On Fri, 06 Mar 1998, Alandra <mystavash@geocities.com> wrote:

Gary Kleppe wrote:

People, this is one of the silliest threads I've seen on FFML -- and
that's saying something.

Magic in a fanfic is whatever the writer of the story decides it is.
It's whatever works for the story that an author's trying to tell.

Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics

You are, of course, welcome to your own opinions, as I am to mine.  Yes,
magic is whatever the author defines it, I'm pretty sure I never denied
that.  What I was aiming for was a structure, something to base that
magic on.  No, that's not right, I was aiming for a magic theory that
was believable.  

	That's the key to the entire discussion.  Using the real world as 
a base, the real difference between Science and Magic isn't what it can 
do or how it works.  The difference is the method.  Science developes 
through reason and controlled experimentation, Magic is something that is 
beleived to work and taken completely on faith.  In most fantasy series, 
what is called Magic is really a fundimental differental difference in 
that stories reality that has been developed through something similar to 
the scientific method.  In short it is a science that studies something 
that doesn't exist in this world.

I'm trying to see what makes it work in other series.  The Belgariad,
Reluce, and DragonLance, present completely different theories.  I'm
sure you'll understand it's rather hard to write an original story in a
world with different rules, if you're not sure which are the best rules.

Alandra.