Back when I was trying to break in, I spent many years writing books and not getting published. I was under the impression (it’s just one of my beliefs) that it would be easier for me to break in doing a lot of different standalone novels, or first books in a series, as opposed to writing all in one series and putting all my eggs in one basket. For that reason, I got a lot of practice finishing one book and starting a new one that was in a new setting in a new world.
For me, a new setting/world means a new magic system. Magic is part of what draws me to fantasy, being able to play with the ideas behind it. It’s what engages me; it’s what excites me. And so part of the real fun of starting a news series is developing a new magic system. In a way that’s kind of like the little twinkie or whatever that I’d hang in front of myself in order to get me excited about a new series. I’d be just coming down off a writing high at the end of a book, and I’d still be excited about the old series, its characters and world. Creating a new world is a lot of work, but there’s an excitement to it as well. I’d focus on that and say, “Look, I get to create a new magic system, let’s see what I can play around with for this book.” So because I got used to doing that, that became my modus operandi, my method of working. That still excites me. Oftentimes it’s the opportunity to create a new magic system that gets me excited about writing a new book.
How many magic systems do you have?
This kind of gets sticky, as it’s all up to semantics. Really, you could say that Mistborn had a different magic system for each type of Misting. But at the same time, you could argue that something like X-Men–with huge numbers of powers–all falls under the same blanked ‘magic system.’ And take Hemalurgy in Mistborn 3–is it a new magic system, or just a reinterpretation of Allomancy and Feruchemy?
So what do I mean by twenty or thirty magic systems in KINGS? Hard to say, as I don’t want to give spoilers. I have groupings of abilities that have to deal with a certain theme. Transformation, Travel, Pressure and Gravity, that sort of thing. By one way of counting, there are thirty of these–though by another way of grouping them together, there are closer to ten.