I made a big deal a few weeks ago about how I finally had an idea for a novel that could work and I'm actually going to do it this time.
On October 23rd the Heart of Thorns expansion for Guild Wars 2 launched and I have literally not written a single word of novel since that day. When I haven't been working or sleeping or out with friends, almost every minute has been spent playing Guild Wars.
I don't know if I'm slowing down yet on that front, but during my hour-long transit to and from work, and occasionally during quiet moments, my brain has slowly been drifting back towards the story and an element I've been considering for some time.
In this story, dreams and ghosts and spirits all exist and have their own parallel worlds. There are various ways for the human world and the other world, or the populations of both, to interact or cross over into the other worlds. A lot of people or beings have special abilities relating to these kinds of interactions.
The question I've been turning over is whether there's any magic in the world. Like, fantasy wizard magic with spells and spellbooks and magic schools and enchanted artifacts.
In the original idea, which was for a D&D campaign setting, magic was a given. It was going to be a D&D game, of course there would be magic! That changed when I decided to give the world more of a 1950s noir feel. Suddenly the setting became "like the real world, except ghosts and spirits and dreams are real", and I decided to cut out high fantasy magic entirely and focus solely on the interactions between the worlds. But that line is blurring the more I think about how the setting works.
Example. Ghosts are real. They exist. Some are trapped in our world; most hang out in the Ethereal (ghost world). People can summon and bind and free ghosts, or cross over into the Ethereal.
But how does that work exactly? What is the process of summoning a ghost? Is it a ritual? Because that feels a lot like high fantasy magic. Is it done by sensing and manipulating energies? That sounds like a D&D sorcerer. Or like the Force, which is space magic.
Now I'm thinking maybe high-fantasy-style magic does exist, and its actually pretty common - most people have either the natural talent or the learned knowledge to do some kind of magic. However, most of that is going to be weak, and most people will only know one or two basic tricks or own some nifty trinkets. Maybe I can light a candle by snapping my fingers and turn off the light without getting out of bed, but nothing fancier than that.
A few people, though, can do quite a lot more, either through greater natural ability or through education. But even then, powerful magic requires confidence and force of will. "Learning a spell" isn't really about memorizing formulae, it's more about convincing yourself you can pull it off.
In terms of actual function, how you believe it works is far more important than how it "really" works. If you believe that magic is really a science and it can be mastered through study and calculation, then that is true for you. If believing that magic is about meditation and tapping into the energy of the world is how it works for you, then great, it is.
And confidence is key. If you believe you don't have the capability of doing anything more than lighting a candle with your fingertip, then that's all you can do. You do need some amount of natural ability or training to throw fireballs around, but once you have that, you're golden. If you can throw fireballs around but something makes you doubt your capability or the spell's effectiveness, then you're going to have some trouble.
So I think that's going to be my basis for now. It's interesting enough to feel like a real system, but vague enough to leave me a lot of wiggle room. I'll play with that and see where it takes me.
P.S.: this post was written to put my thoughts into words and force it to make some kind of sense. Thinking with a keyboard, if you will. I'll probably do more of these to settle arguments with myself as I make more progress.
