not realising that it functions because it is soft. It does what it needs to do for the story.
The Lord of the Rings is not bad for giving Gandalf a soft magic system to use, nor is Full Metal Alchemist or Avatar the Last Airbender good because they use a strict and hard magic system. If such a method of judgment was accurate, then quality would be defined exclusively by the quantity of rules, not how they function.
What makes a system good is that it is appropriate for the story it is in, and it serves the purposes it is designed to do, be those narrative, character, or metaphorical purposes. I am working on stories two and three, have used both forms of magic systems, and can say that ability to translate a system to another story is not a hallmark of a good magic system, as long as it serves it purpose in the story it was written for.
These systems were not easy to create, and required a lot of thought and effort and time to develop. They have changed, being replaced, and redone, always to make them what they needed to be for their respective stories. It might be one of the most mechanical parts of creating the world, which makes them one of the harder parts to explore, but I have seen power systems done right, explained in an engaging way, and that is now what I strive to embed into any fantasy story I make from now on.
By the way, while my next novel will probably still be a long way off, my short story on the witch isn't that far of having some announcements made for.
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