Even if you’ve never played Magic: The Gathering or don’t care about card games at all, using the concepts/philosophies of its colors can be very helpful for writing.
Let’s discuss and then write our own story using it!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we go over how using Magic: The Gathering’s five colors can improve your writing.
You can watch the full video here to or scroll down for notes/highlights.
Using the Magic Color Pie in Writing
- The card game Magic: the Gathering has five different colors in it, each of which is like its own faction: White, Blue, Black, Red and Green.
- Even if you’ve never played Magic or don’t care about card games at all, using its colors can be very helpful for writing.
- The reason is because each color has its own philosophies, and together as the color pie, they represent a huge spectrum of human experience.
- This is important because when you’re writing a longer story, usually you’re going to have many characters, and it’s important to have a diversity of personalities.
- If everyone acts too similar in your story, it will get boring. Even people on the same side, good or bad, should have different ideals, goals, and attitudes.
- Using the color pie can help you identify personalities that are missing in your story. So let’s hop in and see what they are!
White
- Represents peace, structure, equality
- Believes following rules is the most important
- White likes: Church, community centers, communism
- Evil white: Fascist society (like in 1984)
- Examples: Jon Snow, Marge Simpson
Blue
- Represents intelligence, patience, perfection
- Believes pursuing knowledge is the most important
- Blue likes: Universities, libraries, democracy
- Evil blue: Meritocracy where unintelligent are weeded out (like in Brave New World)
- Examples: Tyrion Lannister, Lisa Simpson
Black
- Represents: power, self-interest, amorality
- Believes doing whatever is necessary is the most important
- Black likes: Bribes, inheritance, capitalism
- Good black: Amoral character whose needs like up with good guys (Han Solo)
- Examples: Cersei Lannister, Bart Simpson
Red
- Represents: impulsiveness, freedom, love
- Believes following your heart is the most important
- Red likes: Art, adventure, anarchy
- Evil red: Someone who loves chaos (The Joker)
- Examples: Arya Stark, Homer Simpson
Green
- Represents: nature, tradition, growth
- Believes keeping things the way they are/were is the most important
- Green likes: Survival of the fittest, recycling, tribalism
- Evil green: Eco-terrorists who try to destroy scientific progress (like in Contact)
- Examples: White Walkers, Maggie Simpson
Why is this Important/Helpful?
- When planning/writing your own story, try to make sure that you have characters that at least touch upon all five colors.
- Of course you don’t have to have exactly five characters and they don’t have to match up perfectly, you can have overlap.
- Here’s an example of some Harry Potter characters divided up by color: (these are my personal interpretations, yours will vary)
- Keep in mind that making everyone mono-colored isn’t the goal. The important thing is that all the colors have some sort of representation among your main cast.
- The main trio (Harry, Ron, Hermione) have a good spread of colors, and it was pretty genius of JK Rowling to add Hagrid as Harry’s mentor, rounding out a color that the three of them were missing (green). She could’ve easily had a regular wizard pick up Harry and guide him, but having the groundskeeper do it allowed for greater breadth of experience in the world.
- If you can identify that you’re missing a color or two among the characters/factions in your story, that could be a sign that you want to rework your characters/story to make it feel more balanced.
After that, chat voted that we practice what we went over by writing a story using this prompt: It is said that when an elephant is nearing the end of its life, that it wanders to a boneyard where elephants of years past also died. A young elephant stumbles upon the giant bones.
Here’s what we came up with for our characters and colors:
Young elephant (Elle) – Red (impulsive, emotional)
Grandmother elephant – Green (dying is natural)
Mother/father elephant – White (grandma is doing her duty)
Vultures – Black (hoping she dies quickly)
Apes – Blue (use the bones as tools)
And here’s the story we wrote:
What do elephants dream about? For Elle, it was being down at the watering hole, spraying cool water all over her back in the hot Savannah sun, and chasing ostriches.
Until she stepped on something hard and pointy, and alligator jaws snapped her awake with a sudden jolt.
Elle nearly fell over from standing, but her thick legs kept her steady in the shade she’d been sleeping in, her dream already fading away like the moon in the morning sky. Dreams fading was said to be bad luck. Elephants were supposed to remember everything. Today was going to be a bad day, she could feel it in her bones.
But she could also feel her stomach rumbling for breakfast.
Anxious for a hearty meal of tree bark and bushes, Elle stomped through the forest to where her parents were standing, ready to follow them to the feast. But someone was missing. Grandma wasn’t there like she usually was. Maybe she’d headed out early to scope out some new grass?
Elle trumpeted to get their attention, and Mom and Dad slowly turned their massives bodies toward her, wearing expressions Elle had never seen before. Mom’s face was heavy, as if dragged down to the ground, and Dad kept his eyes focused high above Elle.
She asked them what was wrong, where Grandma was. Mom said Grandma was doing her duty to the herd, and Dad spoke of following their long-established rules. Elle didn’t understand. She wanted to see Grandma! Grandma always saved the sweetest bananas and flowers for Elle, and she wasn’t going to go anywhere without her.
Despite her parents’ protests, Elle ran away, rampaging through the woods, desperate to find Grandma.
She knew that she wouldn’t be at the watering hole, or at the prairie, or anywhere in the forest. Mom and Dad would have just said so if she was. Grandma must be somewhere she shouldn’t be, so Elle ran to the one place that she was told never to go: the Boneyard.
Even though it was morning, the Boneyard was dark. The soil was rough and black, and dirtied skeletons of fallen elephants lay scattered about like fallen, rotten fruits. Elle stepped forward cautiously, weaving through the bones of her ancestors, the air itself tasting of death.
Three vultures stood perched on top of a massive elephant skull, their heads red as sunburns as their beady black eyes watching as an unfortunate antelope lay on the ground, slowly suffocating from a gaping wound in its neck. They cackled at the poor creature, telling it to hurry up so they could eat already.
Elle hurried in the opposite direction, cold fear running through her body. She hoped she was wrong about finding Grandma here.
She stopped only when a family of apes came into view. They were huddled over another elephant skeleton, yanking at its bones. Elle wanted to shriek at them to stop, but she knew calling attention to herself would be a bad idea. As quietly as she could, she shuffled behind a rib cage and peered through the gaps.
The strongest of the apes ripped a bone clean off from the others and held it high. The others jumped up and down, yelling in excitement as the strong one led them all over to a small hill of clay-colored dirt. When the apes surrounded it, Elle realized it was a termite hive.
The ape stuck the bone into one of the hive’s openings, then pulled it back out, now coated in hundreds of scurrying black bugs. He dragged it across his lips, licking them off and swallowing them down with a satisfied grunt. The others immediately leaped at him for their turn with the bone.
Elle took the opportunity while they were distracted to slip away further into the Boneyard. Quieter and quieter it became as the shadows grew longer. The only sound was Elle’s feet trying to avoid stepping on any sharp bones sticking out from the ground. Until there came a small, familiar whine.
Elle perked up, and forgetting any danger she was in, blasted a happy response from her trunk. Another whine came from not far away, and Elle ran toward it, now crushing whatever bones happened to be beneath her feet without any care, blasting excited shrieks with every step.
When she rounded another rib cage, that’s when Elle saw her. Grandma lying on her side, eyes barely open, raspy breaths rippling through her wrinkled skin. Elle tried to banish the image of the dying antelope from her mind, but as she got closer to Grandma, it only grew stronger.
As soon as Elle touched her trunk to her grandmother’s, she rubbed it up and down her flaccid skin that now tasted like mold. Elle asked her what was wrong, why she was here in this terrible place, and told her to come back home right away before something bad happened.
Only the tip of Grandma’s trunk flickered up and down as she slowly spoke to Elle. But she was saying things that Elle didn’t understand. How this was natural, part of the life cycle, and beauty only exists because it doesn’t last forever. Elle didn’t care, she wanted Grandma to come and show her where the best bananas were!
Slowly, painfully, Grandma lifted the tip of her trunk off the ground and wrapped it around Elle’s. She said she was going to tell her a secret. That when an elephant died, they didn’t really die. All of their memories passed onto their family and friends, so they could live on forever. An elephant never forgets. Anything.
Elle asked her if that was true, and Grandma said yes. She’d never lied before, so Elle believed her. Even when she let go of her trunk. Even when she stopped breathing.
Even when her grandmother’s memories didn’t suddenly come flooding into her mind.
Elle stood there, staring at her grandmother, wondering what she could do. Before long, the vultures would be on her. And then the apes to use her bones. But what could Elle use that remained of her grandmother as part of her own life cycle?
That’s when she realized Grandma had already told her what she could use. Her memories. Her stories. Her kindness. Elle could carry them all with her back home, and share them with everyone else.
With a final touch of her trunk, Elle sped away out of the Boneyard. She wasn’t leaving Grandma behind; Grandma wasn’t even here anymore. She was with her, coming home.
It was time to show Mom and Dad where the best banana spots were.
If we hadn’t planned out the story using the five Magic colors, it would’ve never ended up like this. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a good start that shows many different interpretations of death. Using a similar system can help widen the scope of experience and emotion in your own stories too!
Be sure to check out the video to for a dramatic reading and more.
And here’s a gorgeous illustration of the story by cozyrogers!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Featured image: Flickr/0Cassandra0Clevenger0