'thul's story project...

['thul]

The system of magic has finally begun to take shape... It is, like Paolini's magic, based on language, but also very different. Its language is mostly old Norse, and its power is drawn from whatever fuel is available. Standard use burns energy within the body. the effort to do a task with magic is the same as the effort to do it normally is, the advantage is in skipping a few steps or doing things not normally possible. Words decide the type of action, but the intent also figures in. If you use magic words to kindle a flame sufficient to light a candle, but keep thinking on what would happen if you lit the entire house on fire, you could easily end up lighting the house on fire. If you use more power than you can fuel, you typically faint, and since lighting a house on fire requires quite a bit of energy, you're in trouble if you dont guard your thoughts while speaking magic.
Oh, and misunderstanding the meaning of a word, say using a word for a giant sledgehammer to simply knock on a door because you think thats the word for knocking on a door, you'll use the power equivalent to the strength you intended to knock, proportionally scaled up to fit the sledgehammer.
In technical terms, a knock of a five kg fist at 20% potential power while using word for a 2000kg battering ram, means that instead of 1kg force, you use 400kg of force. Unless the door is rather strong, you'll probably break it.
So in essence. Word decided action, intent defines strength of action, incorrect understanding of word strength is your problem. Magic goes through anyways.
Oh, and to make magic more fun... Words of power cannot simply be learned. They have to come to the user. a teacher cant say "this is the word for lighting a candle. Say it and you will light it.". Doing so will fail, for the user of magic has to understand the word, and understanding comes from within.

---

Hmm... odd previous post ran off... will have to rewrite it...

These beings have now realized just how much characters take on a life of their own. They simply wont obey the game plan written out for them.

The female character in the section they have been working on currently, was meant to be a fairly young girl (15 years or so old), shy and unsure of herself... A minor character, involved in just a few events, in other words. Her section of story a few pages, maybe as much as ten.
That was the plan. She didn't like it.

Now, she's started out at the age of nine, grown first to twelve years, spent a few sections at that age, then grown over a few pages to the age of twenty-one, with body about nineteen years old or so. She's grown from the insecure child plagued by nightmares of dragons taking out her entire tribe, to a young woman that ends up seducing another character, taking him as her lifemate, and then going on to take the center stage, triggering key events planned for the main story. oh, and on the way there, she's grown to be a very powerful mage, with fluent understanding of the language of magic, something none have managed in a good while... Her section, once planned for up to ten pages, is far from finished and is now at 51 pages.