Talked to a librarian about my fantasy world and it made me scrap the whole magic system

I was describing my novel's magic rules to a librarian at the downtown branch and she just said "that sounds like homework for the reader." She pointed out I had three pages of restrictions and costs before any fun could happen. Has anyone else had a casual conversation wreck a chunk of your writing but make it better in the end?

2 comments

2 Comments

jake_chen16d agoTop Commenter

Gotta respectfully push back a little here. I mean, yeah, three pages of restrictions sounds like a lot, but for some readers the rules are the fun part. Look at something like Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series where you literally have flow charts for how the metals work. People love that stuff. Hard magic systems can be really satisfying when you watch the characters find clever ways to work around the limits you set up. It's like watching a good prison break movie where you know the walls are ten feet thick so when they get out it actually feels earned. Maybe your librarian friend just isn't the target audience (and that's okay too).

mia59216d ago

Had a similar thing happen with my sci-fi project. I had this whole fuel system that needed different rare elements and the reader had to track which planet each one came from. A friend said "I feel like I'm reading a spreadsheet." Ended up cutting it down to two main fuel types and made one of them illegal to transport. Made the conflict way cleaner and let the story actually move. Sometimes you get too close to your own cleverness and someone outside helps you see the clutter.