Before reading, you can find my bias here.

In my writing, I’ve recognized a framework I keep using over and over, no matter what I write. This framework has three pillars: system, person, and care. I keep returning to systems that reduce people down to function, and care that insists the people are people and not functions.

If you need a general refresher, you can find the overview of this framework here.

Today, I wanted to examine the system as a unit of this framework, and why it is probably the most important pillar in my writing. Systems are what generate my tension, after all, and without a system, my writing becomes soft mush.

In its purest form, systems are any group of people. This can be as formal or as informal as your story demands them to be. Governments, mage circles, friend groups. These can all be systems. As long as they’re the social demands pressing down on the people in your story, they count as systems.

System and worldbuilding

In traditional storytelling, systems would fall under the worldbuilding umbrella of writing. They’re part of the world, and they’re what gives the world the tools needed to ruin someone’s life. Systems are the things that push on people, shove them into boxes, creates tension, and presents a protagonist with impossible choices they’re going to have to resolve over the course of the story.

The systems need to match the story and the people within it. A big story like Superman needs a government oversight system. A small story like Encanto needs a family dynamics system.

A story, in general, has one primary system, and maybe a handful of sub-systems, depending on the complexity. Even a sprawling, complex story like Game of Thrones has a primary system: those who control the Iron Throne.

Once you’ve decided on your system, decide one important thing: What is the minimum I need to know for this system to work within this story? You probably don’t need five thousand years of backstory, but maybe you do need to know how this system came to be. Maybe you need to know what levels there are within the government, or who has which role within the friend group you’re assembling.

I’m not saying systems can’t get complex, but the complexity needs to serve the story you’re writing. It’s fine to have placeholders, even after you’re done writing the story. You don’t need to build an entire family tree going back ten generations in full detail if your story focuses on one person and their immediate family drama.

What to do with a system?

The most important part of systems within this framework is to assign people a role. Roles are what going to create the primary tension of a story. Roles are here to reduce people down to a function, and the entire story is someone deciding that this role doesn’t neatly fit them.

The roles can be formally recognized, like ‘Head of IT’ or ‘High Mage of Air’, or more informal like ‘Mom Friend’. The point is that there is a role someone is assigned, given, or has implied.

The next step is deciding how this role presses down on someone. Maybe they’re expected to have all the answers. Maybe they’re the expert on a certain thing. Maybe they’re the one keeping the friend group together.

Also, while you’re deciding this, figure out where they break this role. Maybe the ‘Head of IT’ is working under an incompetent CEO and they’re on the verge of burnout, but still expected to perform. Maybe the ‘High Mage of Air’ would also learn fire magic. Maybe the ‘Mom Friend’ wants to let loose and party without the entire friend group immediately falling apart or getting in trouble.

An example

I’m going to be asking myself a few questions, and in answering them, I’m going to build out a system that is story-ready. These questions are here to help you when coming up with your own systems, and I’ll be giving an example with each one.

What is the premise? I have the idea for a story in which the core tension is taught vs intuitive magic. In my head, they have the same source of power, but still some significant differences in the way they’re used. I’d maybe think about the specifics of the core of magic at this point, but for systems building, that’s not relevant right now.

What is the system behind this premise that generates the most tension? I could do multiple things with this premise, of course. I could have illegal intuitive mages hunted down by the taught mage government, for example. But the cleanest expression of the tension between the two magic styles is a school. Somewhere magic is taught, expected to behave a certain way, and structured into neat categories.

By contrast, my protagonist will be someone who works off of intuitive magic and gets placed within the school. In my person essay I will go more in depth on how to build a person.

What does the system imply? A magical school implies:

• Curriculum
• Classes
• Homework
• Deadlines
• Teachers
• Bullies
• Steady progression
• Theoretical and practical exams
• Misfits and outcasts
• Detention
• Approved magical terminology
• What you can and can’t do with magic
• What you are and aren’t allowed to do with magic

This might seem basic, but this is the hinge between knowing there’s a school, and knowing what levers there are to pull to make the school press down on those that don’t fit.

What are the logistics of the system? This is where you start making decisions.

For example, I don’t want to write a children’s or YA novel, so my protagonist is 18 at least. This reflects in my schooling: so I want primary education, ages 4-18 as a preparatory stage, where base magic is taught and learned. After, I want secondary education, ages 18-24, where someone will specialize into a field before going out into the workforce.

Because I’m writing an 18+ year old protagonist, I focus on secondary education. I want dorm rooms, classes at set times, deep magical theory and research papers, practical classes, people segregated by future job-shape (healer, combat, research, etc), both physical and theoretical exams. This could be built out as much as the story needs it to be, but let’s look at the next few questions to sharpen the logistics to serve the story.

How does their expected role within the system affect the protagonist? I said it before, but my protagonist is someone with intuitive magic. For why they weren’t drafted into primary education is because they’re from a small town, and not from a mage family. (This implies magic is mostly inherited and elite, which will affect the school’s design, so on forth)

The role my protagonist is expected to perform is ‘secondary education student’.

Except logically my protagonist doesn’t know 14 years of magical education, none of the terminology, none of the ‘approved’ ways to cast magic, suddenly yanked from their home into a dorm room, forced to pick a category of job they never wanted to choose from, forced to take exams they’re unable to practice for because they’re suddenly expected have all this information they missed.

Socially, this means they’re getting bullied, get drawn to the other misfits within the school, struggle making friends, get a lot of detention and ire of teachers because they don’t use magic in the ‘approved’ way.

You can now see how this shapes up into a story. A system doesn’t matter until it ruins the protagonist’s life.

What fun details can I add and refine so they add to the story instead of taking away from it? Maybe at some point I had an idea of an evil overlord in the history of my world.

Okay, but how does an evil overlord affect my protagonist?

Maybe the evil overlord was an intuitive mage, and they held the country in a desperate state until noble taught mages defeated them, making intuitive magic not only seen as unnatural, but also evil, taboo, dangerous, and uncontrolled, which is a problem for the protagonist because they now inherit that stigma the evil overlord paraded around decades or centuries ago.

What details, items, or story beats show the system in action? This is where you’re going to give your world a feel and actions associated with this system.

I can say mages use staffs or wands. They wear colored robes to signal their chosen field. And the protagonist stresses about a very important exam from a mean teacher that sees them as evil at some point.

Conclusion

Systems are the building blocks of stories I like writing. They’re units of pressure within my framework.

A system decides what role exists, and the story happens because a person doesn’t fit neatly into their role. The system generates tension by reducing people down to function.

I don’t need to know every facet of a system before writing. I need to know enough to affect people within the story. It exists so the people in the story have something to push against.

So when building your own system, start by asking what it expects from its people, and who fails to fit those expectations neatly.

That’s where tension lives.

Good luck building out your systems!