Hard magic system because it’s easier to understand and convey the stakes if you understand what is and isn’t possible.
As to the second question, I’m a bit torn. I write in fantasy worlds but when I read, I tend to steer towards magical realism and similar. It’s not so much about the urban fantasy stuff, but more about the look of the modern world. I’m not interested in swords and riding horses, kingdoms, etc. You can give me as much magic and fantastic elements as you want but I’d rather see it placed in a modern world - which is how I write it too.
That brings me to the question, how do you define that type of setting?
It doesn’t fit with the descriptions of magical realism or urban fantasy since those are defined as our world + magic/supernatural.
Compare that against: an alternative world that developed similarly to ours but the deeper you look, the more magical/supernatural elements you’ll find.
I don’t know. A modern high fantasy? Is that a thing?
Modern High Fantasy should really be thing. I wonder if her novel is set in some fictional place other than Earth or a fictional version of Earth. LOL!
My writing period is pre-industrial revolution. Most of what I read in these mangas is Regency to Victorian with magic…or even into the 1900s with magic as tech, making whatever machines you ask for, with clear specs.
Not exactly, but those where the author had really thought things out tend to stick out in my mind better. Probably the one I’m going to remember the most fondly is where the ML isn’t a pretty boy, but a bit of a grizzled man.
It’s an alternative Earth.
The city looks like a modern city but people use magic for energy instead of electricity.
Even though there’s a city in my story, I don’t like putting it under urban fantasy subgenres because that brings up a specific expectation that I don’t go for at all.
It would fit under a punk umbrella. Arcanepunk fits it but it’s such a niche, no one I’ve spoken to knows what that subgenre is.
I’ve settled to call it a science-fantasy for sanity’s sake but that is such a broad category.
Basically it’s that the world of urban fantasy is still the same as we know it, it’s just that we don’t know everything about it. The story would show us what we’ve been missing/what’s hidden. The supernatural is the “extra” stuff that exists ON TOP of an ordinary world.
Fantasy genres ride on suspension of disbelief. If we set up an expectation of an ordinary world, the readers expect normal rules to apply and will get turned off when something doesn’t fit. It doesn’t matter that a secret underground werewolf society exists in this world - that cop didn’t act like a cop, cars don’t make noises like these, and you can’t get on an international flight without passing through security.
In a fantasy, the reader’s suspension of disbelief is high. They don’t expect anything to be ordinary and are willing to accept whatever unbelievable scenario you throw at them.
So it’s a tricky space to operate on the edge of the two worlds when you want to reap the advantages of both - the ordinary, and the fantastic.
In my science-fiction novel, I have a mage android trying to hide his identity in a world where mages and other androids are pitted against each other in order to prove who is better. Lots of racism, discrimination, and survival is in this novel. Yet there is also action and grand adventure too. No, it is not done, but these things are rather the stuff I plan on adding to the story.
This novel will be my main series whereas novel anthology will become my side story.
Ooh, this is so exciting! I gotta start some planning/plotting now.
