Meet the Authors: RJ Mirabal

In the meet the authors session on Wednesday, RJ Mirabal talked about his influences in writing and mentioned that he was influenced heavily by JRR Tolkien. Mirabal wrote the fantasy that he does because of how much he enjoyed Tolkien's works. What Mirabal did differently than Tolkien was writing in a New Mexico setting rather than a European/ Britain middle ages setting. Mirabal talked about the New Mexico setting and said he both enjoyed writing about a more desert setting for fantasies and also writing about New Mexico was much easier than trying to write the traditional middle ages setting with lots of greenery.

Mirabal also talked about the inclusion of magic into his stories. He didn't like fantasies where magic overtook any true problem solving for the hero using the example of a hero being trapped in a cave. With extensive magic, the hero can simple open up a hole from the cave and escape that way. Mirabal preferred to have minimal 'magical' components to allow the hero and other characters in the story to use intuition and problem solve without the relying on magic. This feels similar to Tolkien's works where magic is never the most prominent part of the stories. Although Gandalf is a wizard, he rarely uses magic and when he does it is never a problem ending problem like described with the cave example.

I myself agree that magic in fantasy should be minimized most of the time if nothing else, to have the readers believe that all conflicts in the story can't be easily solved with a single spell. When messing with any physical property whether it be gravity, matter, or time, it is important that limits are provided so the reader doesn't get either confused or upset about what a character can or cannot do in the story. Do any of you have similar feelings towards properties of magic or a magical component of a fantasy world where there need to be restrictions to enjoy the story properly?