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The intriguing thing about magic is that you can imagine being able to do things that you cannot do in real life. But characters that can do anything are exceedingly boring. What drives a plot for...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:13:42Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9593 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:13:42Z (almost 5 years ago)
The intriguing thing about magic is that you can imagine being able to do things that you cannot do in real life. But characters that can do anything are exceedingly boring. What drives a plot for me is the limitation that the character has to work under. The story of an all-powerful god would be boring and short: "He did anything he wanted." So you do need a limitation to make magic interesting. And that limitation must not be a random "plug to a loophole", it must be constructed as a foundation of the world and a defining element of the plot. (The story of the all-powerful god might have an interesing sequel: "After centuries of this he got bored and killed himself / gave up his power to life as a human / turned mad / ..." The limitation here is boredom. This gives the story something that makes us interested.)
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2013-12-01T19:04:57Z (almost 11 years ago)
Original score: 1