Anyone Can Do That

The other day I received an email from a faithful reader who noted that he had stopped reading The Soprano Sorceress because the song magic was "too easy." Over the years I've received other comments along the lines that all she had to do was open her mouth and sing.

Right. Except that under the magic system in Erde, the song had to be perfectly on pitch and in key; the words had to specify what had to be accomplished; and the accompaniment had to match. In the opening of that book, a...

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Published on March 19, 2010 10:14
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message 1: by Jason (new)

Jason Mcintosh The gotcha with that comment is it's the same for any specialized field. People outside the field often don't have a clue how complicated any given task in that field is. For someone who knows anything about music, it's very different. The same views can be said about many of the basic things in life. Take for example computers. How many people realize just how amazing the microchip is? Or a space shuttle - just how many moving parts and pieces are in the shuttle or any such craft? I think this is one of the big challenges authors face when writing stories and there's a high degree of specialization in the specific field.

I'll say on the Corean chronicles, Legacies for example, there was just enough of a background in the nightsheep farming to give people an example of the level of difficulty involved in that kind of lifestyle. Without that frame of reference, it would be hard for someone without an agricultural background to realize just how difficult a lifestyle like that would be to live out.


message 2: by Max (new)

Max The Dunning-Kruger effect at larger. It bothers me a bit that more and more of my understanding and wisdom can be encapsulated in cartoons:
http://xkcd.com/793/


message 3: by Catching (new)

Catching Shadows Actually, for a music-based magical system, it's one of the more complicated/realistic I've encountered. (So complicated that it did not necessarily seem viable as front line combative magic and in a few other areas because the necessity of everything being in tune and completely perfect.)

The only problem I had with the musical system was the extreme negativity placed on heavily percussive music. (I did not really understand the in story reasoning.)


message 4: by Margaret (new)

Margaret Jones I would like to see how many of changes that Anna made continue
and how the world and people have changed Thank yoi


message 5: by Ellie (new)

Ellie Hm, I wonder how many people who think it's too easy could stand up and give a speech in a moment of great danger? Let alone sing a song on pitch (not even perfectly!) and in time to the accompaniment. I guess it's so easy that it's probably why anyone who wants to can have a major recording career.


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