Awareness

[Der Sturmbrecher]

Some stories, like Dresden, thrive on the gradual revelation of how magic works in their universe. Others, like the Potter series and Tolkien, keep the mechanisms behind the magic unrevealed. Each has its own good effect. Currently I am working on further developing a project that's been in the works for a few years, and am wondering if I should tell the readers how magic works through characters, through the story, or through appendices, or not at all. What think you all?

[Kali]

I say don't add it in if it doesn't come up.  If no one ever asks or needs to know how something works, don't stop and tell the audience. 

We learn how magic works in Harry's world partly because we're in Harry's head and partly because outside people like Bob talk about it.  It comes up organically, as part of the plot, when magic's involved.  We have to know how it works so we'll know why Harry thinks a particular spell is difficult, or why something is sincerely odd. 

If you've written the novel without ever having to get into it, don't add it in an appendix.  It is, demonstrably, not necessary.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

We learn how magic works in Harry's world partly because we're in Harry's head and partly because outside people like Bob talk about it.  It comes up organically, as part of the plot, when magic's involved.  We have to know how it works so we'll know why Harry thinks a particular spell is difficult, or why something is sincerely odd. 

I'd say that while that is true, there is somewhat more to it than that in the case of the DF.

In a lot of ways, the DF are detective stories.  And one of the things that makes a detective story satisfying is having the clues for how things work and then having the villain do something clever and unexpected with them and/or the detective be clever and  unexpected in figuring things out, that makes logical sense in retrospect but is a surprise when you come to it first.

The key word there is "unexpected".  "Unexpected" does not work unless you have a basis on which to expect things.  A purely mundane detective story can take a fair bit for granted, at least at the level of the reader knowing what cars and phones are and having some idea how the justice system is supposed to work.  I don't think it would be possible to make mysteries with magic like the DF work as mysteries unless we were told enough about the magic along the way to have some notion in our heads of what could be unexpected; we need to have a handle on what Harry's expectations are.  There is a failure mode in some urban fantasy of it appearing like the author is pulling new notions for the non-mundane aspects out of thin air to generate whatever immediate plot they require; I find that very hard to connect to in the same way I do the supernatural side of the world of the DF, which feels to be solid and have its rules which Harry is fairly well informed about but is still finding new wrinkles on.  (I don't by any means think this is the only way to do magic, but I have great difficulty seeing any other way of doing magic that would work for mysteries, and the other mysteries with magic that really work for me - Randall Garrett, for example - certainly do a comparably good job of setting up the rules by which the situation works.)

[Der Sturmbrecher]

Thanks for the replies!

[prophet224]

Re: mysteries
Recently Jim said, while on a "Supernatural CSI" panel, that the way to do a mystery is (paraphrase here) "Write a newspaper headline with all of the information - how it happened, who did it, where it happened, etc. Then take away parts until you are left with what your detective character knows. Sometimes that is nothing at all."

Re: revealing magic
Another panel (no Jim, but some other authors like Brandon Sanderson, John Ringo, and Timothy Zahn) basically said "Reveal as little as you can get away with. Make sure your magic is consistent, but don't go into detail if you don't have to."

I do agree, though, that for DF there is a need, but it still all comes out over time.