Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Greetings Storytellers. Diana here today to talk a little about magic as part of the craft of writing. And I’m not just talking about fantasy. Writers of speculative fiction—whether fantasy, paranormal, horror, superhero, science fiction, or religious fiction—are dealing with supernatural or hyper-scientific systems that stretch our reality and knowledge of the known.

Craig recently posted about “Suspension of Disbelief” and he shared this recommendation: “If you write in any of the speculative genres, don’t spend too much time selling the functionality. Describe things and paint a vivid picture for sure, but don’t go into how it works.”

I’m going to shift into a different direction, into Magic Systems. Suspension of disbelief still applies. We all we know that time travel doesn’t exist (at least not yet) and that there’s no such thing as dragons. We suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy…