At one of of the first writers’ conferences I ever went to, I met an author, Ann Macela, who did a workshop on world building. She wrote a series of books that depended on magic and the rules of magic. There have to be consequences for misusing gifts meant for good.

I grew up with Bewitched. There really wasn’t a penalty if Samantha wiggled her nose. Then again something always went wrong.

Imagine a world in which witches or other magical beings just imposed their will higgledy-piggledy. One wants things one way, another wants one their way. Who's to say which one wins? (I’m thinking of the old Witch Hazel Bugs Bunny cartoons. “Biggie Wiggie/Itsy Bitsy.”) Hence the need for a coven or a magical council to determine who gets their way. When I wrote the Hillendale novels, I took Ann’s advice and included consequences. Helping people is standard fare, but if you do something that could have negative impact, you’d better think twice. In my world, the magic you cast comes back to you, and could come with unintended consequences. My main character, in a pique, casts her first spell that her best friend’s bike will break. The manner in which that manifests “scares her straight.” She guards her temper after that, and it isn’t until she meets the family member who explains her gift that she understands how to channel the magic. It’s the old “be careful what you wish for.”

The thing about world building is creating a believable outcome. Maybe it isn’t true, but it could be. Harking back to the CSI shows, in the real world you can’t process DNA in the time it takes them to solve a crime (or by the end of a 60 minute television show), but did any of us laypeople question that? They presented us with the possibility, and we all jumped onto the bandwagon. Suspending disbelief only goes so far, though. I’m sure real-life CSIs took exception to the way they frivolously bandied around the facts. I know after I interviewed firemen and got proper procedure I couldn’t watch Chicago Fire without commenting that “that would never happen,” and what do I really know about fire science? One of the firemen I interviewed told me to make it up. It’s fiction. Yeah, but even I knew better when I saw them grossly misrepresent on tv. I don’t want my readers to throw the book at the wall and yell “that would never happen.” I don’t always get it right, but I want to at least be close.

But I digress. If you’re going to step outside your comfort zone, changing the world order, make sure to cover your bases. If you’re making it up, adapt real-world parallels to make it believable.