Autor: Merriam A. Grain

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How to write fiction

How to box a character into a corner in magic systems… p2

close up photo of gloved hands aiming a gun
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METHODS AND MEDIA (continuation)

So, Ferage the mage isn’t immune to every ailment but he needs to cross a country in the hands(?) of… the plague. All in order to get some mucus to create super potion G. What’s next is to box him into a corner. We’re going to limit his usage of spell/potion “cure it all” to three times. And expose him to a manticore, a horde of dancers and a beautiful girl wasting away in the road. Ferage is no fool but he isn’t a bad egg. Now, he is out of magic to perform the spell. Is he going to make it to the isolated villa?

What we do when thinking how magic is used is saving up in answers for later. When we’re out of options. We can limit the magic power to mana, a predetermined prime number of spells… (bullets). Witches, warlocks and elves get tired, eat and sleep.

Limiting the usage of magic can be used to create scenes that help with the daily-life like feeling; helping to create relatable situations. Like eating or going to sleep. So long our magic logic has no cheese holes and is totally self-contained.

Otherwise, we will need a good looking actor to have audience to forget plot holes whenever we get ourselves into closed alleys because we didn’t pay attention to our own magic system or we didn’t think it through enough.

CHANGE, RANGE AND MEDIA

What’s the bullet’s speed, its trajectory and its penetration force? What does the bullet do once it reaches the target? [Yes, I know, bullets do kill, I mean your magic bullet]. What’s the media shooting the bullet? A revolver, a Beretta or a rifle? Meaning: wand, spell, runes?

And why am I using bullets as examples and not fire balls or potions? It  is easier to visualize the physical effects than to do so with magical effects subordinated to your imagination. Mine is quite realistic regarding energy exchange and effects in spite of going deranged… Sometimes.

Magic is the same for every human being and it is not. At the same time. We all expect fantasy genre to fulfill certain expectations whilst creating something absolutely new. It is one of the most difficult ones since you either use the clichés or use the clichés and succeed… Or fail trying. People won’t forgive you if magic can’t be used to clean or if you miss on mythological animals… It also has to make science to fail miserably.

I hope I used well the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious spell and got all your attention.

It’s being a while since I’ve said any thanks to La cocina de Meg. I still remember when you were the one reader outside my family[2] and you were there giving likes to total nonsense. Those likes I appreciated lots and I hope your blog is still around.

Enjoy thinking magic bullets. Pasto kalo.

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¿Broma?

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Poema número no me acuerdo

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Impúdica, 
Le miro el trasero.
¿Que otra cosa puedo?
De espaldas.
Con traje azul acero recién planchado a horas de oficina.
Y los calzones por encima,
Canelos.

Allá.
Al menos a 7 metros por el suelo y unos 3 hacia el cielo.
Tengo que torcer el cuello.
Porque sus piernitas con mallas negras,
Se aferran a una rama.

No me ve.
Son mis pisadas,
Las que provocan vuelo.

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Cómo escribir ficción

Cuentos acerca de objetos inanimados que cobran vida

photo of suitcase on leaves
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Y lo que Hugh vio tras él le hizo estremecerse.El enorme cofre de madera que viera por última vez descansando sólidamente al lado del muelle, pisaba los talones de su amo con un suave trotecillo regular. Muy despacio, por si acaso un movimiento repentino le hacía perder el escaso control que le quedaba sobre sus propias piernas, Hugh se inclinó suavemente para echar un vistazo bajo el cofre. Tenía cientos de patitas.

El color de la magia. Terry Prattchet

Sombreros seleccionadores, equipajes, nubes, libros… Por lo regular personajes que el escritor no planea escribir como personajes principales y, sin embargo, se toman el espacio por asalto porque son los que prueban que la magia existe. A mí me encanta el equipaje con sus cientos de patitas, su espacio multidimensional y su determinación de excavadora.

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How to write fiction

How to box a character into a corner in magic systems… p1

close up photo of gloved hands aiming a gun
Photo by Felipe Jiménez on Pexels.com

BLACK THREAD AND CROCHET

Do you know the expression: «to invent the black thread»? It is something we use in Spanish to express we’re pretending we have re discovered an already know fact.

Last entry I rediscovered black thread, crocheted me a nice sweater and reflected over magic duels as if I had never seen Clint Eastwood’s westerns.

SIX BULLETS

Nonetheless, I’ll keep nonsensing about magic systems.

Thus, western introduced into the problem of magic systems, I’m going to say; first thing to do is to restrict or limit the magic. How? We give our character a six shots revolver. Afterwards, we force her to shoot all six bullets. The magazine is empty. Now, now we introduce bigger trouble! Let’s see what or how can she get herself out from the toil… [With us being the ones suffering the headache thinking how to actually solve it].

COMPLEXITY

Magic limitation can start by the turn system or become as complex as keeping xy/pendulum monsters over the board — and grind me if any time I come to get it. Magic cards are like writing. You do or you do to learn anything. Courses and tutorials do little.

METHODS AND MEDIA

HOW ARE CHARACTERS USING THEIR MAGIC?

The how magic is used, limits the way actions happen and even leads you to tension. Let’s imagine mage Ferage who needs physics theorist mucus to create the super G potion. Said physics scientist is secluded at home because of a pandemic situation1 and tough Ferage is a mage, he isn’t immune to EVERY contagious ailments.

TO BE CONTINUED

  1. Talking Newtown here, who discovered the three mouvement laws at his villa whilst town was painted in people’s black remains not of COVID. ↩︎
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British lines that sound polite…

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My spring time

brown field
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The polished gem of sky,
Attached to the again gold, dried earth.

On the forged ring,
The green emerald pine a stranger from the past.
The jewel dropping it's green stones away.

A land where trees say bye.
Evergreens chewed into dust...
( Misunderstand and add termite)
The rest thirsty and mush.
My spring waits for rain.
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Cómo escribir ficción

Mitos para la cooperación hunana

elegant portrait of woman in egyptian costume
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En cambio, nunca convenceremos a un mono para que nos dé un plátano con la promesa de que después de morir tendrá un número ilimitado de bananas a su disposición en el cielo de los monos. Pero ¿por qué es eso importante? Después de todo, la ficción puede ser peligrosamente engañosa o perturbadora.
[…] la ficción nos ha permitido no solo imaginar cosas, sino hacerlo colectivamente. Podemos urdir mitos comunes tales como la historia bíblica de la creación, los mitos del tiempo del sueño de los aborígenes australianos, y los mitos nacionalistas de los estados modernos. Dichos mitos confirieron a los sapiens la capacidad sin precedentes de cooperar flexiblemente en gran número.

Sapiens. Nuval Yoah Harari.
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How to write fiction

Does anyone play magic cards? p2

display of magic the gathering game cards

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WHY?

Let’s start with the fact that, unlike movies, written words can only describe a single person’s action per line. True, there’s the AND and the BUT — plus variants— to junction two people’s actions making longer lines. However, Harry Dresden (one chap-one line) drinks the potion + (AND) Mr. Werewolf (one chap- one line) jumps over him. A line, a subject — a group of subjects is still a single subject when thinking the described actions belong to them as a single unit. All them jump, all them sing.

We might be able to invent simultaneous reading by using two text columns with Dresden’s actions in one and the werewolf’s actions in the other. Both columns starting with the same upper alignment. Still, the reader will have to read a column first and then the other. One chap, one action. This is an advantage of movie media. Multiple actions, multiple characters.

Physically impossible for novels.

COMIC AND ACTION

In comic, this physical impossible is possible until we trip with economy. And economy is key [ maybe not for comics as Batman, Marvel and such but a mangaka who draws a whole chapter to be published every Thursday knows what I am talking about]. The less detailed an scene is the easier to draw it. You can place as many characters as you want in page, so long you’re willing to draw a lot of details per page on your own or pay an assistant to do the backgrounds.

What about the billions of dollars used to pay extras [ or the CG] in a movie? Even in such case we close up  Danaerys/Grey worm/John Snow, not the unknown fighters. We want the dragon [oops I mean the lady]. In theater, the space and stage real time convention make it more difficult to have more extras. Maybe the Lion King has 20~30 dancers [anyone out there who has watched it can enlight little me musicals not adept, truly appreciated] . Dancers… Not antagonists.

EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT

So, there are ten thousand-bunch of Kermit galaxie chaps invading the Xy planet. Whom do we wish on screen? The hero we have been accompanying through boring life in the farm to knighthood or the mechanic of turn hiding in the storage ? Emotional investment will have us sympathizing with the mechanic in a short scene. Nonetheless, we want the hero. We want his duel against the father, the betraying lover, the evil king or whomever who can fight a good one. In alternated steps. At least until it is time to wrap it up.

Such is the info I can get in clear broth out of magic duels in a magic system. So far until I read something new.

Is your magic system to be one with a graveyard, monster zone, spell area and calculator? Are you giving your protagonist the chance to summon the five Exodia cards?

Please, teach me to play magic cards. Pasto kalo.

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