McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

To wand or not to wand...?

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arianne:
I'm working on an urban fantasy with wizards, where the ability of magic is passed on from wizard to wizard (think JB's summer/winter knights method of passing on power), and I've been writing the story with everyone using wands, for no particular reason I can remember, but I guess it must have made sense at the time.

Now I've had time to read back, I wonder if wands are too Harry Potterish? Should I go for a different item to focus power? A staff or chains or something like that for example? Or should I skip the item altogether and just let them have fireballs in their hands or do what they did on Charmed?

Any thoughts, advice, or personal preferences?

DragonEyes:
Wands are well established in lore, but they are by no means the only method of magical focus. Orbs are usually well liked. For a more sinister flavor, bones or bird talons. For the Norse it was braided ropes with different magic woven into different braids. For Native Americans, it was totems, pieces of representative "gods" or at least their likenesses. You have a whole array to choose from and I see no reason for their to be only one available choice.

cenwolfgirl:
personly don't use them my selth
i think you should use what ever feels right in your univers

Nickeris86:
I personally am not a fan of wands, especially in a world with heavy combat magic if that is the case in yours, because their really is nothing very threatening about them. I would use them for more creative magics, to me a wand is more like a paint brush and not a .45.

For me a focus is more based on the personality of the individual wizard. If a character is passive then their focus is probably not going to be a knife and if they are a warrior their focus is probably not going to be a feather.

Shecky:

--- Quote from: arianne on March 18, 2012, 05:38:39 PM ---I'm working on an urban fantasy with wizards, where the ability of magic is passed on from wizard to wizard (think JB's summer/winter knights method of passing on power), and I've been writing the story with everyone using wands, for no particular reason I can remember, but I guess it must have made sense at the time.

Now I've had time to read back, I wonder if wands are too Harry Potterish? Should I go for a different item to focus power? A staff or chains or something like that for example? Or should I skip the item altogether and just let them have fireballs in their hands or do what they did on Charmed?

Any thoughts, advice, or personal preferences?

--- End quote ---

Is the wand the method of passing on the magic? If so, how does it work? Is the wand itself an heirloom, an item with its own power, or is it just something purpose-made in a purely utilitarian way? Would making one's first wand be a step towards becoming a full wizard à la Jedi lightsaber? Would they maybe be made with a portion of the wizard's own life-force, or maybe even a bit of their body?

There's SO much that can be done with wands story-wise, and as has been pointed out, they don't even have to be the classic wooden stick.

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