Difference between revisions of "Sanderson's Laws of Magic"

Weaknesses and costs alike make a magic system more interesting. Weaknesses are generally harder to keep sensible and the kryptonite example has become a staple of easy storytelling. Brandon encourages writers to make up more interesting weaknesses than "Lose powers if x". Costs on the other hand are a great way of limiting a character and the use of the magic. In [[the Wheel of Time]] series the cost is that the users of the magic will slowly go insane. Although the metals in [[Allomancy|Mistborn]] and the stormlightStormlight in [[The Stormlight Archive]] may sound like costs, they are actually limitations. Metals and Stormlight aren’t crucial to the characters or the plot outside of magic, and thus only limit the abilities of the user.