Timewaster's Guide Archive

I am sorry, but I'll disagree. As far as worldbuilding goes, I think Modesitt is decent. However his writing style was absolutely horrid to me. I read the first two books, because a friend whose opinion I value a lot recommended them to me. I ended up in a situation where I would read, and read, and read, hoping that the writing will get better. It didn't.

It might be that I am overreacting, but there were times when I couldn't read more than 10 pages in one sitting.

Oh, and the sound effects. He wouldn't say that a horse whinnied. He would type the sound the horse would produce. It was extremely annoying to me...

I stand corrected. But I never claimed all of their actions disappear from the Pattern.

Brandon Sanderson is, I think by popular opinion, well-known for his unique and real magic systems.  Feel free to refer to his Sanderson's First Law essay about his opinion on what makes a magic system believable and interesting. I won't summarize it, as I suspect many of us have already read the article. I will, however, quote the Law:

: An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

With all this in mind, and the fact that some of the users in this forum are probably young and aspiring authors, I thought I'd create a game of some sort. Well, not exactly a "game", but a fun and productive activity, which also happens to be a helpful mind exercise, I think. A place to create magic.

Before I go any further, I want to explicitly state that I have no intentions to ask anyone to reveal their writing secrets. If you think you have a magic system so good it will get your novel/short story published, and you don't want to share it - that's great! But if you want to just practice and write some interesting stuff subject to critique from other readers and possibly writers, I think this will be a very interesting place for you to be in.

So here is the deal. You will create a model for a magic system and post it here. It doesn't matter of it's a rough draft, or a system finished to its smallest of details. Post something. Or if you have nothing (like me at the moment, although I am working on an idea), take a look at what others have posted and discuss it with them. Provide feedback, help the rest of the users improve. Let's see if we can start a decent creative process going.

Now, as I said, I have nothing to offer. For now. So I will leave the topic as it is, and see where things are going. Hopefully I will be able to supply my own sample, and we can start from there if things are not getting anywhere. Only time will tell what will happen.

Let magic reign!

You all jump on me like Aes Sedai on a fox-head medallion

Both of them start with an 'E'!

Have a little mercy for the poor foreigner

Oh, something I just thought of. Or recalled rather.

Egwene's speech from the last (?) chapter felt a little out of character for her I think. I am by no means an expert, but to me it felt like the speech was coming from somebody far more forceful, willful, even manful than Egwene. I realize her words were supposed to be as I describe them - forceful, willful - but I think it was too much of those things.

It might be just me, of course. But I think words like this would come from someone like Mat, when he gets carried away by his instinctual memories (e.g. when he came up with a battle plan against Shaido in minutes, while Lan & co. too hours).

You are welcome! I am always glad to make people spend their money on stuff!

Check out the free one too, it's got some nice hits as well.

So it must have been a bad link on my side, since the image I was uploading was 100x100, give or take 10 px off each side.