What is real?

What is real and what is not? What is fiction and what—truth?

In reading, then thinking, over The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, I am conflicted with these very questions. It's Beagle who's brought them bubbling to the surface. What with his characters in one ethereal dialogue after the next:

"Spells of seeming," the unicorn said...
The magician answered: "[Madame Fortuna's] shabby skill lies in disguise. And even that knack would be beyond her, if it weren't for the eagerness of those gulls, those marks, to believe whatever comes easiest."

Magic in the Making

Filched here

Do we, as writers, need to plan out the Magic in our stories? Does it have to have a pattern or be consistent? Does it have to follow a rigid Dungeons & Dragons-type system, or can it be free-wheeling like Beagle's The Last Unicorn?

In another post, I talked about the difference between fairy tale magic and systematized magic, that every magic "system" — for lack of a better word — encompassed a bit of both.

Magic Systems — Arden's The Bear & The Nightingale

http://avalinahsbooks.space/the-bear-and-the-nightingale/

There're whole heaps of praise out there on the internet for Katherine Arden's debut: The Bear and the Nightingale, a fairy tale-esque coming-of-age story taking place in medieval Russia. I'm not going down that praising path, though I did enjoy the book over Christmas break (absolutely a winter read). Rather, I'm going down the magic-system path. And when it comes to fairy tales, pinning down a magic system is about as difficult as making waterfalls flow backwards.

What Makes Harry Potter So Good? 3 of 3

Mary GrandPre'

In my most recent post we looked at plot outlines in Harry Potter. Now, we look at the endings. Because the endings of each HP book are part of the allure. The part that keeps you wanting more. The part that leaves you with that warm, sad, lovey dovey fuzzy feeling and...well, you get the idea.

Here, I'll dive into the ending of the 3rd Harry Potter book, The Prisoner of Azkaban:

"You are truly your father's son, Harry," says Sirius Black.

Right as he's taking off—flying, escaping—on the hippogriff.

But the action hasn't stopped.

What makes Harry Potter so good? 1 of 3

Mary GrandPre'

It's the 20th anniversary of the publication of the 1st Harry Potter book! And in celebration, I am writing 3 blogposts devoted to Harry Potter.

To be sure, there is no one thing which makes Harry Potter what it is. Just take a look at this Quora article that lists ten or more elements which, they say, contribute to Harry Potter's unbelievable success. But I'm not going to focus just on the success of Harry Potter.