Young Writers Society

As I'm now revising the second draft of my novel, I am determined to erase one problem; who gets magic and ho powerful they are.

It's a recurring problem I keep getting whenever I introduce a new character. They just have magic (with an explanation why, of course), yet the number of non-magical characters is pathetically low (one or two major charcters). It's almost a gentlemen's (and ladies') club.

"Oh, you're a major character, have some magic and a brief history of why. Welcome to the club."

I've solved some of it by having them use related items rather than their own skills to avoid (to use the term) 'pawnage' by magic-users, but the balance still needs to be restored. Any tips on how?

I'm only a beginning fantasy writer, but what about using limited magic with the people who do have it.

And why do some people have magic and others don't? It doesn't seem to make sense.

Body parts. You need to have been born with the extra organs to become a magic user. You get them depending on your genes. If both your parents have them, then high chance you might. There might also be an anomaly in a ordinary family once in a while.

Sounds interesting. Would you be willing to tell me what it's about? I'd love to read it so far, very different.

Wait... what if magic is just a common occurrence in this land?

I have a similar problem, Fan. And you're right - it's very annoying to sort it out.

So they have to have the organs, eh? Well...
To avoid pawnage by the the magic-users, the normal folk could maybe be stronger physically? Or maybe some of them (not all) could be born with a shield against some magic? I dunno.

Snoik - Good point, but I don't want almost all of my characters to possess magic as it just gets too dull and repetitive, while managing to keep some of them strong against magic users (because they are adventurers).

Ayra - I don't want normal folk to be stronger than the magic-users, because then we enter the realm of the RPG, and I definitely want to avoid that. Resilience is a good idea though, I believe Jonothan Stroud used something similar in the Bartimaeus trilogy.

You can have a majority of your characters (and the people in their 'verse) have magic without it being "dull and repetitive." After all, they could have varying levels of magic or different types of magic.

Uhm, I'm not sure if you've ever heard of Limyaael or her (in)famous fantasy rants, but there are a bunch of them on magic that might be some help. They're all archived at her journal and I think you can probably find some ideas (or, at least, some things to avoid) about magic and who can use it and how.

That, and they're just generally helpful.

Thank you Meep! *bows down*

They're great!