Make the Most of Your Magic System
What Dr. Eraser Butt taught me about ending a fantasy story
I waggle my fanny at our four-year-old son and shout: I’m going to erase your ice cream cone!
Nooooo! He squeals and runs away giggling—half in terror, half in delight.
Playing Dr Eraser Butt with my kiddo has been so much fun this week. My writing life hasn’t been as playful because I’ve been struggling to finish a short story.
For me, some stories flow effortlessly; others do not. Pair a difficult story with an editorial deadline, and stress happens. At least the fight to bring this week’s difficult story into the world has yielded some valuable lessons:
1. If a story just feels wrong, go back and check it from the antagonist’s POV. If the antagonist’s journey makes no sense on its own, that might be my problem!
2. When an ending isn’t working, go back to review minor characters inadvertently abandoned along the way.
3. Check in with the theme. It can change during drafting. Can I state the updated theme in one simple sentence? Is the updated theme reflected throughout? AND…
4. When all else fails, shake down the magic system. Am I leveraging all parts to maximum advantage?
As a fantasy writer, I can’t afford any component of my magic system go to waste. The more story purposes each magic system component serves, the better. In seeking examples of simple, yet solid magic systems expertly deployed in story, I needed look no further than my kiddo’s latest comic crush: Super Dweeb vs. Dr. Eraser Butt.
What Jess Bradley can do with a pencil
Jess Bradley is the author-illustrator of a comic book series my kids and I are obsessed with: Super Dweeb, the story of a kid who loves to draw. My favorite of the first two we’ve read is Super Dweeb vs. Dr. Eraser Butt. Not only is it my favorite, but it’s almost a textbook in how to make the most efficient use of a magic system in story. Here’s what I learned reading Dr. Eraser Butt.
Heads up: there will be spoilers.
Atomic pencil
If you’re writing about a kid whose super power is drawing, that kid is gonna need a pencil. Crayons? Markers? Super Dweeb has gotta doodle during math class—so—pencil.
The first book of Super Dweeb is the origin story of the superhero. It involves a field trip to a radioactive island—
—never mind. The point is, Super Dweeb gets his hands on an atomic pencil, aka The Pencil of Destiny. We can skip over the mutant slime and get right to the good stuff. Super Dweeb’s pencil is magic.
So, what does a magic pencil do?
It brings Super Dweeb’s doodles to life!!!
Whatever Super Dweeb draws POPS right off the page and runs around the room. How cool is that? Atomically cool! Although, Super Dweeb has to be careful what he draws AND be careful who gets hold of that pencil. Fortunately, even when mistakes happen, it’s not the end of the world because…
Doodles fade after 10 minutes
That’s right. Say something disastrous happens, like Super Dweeb’s kid brother gets hold of the pencil and makes a scribble monster. Not like that would ever happen, but if it did? Doodles have an expiration date. Ten minutes, done. Unless…
Doodles stay alive if they eat pencils
This can be a good thing. Say, if Super Dweeb brings one of his doodles to life to do his homework for him while he’s off saving the world. So long as he leaves a box of pencils for his doodle double to nosh, Mom will never know he’s off fighting crime. Of course, prolonging the life of a doodle could also spell disaster (see the theoretical case of the scribble monster).
Bradley establishes these simple, beautiful rules for her magic system, and the resulting story is dynamite. The pencil can draw things to help, or draw things to harm. It can be stolen from Super Dweeb and used by other people. The drawings have a limited lifespan—unless they have access to more pencils.
Bradley wrote a whole book introducing and playing with this magic system. Then, Book 2 comes along, and things get really interesting. It’s still simple and elegant, and evolves naturally from an object we’ve all held countless times: a pencil.
Radioactive mutated goop
What happens if an unscrupulous scientist nabs pencil shavings from the Pencil of Destiny?
(See what Bradly did, there? Pencils need to be sharpened, shavings get made, bad guys get shavings. Genius.)
Well, a lab monkey will probably get hold of them and mix them around in a Petri dish with some mutant slime and boogers. Right? I mean, what else could happen?
When the resulting concoction gets left on a scientist’s chair, and he sits on it, he’s transmogrified into Dr. Eraser Butt.
A villain who erases things
Yep, a new villain is born: Dr. Eraser Butt. His rear end mutated into a big, magical eraser that can erase real objects right out of reality. Love your bike? Too bad, Dr. Eraser Butt just erased it. Set up a lemonade stand? Try again, with three wiggles of his blue butt, Dr. Eraser Butt just wiped it off the face of the earth. Dr. Eraser Butt can erase your toys, your treats, your mom. Seriously, this is serious.
It’s also the PERFECT villain for a story with a hero whose superpower is drawing.
Pencil vs. Eraser
Super Dweeb has one super power up his sleeve: to draw doodles that come to life.
Uh oh.
Every time he draws a creature to defeat Dr. Eraser Butt, Dr. Eraser Butt just erases the doodle creature. It’s an absolute nightmare. Dr. Eraser Butt is unstoppable—certainly by a a superhero whose only weapon is a pencil.
Except for one thing…
Pencils have erasers, too
Pick up the pencil on your desk. Yeah, the yellow one with the pointy tip and the pink eraser on the end. Um, pencils come with erasers, and Super Dweeb’s super weapon is a PENCIL. Which means he, too, has a super eraser. Know what he does with it?
He erases Dr. Eraser Butt’s evil butt.
This solution is one of the best endings to a fantasy story I’ve read in years. The solution to the unsolvable problem has actually been staring us in the face since the beginning. Pencils have erasers. Why wouldn’t a magical pencil have a magical eraser?
Yet, I didn’t see it. Thank goodness Jess Bradley did.
Endings are right there, just waiting for us
As fantasy writers, we plant the seeds of our story endings in our magic system. The Pencil of Destiny vs. Dr. Eraser Butt packs such a fantastic climactic punch because of the economy of its magic system. Everything we need to find the end to a story is contained in the essence of that system.
Thanks to Dr. Eraser Butt reminding me where to look, I was able to find the end to that difficult story this week. It was nestled inside the magic system I had already created.