Worldbuilding – Tess Hunter

If I thought the science of fantasy, or even worse, the science of science fiction was hard, nothing compares to the science of magic. Because, yes, magic is a science. It is the science through which your characters understand their world. Through which you either engage a reader or engage their disbelief. Basically, it has to make sense.

This fact had already been engrained in me from a childhood (and let’s not lie, adulthood too) obsessed with all things Harry Potter. If you can say nothing else about J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, you have to admit, her magic works. But she’s not particularly verbose in explaining her methods. So, after reading and falling in love with Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, I immediately went a-googling and found the invaluable tool that is SANDERSON’S LAWS. Read and commit to memory.

The three guideposts by which I built my magic were Source, Symmetry, and Limitation.

Source:

What did I know I needed? I needed to have magic that could turn half a country into a desert wasteland. Sanderson’s Laws teach us that all magic has to come from somewhere. It needs a source. So what if the land was the source? What if the life energy of plants, animals, maybe even people, fueled magic? What if someone used so much magic that they zapped a quarter of a continent of all its resources? That kind of magic would be unspeakably dangerous. It would have to be defeated. It would have to be outlawed. A few centuries later is where our story begins.

Symmetry:

For character and plot reasons, I also knew I wanted my magical characters to be able to engage in a kind of telepathy. I already had magic sourced from life energy. What if I had magic sourced from mind energy? From willpower? Two types of magic.

One which has the power for great external destruction and has been banned for centuries. And another which has the power for great internal destruction and is the weapon of the sitting government. Energi and Influi.

Limitation:

At this point I knew that Energi magic was sourced from life. But I didn’t know what could actually be done with it. What gain would make the cost of that magic worth it?

This was my first attempt at the things Energi magic could do:

My mistake was starting wide. Not placing limitations. Which, as Sanderson tells us, are essential for any kind of interesting storytelling. Magic (and characters) without limitations cannot fail, and therefore, are boring.

Influi magic naturally lent itself to limitations. Telepathy, influence, exchange of willpower. So if Influi magic was the purview of the mind, shouldn’t Energi be the purview of the body?

At the basest level a magic system should make your reader wish for magic. To imagine how they would wield it, where they would fit in your world. And the only way they’re going to do that, is if they believe it.

BONUS FACT: There’s a misconception that Influi Magic is the art of the mind, soul, and heart; but really it is only the purview of the mind. The soul and heart cannot be controlled by anything other than human self, human nature. CHARACTER.

The idea for Castle Valley came in two halves. The part that came first, as it often does for me, was the world. I was on my way back from Lake Powell, eyes slightly glazed from three days drinking on a houseboat for my brother’s 50th birthday, when I came through a valley. On one side—the rock and sand and desert you’d expect for the middle of Utah. On the other—a sea of green. Lush and bright and thriving. The only division between them a two-lane stretch of highway. Thus the notion of a world in which one half had been magically drained of all life, and how and why a wall came to separate them.

The idea for the world was the easy part. Making it feasible was a little harder.

First step? Research. The earliest research a writer ever does is reading. Reading and studying. Particularly the masters of fantasy worldbuilding. Two that were especially helpful and generous about their methods were George R.R. Martin, and Brandon Sanderson.

Martin exemplified culture—how landscape trickle down to effect every element of storytelling. The characters, the language, the food, the customs, the history. Particularly the history. Martin understands every element of his world. He has centuries of backstory that, while never info dumped, add a depth and believability to his world that he would never be able to accomplish otherwise. In order to build my world, I would have to understand the people who lived, died, fought, and worked there. I’d need what any good fantasy writer needs—a family tree.

Castle Valley Family Tree

Then came the documentaries. Planet Earth, Human Planet, Frozen Planet, Life. Basically anything that involved that little spinning globe on which we all reside. I took extensive notes on any and all practical or descriptive details that might eventually be relevant to my story.

After that, lots of googling and harassing my scientific friends (thanks R. L. Tierney) on geography. Environmental science (yes, science) became the bedrock (lol) on which I built my world. Was it even possible for a civilization to survive without rainfall? Without plants? How would my miles-long man-made canal-wall (wow, that’s a lot of dashes) function in relation to natural rivers? Where would borders of neighboring nations form? I’d need the second thing any good fantasy writer needs—a map.

This is the ‘after’ picture of my world:

And this is the before:

That’s right, I used the highly scientific method of throwing a bunch of noodles on a piece of paper and drawing continents around them. No, those aren’t noodles. I was at work (I’m a great employee, ask anyone) and didn’t have noodles at my disposal. What exactly they are I couldn’t tell you. But the grease spots they left on the paper did form the foundation for several lakes.

So what comes after all this very serious science? Why, MAGIC, of course.

Bonus Pics:

Castle Interior Layout

Castle Exterior Layout

Tess Hunter

science fiction and fantasy writer

Tag: Worldbuilding

CV Series: A Little Bit of Magic

CV Series: Worldbuilding