Would you ever break the rules of your magic system to create a sense of wonder?

[Annoyingkid]

Aka a miracle.

I hear writers afraid of breaking the rules as if magic is really science. Where comes the big surprises then. If the character only ever does what the audience knows they can do.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

If miracles are possible, then the rules aren't broken.

 

[Annoyingkid]

By rules of a magic system, I'm not defining it expansively, where a miraculous events creates a new rule. I'm using the more useful definition of what has been defined in story as laws of reality and hard limits. Aka "This can't happen", but then happens anyway. Arguments against using miracles instead of established rules of magic to get out of a jam revolve around breaking the audience's trust, but if it's kept rare, and serves the drama instead of taking away, I don't see anything wrong with it.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Aka a miracle.

I hear writers afraid of breaking the rules as if magic is really science. Where comes the big surprises then. If the character only ever does what the audience knows they can do.

Surprises are cool, but they have to make sense. If your character achieves something that's too far away from what the reader expects them to be capable of the positive surprise may turn into a negative surprise, or even betrayal.

When reading a story you develop a sense of what's possible and what isn't. If you stretch the limits of what's possible too much without advance warning, the risk is that your reader will got "wtf?" instead of "wow!"

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Sometimes. But you always have to have some plausible (within the rules of the story) reason it can be done. Otherwise you end up creating a deus ex machina and your readers will not be happy. My usual approach to this, if I need my MC to do something impossible, or alternatively for something impossibleto happen for him, is to do some foreshadowing and then make it so that even though it's unexpected, it's not impossible after all. Often I like to make my heroes wrong - as in they have the wrong understanding of what's happening - so that I can do this.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[TheKillerBs]

By rules of a magic system, I'm not defining it expansively, where a miraculous events creates a new rule. I'm using the more useful definition of what has been defined in story as laws of reality and hard limits. Aka "This can't happen", but then happens anyway. Arguments against using miracles instead of established rules of magic to get out of a jam revolve around breaking the audience's trust, but if it's kept rare, and serves the drama instead of taking away, I don't see anything wrong with it.

I might break the known rules of magic, but not the true rules because then why would I bother making them. That said, I would tread very carefully around establishing rules I'm going to break later. Maybe hint that there might be more to magic than the characters know. Or only allow the antagonist to break the rules, possibly because they're older/more knowledgeable about magic. In any case, I'd want to avoid making it feel like it was just totally pulled out somewhere the sun don't shine.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

If something is impossible by my rules, no I don't break them. This doesn't mean that the story world might not believe something is impossible and then it happens.

 

[Russ]

I think if you seed the event and/foreshadow it properly a miraculous went outside the normal expectations of magic in your world can make for a classic and entertaining twist.

 

[pmmg]

I am not sure if breaking the rules is really the right definition for it. Many themes fall along the lines of there are limits that a large number of people operate in and believe to be hard limits, but a new character comes on board and shows those limits to be self imposed or false, usually by breaking past the limits in climatic fashion near the end of the story. So, while it may be all of the other character say it is impossible, really it is that it was just waiting for the right character to come along and show them its not.

I do think it is not wise to show a hard limit though, and then break it inexplicably. Spiderman, for example, can be shown to swing on web, and that his web shooters will run out, after which we will be stuck and likely fall, that would not be a good time to go...oh yeah, and he can also fly, see he starts flying.

Also, just a point to differ, but I don't think Dues ex Machina necessarily leads to the audience being unhappy. You know, we said it here a thousand times. It all in the execution.

 

[Michael K. Eidson]

Here's my take: Don't state your rules. Then you can't break them. Give examples of what is possible early on, and do something similar later to get the MC out of a jam. If you want to pull a complete surprise out of the hat, have it work against the MC. But anything the MC does to get out of a jam ought to make sense within the context, and have some degree of foreshadowing. Having the MC stumble on an unexpected, un-foreshadowed solution or be miraculously saved by external forces is the very definition of deus ex machina.

That's not to say that deus ex machina is always bad. It depends on the story you're writing and how well you execute it.

Edit: I see that pmmg said some of the same thing I did first...

 

[FifthView]

There is a great podcast about this on Writing Excuses: Writing Excuses Episode 14: Magic Systems and their Rules | Writing Excuses

In a nutshell, there are two ways of doing magic in a story: Rules based and non-rules based.

Gandalf is the latter type. No one really knows the rules of Gandalf's magic, what he can or cannot do until he does something. The benefit of using this kind of magic is to add a sense of unexpected wonder, surprise, horror, whatever.

The former type, rules-based, allows using magic to solve conflict and overcome obstacles. If the reader knows the rules, then the reader can begin to anticipate what the protag will do whenever he faces an obstacle.

The difference between using rules-based and non-rules-based magic is that the Gandalf variety can be used as deus ex machina if the protag is suddenly able to miraculously get out of bad situation by doing something that wasn't foreshadowed and doesn't follow any established "rule." The protag could "miraculously" win the final battle, whatever. This could hurt the story. However, a Gandalf type character can still intervene from time to time—but he's not the main protag.

Neither approach is better than the other.

You can have a protag suddenly do something unexpected, like using a rules-based magic in an unanticipated way, but the magic would still follow the rule, just not in a way that the reader would expect.

I'm just summarizing the podcast; there's more to it. One final note: the podcasters point out that those "rules" are basically rules for the reader, or the reader's understanding of the magic, and don't need to be based on reality, science, whatever. So if the reader knows that the protag can summon demons by drinking antifreeze or Liquid-Plumbr, and only that way, then this is a rule and you don't need to explain how demons exist. You might need to explain how the character can survive drinking those things—because that breaks another preexisting rule the reader will bring to the story, heh.

 

[skip.knox]

All rules can be broken. Soft rules, hard rules. Indeed, setting up a "this can't be done" and then having it happen is a pretty standard story device.

The real issue is consequences. If you set up a rule, then have someone or something break it, and there are no consequences, or if the consequences are trivial or irrelevant, then what you have broken is your contract with your reader. Do that enough times, and you'll lose your reader.

 

[FifthView]

All rules can be broken. Soft rules, hard rules. Indeed, setting up a "this can't be done" and then having it happen is a pretty standard story device.

The real issue is consequences. If you set up a rule, then have someone or something break it, and there are no consequences, or if the consequences are trivial or irrelevant, then what you have broken is your contract with your reader. Do that enough times, and you'll lose your reader.

^Not sure I agree with the "all rules can be broken" truism here.

If you establish how magic works in the world and that it follows in-world rules, the only way to "break" that set of rules is not really a break. Rather, it's expanding the reader's understanding of the rules, expanding the set, and probably the characters' understanding also.

So let's crib off Sanderson's Mistborn magic, Allomancy, for an example. You could set up a set of rules saying that consuming X metal allows ability B, and go through a list of metals with paired effects. You could spend most of the story within those limits. But late in the story, you could introduce some mysterious, unknown metal or perhaps an antagonist who can create unusual magical alloys—and suddenly your MC gains some miraculous ability by consuming one of these strange metals/alloys. The rule is still in force, but it's just that none of the characters nor the readers knew that the set of potential abilities was larger than anyone could have guessed.

I think that if we establish an in-world "rule" for magic, we can also establish ignorance of the full scope of that rule or its limits....saving revelations of the greater possibilities until later.

 

[Steerpike]

Are we talking about rules as understood by the characters in the story world, or what are in effect laws that govern how the system works. If the former, then I don't see a problem with breaking them, so long as you avoid cheapening the story through use of deus ex machina etc. If what you really mean is that you've defined laws about how the magic system works, and now you're breaking them, that doesn't make much sense. If you can break them, they were never hard rules or laws to begin with.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Deus ex machina is always bad because it's only deus ex machina when it doesn't work, LOL. This is only slightly tongue in cheek.

 

[Annoyingkid]

The problem in my story and what I'm trying to avoid is rules that are only on in order to serve the plot and have the MC win but turn off when the character is on the receiving end. That is no good.

Specifically in this case it's been established that being hit with your elemental weakness will greatly depower anybody if the magic is powerful enough. Even the mightiest gods aren't exempt, although they will recover fully within about ten minutes or so.

The MC is lightning based and was already out of power, before taking two hits from a divine earth magic user. The third hit can be seen from outer space and if I followed the rules the she'd be so dead.

I think it's solved by having a shot of the brother on his knees praying while he reinforcements he got to run around him to try and rescue the MC. Implied divine intervention. Allowing the MC to hang onto life by a thread. She can't win the fight, anyway.

It'll work if the reader likes the character but won't if they don't. :throwball:

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Nahhh. I like hard fantasy. I like magic to work by consistent laws, and to have many of those laws clearly laid out for the reader. Don't like breaking the rules.

Even though I'm obsessed with Harry Potter, the magic system irks me. How and why do spells work? You can apparently invent spells; what determines whether a set of words will have a magical effect? I know it's for wonder, and I love that, but in my own writing I like the magic to be down to a science. And, whenever possible, confined.

"It's magic" doesn't work for me to explain away impossible things. Yeah, but how does the magic work?

 

[Devor]

Nahhh. I like hard fantasy. I like magic to work by consistent laws, and to have many of those laws clearly laid out for the reader. Don't like breaking the rules.

For me I like having hard rules and not spelling them out, or at least, not until some time after they've been shown. That way the first reaction is wonder and the second reaction is "....and it totally makes sense!"

 

[Svrtnsse]

I thought about this when stumbling home from the pub, and it struck me that if the antagonist breaks the rules it's an interesting plot-twist (which is fine), whereas if the protagonist breaks the rules it's a deus ex machina (which is not fine).

Please be aware that the above statement is overly simplified due to reasons alluded to in the initial part of the sentence.

 

[Annoyingkid]

Nahhh. I like hard fantasy. I like magic to work by consistent laws, and to have many of those laws clearly laid out for the reader. Don't like breaking the rules.

Even though I'm obsessed with Harry Potter, the magic system irks me. How and why do spells work? You can apparently invent spells; what determines whether a set of words will have a magical effect? I know it's for wonder, and I love that, but in my own writing I like the magic to be down to a science. And, whenever possible, confined.

"It's magic" doesn't work for me to explain away impossible things. Yeah, but how does the magic work?

You have to stop at a certain point though. For instance a wizard can throw a fireball. You can explain that by saying they can telekinetically cause enough friction between molecules to set the air on fire. Then the next question is how can they use telekinesis? They evolved a brain organ that can communicate with the basic consciousness of the atoms of the air. How? Through Sigma waves. What are Sigma waves? Pulses of unstable quarks that this organ sends through the intermolecular spaces of the skull. How does it not set all the air around your head on fire? The organ is activated through the brainwaves of concentration. Won't these particles dissipate making it less likely to set the air on fire compared to the instant it left the head? Err..magic. One has to add made up phenomena to explain made up phenomena.

Do you find it a challenge to keep fights from being predictable?