How science/magic works

I like figuring this out. You have to know exactly how the science/magic works in your SF or you are going to make incredibly stupid mistakes all the time and also nothing will make sense or hang together.

I like it when it costs. I mean in the sense that if your spaceship flies from point A to point B, somebody has to foot the bill. Fuel costs, maintenance costs, there are cranky people at the docks, there are taxes and inspectors and all sorts of annoyances.

I like when magic costs. If kayaking knocks me flat for a day, then surely exerting any other kind of force should also. And it should change you, just like kayaking, which builds certain muscles (no, I'm not wearing linebacker shoulder pads, that's just me) and supposedly burns off other things (I see no evidence of this but what do I know?) and you get sunburned and there's sand in the car and now you have less Jungle Juice and sunscreen and your hat is icky.

I am a big fan of the consequences. Maybe that's why I'm so in love with Season 6 of Buffy, which is all about this exact thing. You can do really huge good stuff or bad stuff but it totally changes you and has major lasting repercussions.

In retrospect, wouldn't it have been awesome if the thing that got loose when they brought Buffy back had turned out to be harnessed by the Trio and ultimately turned around to be the thing that kills Tara at the end? Though of course I LOVE that it's just a dumb gun. I love that!

I am thinking a lot about S6 because I'm in magic school right now.

Also reading Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy again. It's about...okay, that's a joke.

It's an excellent book. He has a great section on how science/magic should cost, which is no doubt where I got all my strongly held beliefs on the subject.

I really don't like it when these things come for free. I don't even like it when they kind of just make you tired. They should take something away to give you something else.

Most of the very best science/magic does this.

So I'm working out my systems and rules and what it gives and what it takes. This will sound facetious but between the constant bangs on the head that I get (someone should really examine my head one of these days, I've had so many--it hasn't been x-rayed since I cracked Nancy's skull with mine, but I've had dozens of very hard whacks since then) and a silly thing Bill Bryson wrote in passing, where he hit his head so hard he suddenly remembered where he'd put the coal shed key last winter, I decided to start the story with a really hard bang on the head.

I mean, fictionally. I'm not hitting mine again. Not on purpose, anyway.

Also a good hard crack on the head means that we're not sure whether the strange things that happen next are really happening. And neither is our character. Like!

I love how in fairy tales it always works out that if you get something very cool, you'll end up paying for it later. You can make promises now to get out of a situation, but later on you'll have to pay up, and you really might not like what you have to pay.

So I'm looking at those laws that govern physics and all that in order to figure out what laws govern this world. Is there an exchange rate? Can you actually buy power? Or is it always intrinsic and earned? What if buying power twists it somehow? What if there's something like blood money, power that you wouldn't actually want? Can you cut a deal with any of this stuff or is it fixed and immutable? How does your essence change when you mess with this kind of thing? Can too much magic give you cancer (or cure cancer) or does it function entirely on some other level besides the physical?

I like thinking about it in terms of how it functions in the world, though that might be kind of like thinking, "How do Matchbox cars function in the world? How do jukeboxes function in the world?" Or is it more like, "What does the lymphatic system do and how can we learn to use it better?" Or whatever. I actually have no idea what the lymphatic system does except make glands in my neck swell up when I get allergic to things. Like after kayaking two days ago. Why? I DO NOT KNOW.

There are so many lazy ways of writing magic, but I think that tracks back to a fundamental failure to understand how things work--or to believe that the systems behind the workings of all things are comprehensible deep down. You trust your car even though you may not grasp how the internal combustion engine works. (Oh please learn. It is not hard. If I learn what the lymphatic system does, will you learn the basics of internal combustion? It's a deal.)

People who don't believe that physical processes they use every day are comprehensible terrify me. And write really, really bad magic. They write magic like it's a bill no one has to pay. Or like it's some kind of inexhaustible natural resource, whereas we know none of them are. It's careless and irresponsible and ultimately doesn't work because it's so very sloppy and lazy. Things cost. Causes have effects. There are ramifications to everything.

I think magic is more like giving blood. You can lose a pint with no harm done but you should wait the appropriate amount of time before doing it again, or you're going to get anemic and weak and sick. I think anyone just learning how to use it or control it is going to get mistaken for a drug user, with the crazy highs and lows she's going to go through--which comes with another whole set of problems.

I know the usual metaphors for learning to use magic are drugs and puberty and learning a musical instrument, but surely there are more? More interesting ones?

I've put my girl trying frantically to keep a sinking ship afloat (not literally) and given her a severe bang on the head and a lymphatic system that leaks green from the scab. Oh and a whole story that's screaming to get written so I should shut up and go do that right now.