Regan Atlas

What is a hat?

Jon Klassen

I don’t know if I identify as a discovery writer because that is my preferred way of working, or because I’m allergic to organisation. Because oh boy, didn’t I fall victim to past Atlas’ decisions this week. Please allow me to take you on my humbling journey that resulted in only two minor tantrums, hours lost staring blankly into the middle distance, and a truly harrowing moment when I accepted that I’d made a mistake. 

This tale of unsuspecting woe begins in the late summer of 2020. Like everyone else, I found myself stuck inside, baking banana bread, watching Tiger King, and turning to the internet for something to occupy my mind. Very quickly, I found myself lost in books and online stories, and before I knew it, inspiration struck, and the first chapter of my Work In Progress was written.

Things I had after the 3am writing session: 

• A scene
• A flavour of an atmosphere
• An inciting moment

Things I did not have, included, but were not limited to:

• A reason for the inciting incident
• A reason why the character was in the environment with that atmosphere
• A plot
• And most importantly, any clue on what I was doing

And that’s how the majority of the first draft was written – with a touch of audacity and a whole lot of panache. As per the discovery writer’s journey, I found myself coming across little points like, who is this character’s boss? Or, what’s the reason for incident X to happen? Which over time, wove into this wildly untameable plot. 

It was great fun. Every time I sat down to write, I discovered a new tidbit about the world that was seemingly appearing with ease, as if I was peeling back a curtain on something that had always been there. There was a sense of kismet that fuelled the quiet confidence that led me here in 2023, on the cusp of what is promising to be a rather lovely summer – the set stage of my humbling journey. 

If I can offer any advice to any new writer, it’s to find a writer’s group who primarily writes in a completely different style to you. The majority of my writer’s group are plotters to varying degrees. While they are not averse to discovery writing, they do spend at least five minutes, considering the outline of the story they’re about to write – minimum. 

It was one of these people who picked up on the magical terminology I had, in all honesty, taken for granted. With one unassuming question, they upended the fabric of my WIP: 

Isn’t referring to magical folk as witches/wizards, a Harry Potter thing? 

My initial knee-jerk reaction was ‘no’, witches and wizards are widely used and well-established characters in fantasy. But then I thought about that fact for a second longer and considered that I personally couldn’t recall anything in that moment which had witches and wizards appearing together. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series has a number of wizards, and some witches, but never appearing in the same books that I could recall. Tolkien obviously has wizards, but no witches. Gaiman includes witches, and sometimes wizards, but not necessarily in the same book. 

N.B. As it happened, it was pointed out to me in a later discussion that of course there is wider literature that includes both witches and wizards, their differences in terminology being based on gender than magic, in Dianna Wynne Jones and Ursula K LeGuin’s works to start. But at the time of the initial question, I was comically lacking in references to call upon. 

As I’m sure you’re seeing, I completely missed the point of the question. But in my naivety, I turned to the wider group of writers that I have surrounded myself with and threw the question to them (Humbling Moment Numero Uno). 

The first thing the ensuing conversation did was highlight to me how much I categorically had not thought about a very intrinsic part of my story. An outcome that in hindsight I can attribute to asking myself only narrative-driven questions when discovery writing: 

• Who is this person? 
• What is this thing? 
• Why is that happening?
• When did that happen?

Notice the substantive lack of ‘how’.

Within seconds of asking the larger group of writers, it was gently pointed out to me that the onus of the terminology is not based on gender differentiation in the wider fantasy application of the terms, but based on magic schools and type of magic: wizards = sorcery / learn-ed type of magic; witchcraft = more organic nature-based magic. A fact that I knew but I had completely overlooked, blinkered by the tunnel vision of habitual comfort. After years of playing Dungeons & Dragons, of amassing a sizeable collection of fantasy books, I was shocked and somewhat contrite over this glaring obvious oversight. 

Even though I had begun the top layer of worldbuilding, establishing the foundations of the supernatural world, the overall ethos of how magic existed in canon, I hadn’t considered exactly how that magic was utilised by supernatural beings – something that should logically be the first thing to be considered when worldbuilding. But past Atlas was far too preoccupied with what the characters were doing, to consider just exactly how the characters were doing it. 

Taking a slide side step in this humbling tale of realisation, this feels like an appropriate juncture to point out the difference between hard worldbuilding and soft worldbuilding for those unaware. Soft worldbuilding is to take a very narrative-driven approach to storytelling, which can lead to the world only being fleshed out through the eyes of the character, giving the reader the perspective that they only know as much as the character does. The aforementioned Harry Potter is a prime example of this. Soft worldbuilding has a purpose and has its strengths. The focus of the story is on the character’s journey, centring the narrative around a constant focal point. This helps keep momentum and helps shape the narrative voice. 

Hard worldbuilding, on the other hand, is best illustrated using Tolkien. Through the Middle Earth series, Tolkien sets out to explain the politics, the religions, and the culture of the different races, so the reader has a wider contextual understanding of the machinations far beyond that of the characters. The strength of hard worldbuilding is it allows the story to sit within a fully fleshed-out universe, where things make sense. There’s a reason for each plot device that works cohesively within the scenery around it. Through hard worldbuilding, you lessen the risk of falling foul of Deus Ex Machina, and other such paradigms. 

Back to my mistake, I had been discovery writing without intention, only hard worldbuilding where essential, and riding on the assumption that I was correct (a fundamental truth that I am reluctant to relinquish, of course). I hadn’t critically challenged any foundations of my worldbuilding. For example, if we can all for a moment, consider that type of magic is point A, and the performance of magic is point C, then you will see that the shape of magic – point B – is quite a large point. In point B, I’m including schools of magic which is the result of the original question ‘what is a witch and wizard’ (I’m paraphrasing). Humbling Moment Numero Dos – as part of the worldbuilding already written, I had already begun to go down the lines of vocational magic in lines with schools of magic. But do you think I finished that thought? Non. I left it at the pretty surface details and carried on my merry way. 

The more I read through the ensuing discussion with my fellow writers who were drawing on mythos and lore from around the world, who were citing beloved fantasy authors, and even including Dungeons & Dragons manuals, the more I was reminded of just how big and important a gap point B is. 

So, I did the dreaded thing that any discovery writer loathes, and quite literally went back to the drawing board to actually create the magic system (Humbling moment numero tres). 

And this is where the biggest humbling moment of them all. After some preliminary research, I reached out to friends who I know to be brilliant worldbuilders. My aim, so I thought, was to establish schools of magic, as I naively believed I had locked in the fundamentals of my canon. But through every magic school system, the question always came down to how bigger cosmic forces play into things like necromancy and psionic powers? How does Order versus Chaos, Life versus Death, and Light versus Dark, weave through it all. 

If I can pass on advice to fellow discovery writers, or to anyone who is looking to work with a new magic system (even if you don’t want to do hard worldbuilding), here are some essential questions to ask yourself: 

1. How does magic exist: Was it created or does it just exist as a by-product of a cosmic force?
2. How is your character magical: Is magic internal with a Being, or external in the world? 
3. How is magic utilised: Is it directed? Is it evoked? Is it a tool or is it sentient? 

Whether you’re choosing to soft or hard world build, these are three simple questions that will start you thinking about the fundamental logic of your fantasy world. Once you start untangling the ‘hows’, you can critically analyse the character’s qualities: do they use anything to wield the magic? What is the etymology of spells? Are spells necessary? And so on… Things that, in hindsight (I now hate this phrase), are obvious. But if you’re anything like me, who for a second got a bit too comfortable with my blinkers and tunnel vision, hopefully, these questions will help remove those blindspots and help you better understand the world you’re building. 

(Final piece of advice – surround yourself with people who you can trust to give you unbiased critique, who think differently from you, and who can gently guide you when you’re lost.)

Resource of the Week

If you’re interested in exploring more about worldbuilding, I highly recommend watching Hello Future Me’s video essays exploring this topic. Tim Hickson’s essays are really good at using beloved examples to pick apart worldbuilding techniques in applicable useful ways.

– Hard Worldbuilding vs. Soft Worldbuilding | A Study of Studio Ghibli

– 4 Amazing Stories with Soft Worldbuilding [ Lovecraft | Hollow Knight | Nier | Dark Souls ]

Tim goes further to explain how hard and soft worldbuilding will seep into magic systems in these essays:

– On Writing: soft magic systems in fantasy [Tolkein | Game of Thrones | Harry Potter]

– On Writing: hard magic systems in fantasy [Avatar | Fullmetal Alchemist | Mistborn]