One of the least plausible aspects of fantasy as a genre is that sorcerers NEVER seem to get bogged down in creating a new spell then spend the next three or four months muttering "I hate this, it's rubbish" under their breath.
I had great fun with a young wizard blowing things up a lot. Takes time to learn this stuff. :)
(In SPIRAL PATH.)
@KatKimbriel And then there's the much grimmer outcomes for undertrained/incompetent sorcerers in @graydon 's "A Succession of Bad Days" … (rule one of magic: try not to do anything with the side-effect of setting your brain on fire!)
@cstross @KatKimbriel Try not to destroy the potential to have the ability to comprehend what you just did, either.
Should see if I can have that come up more.
Yeah, back in the first novel about this wizard, they learn that the small but crucial differences between four herbs are life and death.
There are some rules they give apprentices, but they warn them when they think the lesson will "take." So you don't just memorize a list and fail to REALLY learn the lesson....
@cstross @KatKimbriel @graydon One of Mercedes Lackey's series features a guy who got himself and the world in trouble by dabbling in an obscure school of magic. Somewhat later, he decides he really needed to learn a second spell to help deal with the consequences of learning the first one. He also decided all the stuff he didn't understand about this school probably won't matter. I was so unhappy that he got distracted before he could carry out his visionary scheme.