Literary Magic

A pair of things happened in quick succession that led to this essay. First, I watched the 2015 BBC adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I’d read the book a few years prior, enjoyed it immensely, and was charmed with the way the showrunners, writers, and cast brought the story to life. 

Second, I watched a YouTube video published by Nerdwriter on the sound of magic in Harry Potter. If you’re unable to watch it, in short, he explores how the sound effects applied to magical moments evolve over the series and help enhance the magical world. Film is such a rich visual medium that we often forget how important sound is to that experience. Indeed, sometimes it’s only when the sound fails to match the visual that we recognize the artifice in the artform. There’s a quote from the video that gets at my meaning: “People understand what they see, but they feel what they hear.” 

Before I dive in, I should say I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to stack these two series next to one another. Harry Potter is certainly a cultural juggernaut, so it becomes the yardstick by which other works in the English magical fantasy genre are measured. Still, my initial point of comparison between these two works is not that they’re just about wizards in England, but that they’re both about the learning of magic. Beyond an initial affinity, the working of magic is a learnable skill in both novels.

And while I plan to cover that topic in my next essay, the Nerdwriter video pulled my attention to a more sensual concern: how does an author write about fancy magic using ink on a page? Without the benefit of a special effects department and Oscar-winning composers and sound editors, how does a writer breathe life into magic? What senses are they appealing to in order to paint that mental picture in the reader’s mind?

To explore this topic, I cataloged every instance of used magic in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone as well as Volume I of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. By “used magic”, I mean to identify those moments when magic is actively utilized rather than discussed abstractly. 

You might be surprised (I certainly was) to know that I found only twenty-eight instances of used magic in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and a paltry six instances in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Beyond that, only a shade over 50 uses in the entire 782 page novel. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot lower than I expected. And there’s an important lesson there, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me break down the mentions of used magic.

Beginning with HP, I found that most of the magic in that book came in one of three forms: words with wands, magical objects (e.g. potions), and magic that simply happens. Here’s an abridged table including direct quotes and examples:

WORD WITH WANDS

• “[Hagrid] brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley -- there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain” (p. 59). 

• “[Hermione] grabbed Harry’s wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, ’Alohomora!’” (p. 160). [I don’t know how one whispers with an exclamation point]

• “Hermione rolled up the sleeves of her gown, flicked her wand, and said, ‘Wingardium Leviosa!’ Their feather rose off the desk and hovered about four feet above their heads” (p. 171). 

OBJECTS

• Sentient sorting hat;

• Potions;

• Flying Quidditch broomsticks;

• Cloak of Invisibility;

• The Mirror of Erised;

• Remembrall.

THAT WHICH HAPPENS

• “[Dumbledore] turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses the exact shape of the markings the cat had around its eyes” (p. 9).

• Harry speaks to a boa constrictor in Parsel tongue.

• The mother’s love that shields infant Harry from Voldemort’s assassination attempt.

And that’s mostly it. If you’re like me, you’ll think back to the books or the movies and imagine a world absolutely bursting with magic. Floating candles and moving staircases and flashy spells zipping across the screen with airy wooshes. While much of that does show up later in the novels, it really struck me how little magic is directly described in the first novel. We don’t read about Professor McGonnell’s transformation. She is simply a cat one moment and human the next, the change happening “off camera” as it were. Wands are swished or flicked, followed by perhaps an aural detail, a phrase, and a simple lighting effect. No fuss. No muss.

Sentient objects and potions exist to fulfill a purpose; they are present to be used. The Sorting Hat speaks, somehow reading a person’s mind and abilities without any explanation given. Harry says “Up!” and the flying broomstick jumps into his hand and he’s off zooming skyward. The focus isn’t necessarily on the magical object but the way the story unfolds after the magical object activates. 

And the third category, the magic that simply happens, like Harry speaking to snakes, is really never described at all. We leave it to the semi-omniscient narrator to provide exposition on how the characters react to the magical happening.

Magic, at least in novel form, appears to be more about the effect of magic, the outcome of an act, rather than a sensory description of the act itself. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell also follows this pattern. I don’t think it’s necessary to categorize six acts of magic, but if I did, I’d say that most of the magic described in Susana Clarke’s novel comes, in a descriptive sense, from the final category; that is, the magic just happens. 

Neither Strange nor Norrell are wand users. And they do appear to speak spells, but the words are rarely accessible to the reader. They use whispers or their lips move wordlessly as they recite a secret spell from a piece of parchment or from memory. The British army’s magician summons ships made of rain water to befuddle the French army. Mr. Norrell brings statues to life with no description of the words or actions that created this wondrous feat.

One of the most common spells in the book and miniseries is the ability to see people at a distance: “... a servant was dispatched to find a silver basin; ‘A silver basin about a foot in diameter,’ said Mr. Norrell, ‘which you must fill with clean water.’”; Mr. Norrell simply “bends over” this basin and suddenly a picture of a ship cutting across the seas appears (p. 109). 

Magical objects are even rarer in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. The only one that pops up in the first volume is the Cards of Marseilles, a tarot deck owned by Mr. Norrell’s manservant, Childermass. And these cards do, in their way, predict the future. But, again, there is no description that tells us that magic is happening right this second. The characters read the cards and move through the conversation. 

The point of all this is to say that there is very little time given in either novel to the physical description of the magic itself and rather a lot given to the effect magic has on the world and, in particular, how it affects the relationships between the characters and the overarching plot. 

And I have to say, this came as a shock. I started this project thinking I would learn more about how other fantasy writers describe magical flourishes. And I did that, certainly, but what I really learned is that my work is exceedingly descriptive, perhaps to a fault.

In two of my most recent fantasy novels, I spend what now feels like an inordinate amount of time describing with great care the physical actions and sensations involved in the use of magic. Everything comes with colors and sounds and temperatures and lights, visceral details. Everything, particularly early on, is intricately described. It’s only later, when I feel the reader has a sense of how everything works, that I start to pull it back. 

And I see now what I was doing: I unconsciously tried to replicate the visual experience from films, TV shows, and video games. I’d build an image in my mind, something informed by years consuming visual media, and describe what I think it would look like if someone made a movie out of my work. 

And more detail isn’t “wrong” necessarily, but for someone that prides himself on clarity and brevity, I find that my work has an overabundance of detail. Yes, do as the writing teachers say and show, don’t tell, but you can show too much. Too much extraneous information bogs down the reader and slows the story.

What I’ve learned from these two pillars of fantasy literature is that, when it comes to magic, the focus shouldn’t necessarily be the physical description of the act. Visual media do a much better job with their special effects and CGI graphics. Graphic novels, too, provide evocative images to match the accompanying text. A book’s job is to present the skeleton of a world to the reader and let them fill in the details. Books are an exercise in imagination. The author shouldn’t need to beat the details into their audience’s brain. That’s just impolite and disrespectful of their time. It’s important that writers don’t rob their audience of the opportunity to flex their gray matter and figure out what magic feels like to them.