What is Magic vs What Is *Magical*

Magic is one of the staples of the fantasy genre. Sorcerers and witches, swords from stones, ancient powers and spells. Places that glow. What I want to explore here, and if I may propose, is that there is a difference between what is Magic, and what is magical.

This is not meant to be a post of gatekeeping, so we’re going to throw that right out the window right here and now. I’m not here to debate what’s good and what isn’t—this is a post to spark thoughtful consideration of the mechanisms of narrative and how and when we can use them to our advantage. No tool is a bad tool, but you’ll want to know what each of your tools is best at doing.

First, we might need some definitions, and I’m here to tell you that I’m not really going to quibble much about getting them right. This is not about specific breakpoints. What is Magic? I’d say it’s something extraordinary that breaks the rules of physics, or provides additional rules beyond what we’re currently aware exists. Magic is a force and a resource, it can be a personality, a setting, a character, object or feeling. Magic does things like bend water to the will of the user, or spark a flame in the hand, or turn a hated rival into a toad. Magic is a conduit. Writers know what magic is like. It can be an elaborate system, an incantation, a rule, or a capricious unseen imp.

So what is “magical”? This is where it becomes subtle. Magical elements need not include fantasy or Magic at all. A contemporary realism story can contain a scene with a magical kiss. Magical is a feeling. It’s the wonder and awe, the surprise and the unexpected, the unknown which comes from things falling into place in a certain way.

In this perspective, and especially given the popularity of books in which Magic adheres to explicit rules provided the reader, such that the encounters in the story could be logically played out with dice and reason by anyone, Magic in that form is being utilized as a fantasy technology. That is to say, it behaves in the way that we treat electricity, or magnetism, or mechanical advantage. The rules are clear, they can’t be broken, and the outcomes are expected. In this way, this form of Magic is not magical. It lacks the awe and wonder of the unexpected, because the observer can predict the outcome based on the parameters given. To best a stronger opponent, a warlock needs stronger Magic. The reader knows this because the characters know this, and in order to accomplish goals, it is simply a matter of superior technology.

Comparatively, there are stories which include Magic as an unknown, nonnegotiable force whose personality and whim change with the winds. Magic which may indeed adhere to explicit laws, but these laws, if they exist, are not wholly known to the users or the reader and so in a given situation, the outcome is unexpected, unpredictable, spontaneous, capable of generating awe. This is magical Magic as I’m defining it.

So if we’re writing fantasy with Magic in it, we have choices how to implement it. (There are more than these two choices, and a vast array of in-betweens, because down with binaries). I like to read wild Magic. I like it when the next page is a surprise and there’s danger messing with forces we don’t fully understand. But technology is a deep source of inspiration for fantasy and science fiction, and yes, that means I am saying all of this applies to SF as well: consider what form your magic or technology takes, and what it’s doing for the fabric of your story.