Wonder and Magic

Is your magic magical? Do your enchantments enchant?

The elusive sense of wonder is often put forth as a motive for science fiction and fantasy, but for all the praise bestowed on it, it can be hard to find in SF or fantasy. Then, it is a brilliantly colored but sneaky, sure-footed beastie -- or is a birdie? That would explain how swiftly it can escape nets and fly off. And stories. And books, and authors.

So throw in some magic! That will be magical! And enchantments! That will be enchanting! Full of wonders and marvels!

Won't it?

No. Fantasy magic does not need to be marvelous, and in many a work of fantasy, nothing is wonderful about it. Much can be done with style and rhetoric -- the task of inspiring wonder is mostly style and rhetoric -- but it helps if the subject matter fits. If the characters gulp an anti-headache potion with all the emotion that you yourself gulp aspirin, it will be as magical as aspirin, whether the potion contains willow bark or not. A character to whom such potions are entirely new can find them wonderful, it is not for nothing that the newbie is so perennial a character, but they will sink into routine.

Still worse than the potion (or other device) is the wizard protagonist, or the reliable sidekick wizard. Once magic came into the hands of the protagonist, or can be requested at will, it naturally acquired a degree of familiarity that militated against wonder.

It is, of course, never either easy or simple to convey wonder. Even with the ideal imaginary situation.

Still, the easiest magical things to make wonderful are things that are not under the control of any character, and are fleeting and fugitive. A man leaves the camp early in the morning to fetch water, and sees a silvery unicorn purifying the spring and then leaping off into the forest. A princess captive in a tower sees a golden dove perched on castle wall. A huntsman rides through the forest and sees a glowing bird like fire flying through the forest. Beneficent goblins emerge after midnight to wish well for the newborn in his cradle. The character's own travel can produce the fugitive effect, as when a company must ride through a valley filled with trees of silver, then one of gold, then one of diamonds.

These do not have to be useless, even past the writer's use of making them raise the stakes by making the world vivid and beautiful and worth saving. For the characters, they can serve as landmarks for the journey, provided they are fixed enough in location and do not get used often enough to rub off the charm, or, more strongly, confer benefits. The unicorn could purify poisoned water, or even cure a poisoned wound where death was certain without it. The blessed infant may be in an epilogue to underscore the happiness, but also in a prologue to make a hero.

Obviously, the danger of deus ex machina looms, and the undermining of the sense of wonder when the usefulness makes the hand of the author too clear. It helps, some, if it's in the middle of the story, not the end -- an aid to reaching their aim and not the resolution. But the chief aid to preventing the effect -- besides the simple and necessary one of making it rare -- is the reaction of the characters. Shock, amazement, fear, dread are all wise. Even if the effect is entirely beneficent, it should be unnerving, with the awareness that something greater than the characters touched them -- quite possibly for purposes beyond theirs, which they may never comprehend.

Many contrived coincidences can be worked into moments of wonder if the characters react to them as uncanny, unnerving things. Though it helps for them, too, to be in the middle, not the end.

But then, I have already mentioned beneficent goblins. A single appearance of the household's goblins is still in the fleeting and fugitive arena, but since goblins are people with their own motives, it starts to edge into the area of spell-slingers who are also characters. With motives known to the point-of-view characters, and more particularly, who can work magic, and do so regularly.

Infrequency rather than mysterious reasons is a better support to wonder. If a mysterious ancient wizard emerges from his tower once a month to bestow some curse on a student for reasons never disclosed, it comes to be an unpleasant nuisance like a thunderstorm. If Jane, the girl next door, was apprenticed to the local codger who did food preservation and anti-mouse spells and left her apprenticeship to join the quest, when she notices she could cast a particular spell at, say, a castle to learn its history, her companions and former neighbors can watch in utmost wonder as it unfolds before them. It helps if you describe it in wonderful terminology, but the wonder of those watching -- and perhaps the wizard -- is the biggest controlling factor. That Jane enchanted the food to stay fresh may generate a sense of wonder if her companions rave over the results with great enthusiasm. On the other hand, if she conjures the history up at every stop, very quickly it, too, grows routine. Having it surprise them with wonder on one occasion may work, though it needs to be plausible.

Then there are magical objects. If your characters make them, or see them made, they are not in essence different from wielding magic. But if the objects fall into their hands, they may add to the wonder by being unknown and mysterious. Of course, if they are simple¹, that can wear off. Even if they are subtle, the more they act, the less wonderful they will seem even if the individual works are wonderful -- and of course, it's harder to keep coming up with wonderful things for them to do. Having an object produce regular effects and then one spectacular one under particular circumstances can work, but is harder to pull off.

Least promising is the situation where the magic is plopped right into the hands of the characters. Unusual results may produce it, if played right, and if the characters are students, all results may prove unusual.

I have consciously wrestled with the notion of wonder in two of my works, both with wizards as the point-of-view characters. With the result that I conclude the simplest way is to put the wonder into the magic they don't control, whether in the hands of other wizards or not in human control.

It's not the only way. In Spells In Secret², I could put some of it in the hands of the wizard students who are the main characters but also — students. Let them master new spells and find them wonderful. The pragmatic side of their studies limited this, so I concentrated on the wonderful places they went to keep them in secret.

In Dragonfire And Time ³, all the wonder was concentrated in magic our wizard witnessed, not magic she performed. Indeed, the heroine spends some time contemplating spells cast as entertainment and offering herself as consolation the thought that she does more good now that she does more than stand and gawk. So I surprised her with magic that she did not cast and made some of it wonderful. (Or so I hope.)

1. See here

2. available at Amazon and many other fine online venues

3. also available at Amazon and many other fine online venues