What comes first—the magic system or the world—and do you have a specific inspiration for your magic systems?
Usually, it’s a process that they’re intertwined. I would…usually for a book to grow in my head and start, so I want to build that framework, it has to have a couple of good ideas for some magic, a couple of good ideas for a setting, a couple of good ideas for characters, and a couple of good ideas for a plot. And those, like I’ll have those sometimes independently. I’ll say, “Okay, this would make a great magic system, but I don’t have a place for that yet.” Or I’ll say, “This is an awesome place; I eventually want to put something in that.” And they’ll both have grown separately, and then I’ll put them together, and they become greater than the sum of their parts. And I’ll say, “Ah! That works so well together. The magic system is about people who can store up their attributes in chunks of metal, and then the magic system is about people who eat metal and gain powers; those can both work in the same world.” And I’ll [?] those together, and things like that. So it’s much more organic of a process in that case, while I’m brainstorming to build it out.
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