
This month our editors are tackling Fatal Flaw #9—Underwriting. We looked at the perils of overwriting early in the year, but underwriting is another problematic area for novelists. Too often necessary information is left out of a scene, leaving readers scratching their heads. This may pertain to narrative, dialog, setting—every and any component found in fiction. Today Christy Distler dives into the “wrong” kind of magic underwriting can create. (If you’ve missed the first two posts on the topic, click here and here.)
Magic has no doubt played a huge part in fiction over the years. In the past we had classics like C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series, J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and a score of fairy tales. More recently, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and Diana Galbaldon’s Outlander series have garnered millions of readers. The truth is, magic sells. But it doesn’t belong in all fiction—and sometimes it doesn’t even belong in fantasy and speculative fiction.
Why? Because sometimes a character’s “magical powers” result not from special abilities but from underwriting in the story. Meaning, certain events or actions seem to occur “out of thin air” without proper setup, and this becomes a fatal flaw in fiction writing. Continue Reading…