In a parallel world, where the rules of reality are different, a unique and intricate magic system exists. Unlike our own world, where magic is often seen as a work of fiction or myth, in this parallel world, magic is a tangible and powerful force that is widely practiced and understood. The magic system in this parallel world is based on the manipulation of energy and the elements. Practitioners of magic, known as mages, are able to harness and channel the energy that flows throughout the world in order to create various effects and manifestations. There are different types of magic within this system, each corresponding to a specific element or aspect of nature. For example, elemental magic allows mages to control and manipulate fire, water, air, and earth, while healing magic focuses on restoring and rejuvenating living organisms.

Mastering Hard and Soft Systems

People read speculative fiction for the escape. They want to experience a world different from their own. They want to have experiences unlike their own. And, more often than not, that unique and different world involves magic in one form or another.

But what kind of magic should you write? Does your world need a magic system with vague rules—a wizard is a wizard and a Jedi is a Jedi, and magic happens when they need it? Or do you create a magic system with a hard set of rules, in which a character can use this particular form of magic only if they meet very strict requirements and pay the costs?

Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn series and the Stormlight Archive series, coined the terms soft and hard to describe magic systems in fiction. (Not only does the man write nonstop but he also teaches creative writing at his alma mater, Brigham Young University.)

A “soft magic” system is one in which the “rules” of using magic aren’t entirely known to the reader. There’s an air of mysticism, and it leaves a lot of room for the imagination. Examples of soft magic systems include those in the Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings books, and even the Force in Star Wars. There are indeed rules, and as readers we might know some of them. But what makes it soft magic is that a ton of information about the way it works is left mostly to the reader’s imagination.

A “hard magic” system is one in which the rules are understood almost entirely by the reader. The reader knows the limitations of the system, what costs characters must pay to use magic, and most of the magic’s unique properties. If you’ve ever read anything by Sanderson or Brent Weeks, then you’ve read a hard magic system. Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist are both really great examples of hard magic. You know that a firebender can’t bend water (unless they’re the Avatar, of course).

There’s no right or wrong answer to which type of magic system to choose. It all comes down to what’s going to be best to tell your story.

Sanderson has a maxim about this that he calls Sanderson’s First Law of Magics: “An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.”

If you’re using an in-depth set of rules that your readers know the ins and outs of and understand, then you also need your conflict and problem-solving to be following that mechanical set of rules. For example, in the TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender (spoilers ahead for the rest of the paragraph), there’s an episode in which Toph, our blind and witty earthbender, is trapped inside of a metal box. She’s been taken prisoner, and there’s no chance of escape. Except she begins to think, realizes that metal is earth, and begins to master the art of metalbending. The scriptwriters allow the character to solve the problem by utilizing the very specific set of limitations, capabilities, and costs that the viewers already know and understand. Toph is able to bend the metal box around her and escape because the magic rule is that she can only bend earth.

And, if you’ve seen that episode, then you remember that first time you see Toph bending metal and how it blew your mind! The same applies to the episode when Katara figures out that she can bend blood as a waterbender.

Now, what if you’re writing a soft magic system instead? Here’s what Sanderson has to say about it, from his website: “The really good writers of soft magic systems very, very rarely use their magic to solve problems in their books. Magic creates problems, then people solve those problems on their own without much magic. Use the magic for visuals and for ambiance, but not for plot.”

But I have a slightly different take on it. I think that writers can effectively use magic as part of the plot, to create awe-inspiring or mystical effects.

For instance, in the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (again, spoilers for the next paragraph), there’s a moment when Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas come upon Gandalf in Fangorn Forest after they had seen him fall to his doom with the Balrog in Moria (nerdiest sentence I’ll ever write). They had presumed him dead, yet here he is in the flesh, suddenly leveled up. Keep in mind, this is movie Gandalf, not book or Silmarillion Gandalf. The movie watchers are only given so much information. You get a cool scene of him epically battling the Balrog, he dies, he’s granted life again, and he returns to Middle-earth to help his friends fight in the battles to come. As an audience member, you don’t question the why too much—it’s just really epic and mystical.

There’s no right or wrong answer to which type of magic system to choose. It all comes down to what’s going to be best to tell your story. If you’re looking for more enchantment and leaving a lot to the reader’s perception and imagination, soft magic is absolutely the way to go. But, if you’re looking for something that forces the reader to understand problem-solving mechanically, then you’ll want to go with hard magic. That’s not to say that you can’t have epic moments in hard magic—I mean, look at Toph!—but it is going to require you to set some rules and inform your readers of them.

If you’d like to learn more about Sanderson’s Laws of Magics, you can find videos of his course online.

Katrina Schroeder is a freelance copy, line, and development editor with a focus on science-fiction and fantasy.

A version of this article appeared in the 03/13/2023 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Mastering Hard and Soft Systems

Arts based magic system, parallel world

As I recall, it had a universe parallel to our own, where people have some sort of magic system that works by drawing or something like that. I read a French version (likely translated) where the magic was called "dessin", literally "drawing" in French, ~15 years ago. I'm not entirely sure about the setting, but probably medieval fantasy for the parallel world, and modern for the regular one. At some point, the two young (teens) main characters, which live in the parallel world, are split up, with one of them being sent out / kidnapped / ?, to an isolated place / factory thing in the countryside, in the regular world, where they extract the magic power from the children. I'm fairly certain it was an illegal operation. The other MC eventually tries to follow in order to save them, and after making it into the regular world, meets with some hermit (?) living there who, after having the situation explained to them, tries to discourage them from going into the factory because it's too dangerous. They go anyway, eventually succeed at retrieving their friend, but that's still pretty early on I think. I don't remember what happens next, but it might involve dragons. I have done some prior research with little success. This is the most relevant thread I managed to find, but none of the stories were a match, far as I could tell from the synopses.

• story-identification
• young-adult

That's a good start. Please visit this page for some prompts to help you edit in more detail. Also, please visit the tour for more on how this site works, and how to accept answers. Lastly, I removed the fantasy-genre tag because it's meant to only refer to the genre as a whole for discussions. It's one of our more common errors to include it in story-identification questions.

And is the factory in the "regular world"? And is the "regular world" one like ours? Modern? Medieval? Futuristic?

Brandon Sanderson's book The Rithmatist has a magic system based on drawing with chalk, but the plot doesn't match your description.

Magic system in a parallel world

Published at 1st of August 2022 12:21:18 PM

Chapter 168: Chapter 168: Flame Wall
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Chapter 168 Flame Wall

As the fire wall around Opal Tempest soared higher and higher, the audience stood from their seats once again from shock.

"I-Impossible! This magic is Flame Wall— a Tier 4 spell!" Kevin exclaimed when he saw the sky-high flames on the stage.

"First Flame Dash and now Flame Wall…? Just how much more power is he hiding…?" Helia mumbled in a dazed voice as she stared at the fiery scene before her.

Meanwhile, the spectators were so shocked that they couldn't believe their eyes.

"It took me 6 months to learn a Tier 4 spell, yet he's managed to do it in less than a month?! This guy is insane!"

"Do you think this is because of the Fruit of Magic Awakening? What if it does more than just awaken one's magic? What if it can boost their talent as well?!"

"Fuck! That would make the Fruit of Magic Awakening even more valuable!"

"And that will make Leo's crime of eating it even more heinous!"

While the students and ordinary spectators in the audience cursed Leo, those with influence and from powerful backgrounds were thinking about something else.

"Although he's quite the controversial topic, we cannot ignore his talents, and the heat will eventually die down. I think I might recruit him into our family." The representative from the Thorns Family said.

Naturally, she wasn't the only one with such thoughts, as the other three families were also thinking about adding Leo to their family.

"That will depend on your capabilities," said the representative from the Tempest Family.

"Are your families running out of talent or something? While it may seem like he has some talent, I don't think he's worthy of our attention." The representative from the Scarlet Family snorted with an arrogant look on his face.

The representative from the Light Family remained silent, but one can tell by looking at his face that he was in deep thoughts.

Meanwhile, inside the Flame Wall, Opal was barely able to defend herself from the intense heat that evaporated her water barrier faster than she could fix it, and she did not have enough mana to break out of the Flame Walls.

'Damn it! Is this how I will lose?! To a newbie magic user who has only studied magic for a month?!' Opal gritted her teeth in frustration, but there was nothing she could do in this situation but wait for her defeat.

In the end, she decided to deactivate her water barrier and focused on breaking the Flame Wall even if it meant using all of her mana.

Opal ignored the burning sensation on her body and endured the pain while she cast a Tier 4 magic spell, which ended up using the rest of her mana.

A flow of water erupted before her and attacked the deadly flames.

When the two magic spells collided with one another, it produced a large amount of steam that quickly filled the stage.

Opal had managed to weaken the Flame Wall, but she quickly realized that she did not defeat it, and within moments, the Flame Wall surged again.

Without any mana left to protect her, Opal felt as though she was being baked inside an oven, and her skin felt like it was burning away.

Leo eventually deactivated the Flame Wall.

Once the flames died down, the audience could finally see Opal again, and she was lying on the stage with the majority of her clothes burned away. However, her skin appeared to be fine, only looking slightly rosy, almost as though she had accidentally slept in the sun for too long and received sunburn.

"Winner, Leo Magnus! Congratulations to the Four Witches Academy for acquiring their 6th point!" Thalia announced as her gaze was fixated on Leo for some reason.

A few female staff members quickly approached the stage and covered up Opal's body with a towel before carrying her away.

Leo didn't linger around and quickly got off the stage, where Kevin and the others were waiting for him.

"What's wrong? You don't seem satisfied. Were you hoping that I would lose? Sorry, but I don't plan on losing. I am going to win every match until the end of the tournament." Leo said when he noticed their weird expressions.

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And he continued, "And don't try to talk me out of it. You were the ones who came up with this idea."

"Who said anything about talking you out of it? And I do not regret it." Kevin said with a nervous smile on his face. "After all, I finally got to see what you're truly capable of. Now the question is how long you'll be able to keep this up."

"Is that so?" Leo casually shrugged.

"Anyways, I'm tired, so I am going to rest in the waiting room. Call me when I need to enter the stage again."

Eve then said, "We won't be participating in any more matches for the day so you can go back to the hotel if you want. I will let Camille escort you back."

Camille showed up shortly after to escort Leo back to the hotel while the others remained with Eve. Even though they no longer had any more matches for the day, it would be disrespectful of them to leave before they are officially dismissed.

"Headmistress… Just what kind of training did you make Leo go through? I cannot imagine how he can become this powerful in just a month." Valery suddenly asked her.

Eve smiled and said, "My training methods are a secret."

However, the students didn't give up and continued to ask her questions regarding Leo.

"How are you feeling?" Camille asked Leo as they drove back to the hotel.

"I don't know… A little underwhelmed?" He sighed.

"I thought these students would be much stronger, but I guess I was wrong. I had set my expectations too high."

"If you're comparing these students to the Headmistress and Khrome, of course they'll seem weak. The Headmistress is literally one of the strongest Adventurers in the whole city and Khrome has decades more experience than these students."

"I know that, but still…"

Once they returned to the hotel, Leo immediately went to his room to take a shower before retiring for the rest of the day.

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For example, elemental magic allows mages to control and manipulate fire, water, air, and earth, while healing magic focuses on restoring and rejuvenating living organisms. The use of magic in this parallel world is not without its limitations and consequences. Mages must study and practice diligently to master the complex spells and incantations required to properly control their powers.

Additionally, using magic requires a great deal of concentration and energy, often leaving mages physically and mentally drained after performing powerful spells. There are also constraints on the use of magic imposed by the natural laws of the parallel world. For example, certain spells may have limitations on the distance they can reach or the size of the object they can affect. Furthermore, the balance of energy in the world must be maintained, as using too much magic without giving back to the energy source can have detrimental effects on both the mage and the world itself. In this parallel world, the study and practice of magic are highly valued and respected. Mages often undergo extensive training and education at specialized institutions known as magic academies. These academies serve as a place for mages to refine their skills, learn new spells, and collaborate with others to further expand the boundaries of magic. Overall, the magic system in this parallel world is a complex and intricate web of energy manipulation and elemental control. It is a fundamental aspect of daily life and society in this world, influencing everything from medicine and technology to warfare and governance. With its inherent limitations and consequences, the magic system serves as both a powerful tool and a potent force that must be wielded with caution and respect..

Reviews for "The Impact of Magic Systems on Parallel World Narrative"

- Jane - 2 stars - I really struggled to get into "Magic system in a parallel world". The concept of a parallel world with magic should be interesting, but the execution fell flat for me. The magic system felt convoluted and poorly explained, making it hard to follow along with the story. The writing also lacked depth and the characters were one-dimensional. Overall, I found it to be a disappointing read.

- Mark - 1 star - I had high hopes for "Magic system in a parallel world", but it was a major letdown. The world-building was incredibly weak and I couldn't connect with any of the characters. The magic system was confusing and seemed to have no consistent rules. The plot was predictable and unoriginal, and the dialogue felt forced. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone looking for a well-developed fantasy world.

- Emily - 2 stars - I was excited to delve into a parallel world with magic, but "Magic system in a parallel world" fell short of my expectations. The pacing was incredibly slow, and the story never seemed to go anywhere. The magic system was poorly explained and lacked any real depth. I also found the writing style to be dull and uninspiring. Overall, I was disappointed and wouldn't recommend this book.

Unraveling the Mysteries of Magic in Parallel Universes