[ SECRET POST #3238 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3238 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 043 secrets from Secret Submission Post #463.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[(Anonymous)]

Well, first I really don't see how it could possibly be unrealistic. It is magic.

Second, I agree that if it does literally *everything* that would be boring. But I think that's very far from the case that we're talking about, which is:

1. Is it licit for a fantasy world to be unrealistic by the standards of our world, for reasons other than the use of magic?
2. Is it licit for a work to have magic that does not function by any clearly-defined rules?

And I think the answer to both those questions is that yes, it's absolutely fine. And I really don't see any literary reason it shouldn't be. Using rules is one model for how to integrate magic into a story, but there's no a priori principle that says that magic HAS to have rules or even that it HAS to be incomprehensible to the reader. And simply because you have magic that does not function by clearly-defined rules, that does not mean it inevitably is going to be used as a deus ex machina. The point, to me, is that magic is ultimately important insofar as it plays a thematic and aesthetic and rhetorical role in the story. And that doesn't have anything to do with rules. Similarly with the mechanical details of how a world operates: the matter only insofar as the matter to the story as a work of fiction, and beyond that I don't think there's any intrinsic benefit to them making sense.

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[tabaqui]

And, I think it does. If nothing has any rules or guidelines, and you can just kinda make anything happen 'because magic' - a *lot* of authors would, and have, written really terrible stories. Because with no framework to hang the world on, you're just sort of randomly hopping from this to that to another thing.

To me, that's unsatisfactory and irritating, and I don't like reading a story where the author doesn't really have a grasp on how the world works, and what can and can't happen, and just tosses things in to resolve a plot issue.

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I mean, my point would be that those stories are shitty stories because they are shitty, poorly-written stories that use magic in a way that is inappropriate for the story. They are not bad stories because their use of magic broke the rules.

I agree that the use of rules for magic can be a useful technique for some writers to use to ensure that they're not writing stories badly in that particular way. But I don't think it's an end in itself. If someone can write a story where magic has no rules, but also doesn't make it so it's randomly hopping from this to that to the other, I don't think that story is inherently bad.

I agree that writers should have a grasp on how the world works - but I think the relevant criteria of how a world works is about the story as a tonal aesthetic whole, NOT about the internal consistency of the world, let alone its realism in terms of our world.

Re: Writers: World-building and character designing

[tabaqui]

Yes, but, if the world is based on *our* world, and you're saying this, this, this and this work like they do here, but - yay! we can turn gravity off! I'm going to want to know *why*. I'm going to want a reason. It doesn't have to be NASA approved or whatever, but at least *try*.

I do think a story-world really does need it's own internal consistency to make sense and make the plot work, but that's just my feeling on the matter. If a story isn't working for me that way, i'll just quit reading it.