Douglas Miller
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MiP Ideas for the Future (with poll)
🕑 Added 2026-01-07 06:37:07 +0000 UTCI planned Magic is Programming as a trilogy, and at this point that is still the plan. With my writing progress having reached the threshold of the likely-final book, I have put some thought into looking ahead, beyond book 3, to what I should write after the series is done. I have multiple ideas I'm considering, and if you care about which one I choose, here's your chance to let me know!
First up, while my plan for Magic is Programming is only for 3 books, the content of book 3 has only a vague outline at this point with very few details. It's entirely possible that I might end up at the end of book 3 with more ideas for story developments that can fill out into another book, or possibly just end up taking multiple books to explore the details of the current vague outline.
In no particular order, my other ideas:
"What's the big deal about dying?" or "Juggernaut of Defense":
I originally had this story idea before I even started Magic is Programming, and it is my source of the respawning and soul shell concepts. I somewhat regret pulling those concepts into MiP now, particularly the respawning, because I left out the core reason for its presence in the story concept.
The central premise of this story idea is that respawning's commonality and low cost has led to people taking it for granted, disregarding defense, and even using it for convenience. This story would be a litRPG with classes and stats. Most combatants intentionally build as glass cannons, treating their own death (and respawn) as a given and trying only to maximize (through extreme offense) how many enemies they take out first.
The main character would be a transmigrator from Earth, and would specialize in defense, drawing contemptuous ridicule from everyone he meets. However, unknown to the common people, all the most powerful class upgrades require having an intact soul shell - which is lost the first time you die. MC would be given an intact soul shell as a courtesy by the Random Omnipotent Being who reincarnates him, and he would manage to keep it by a combination of building as a tank and using cautious tactics.
The nobles of this story would know about the no-deaths requirement for the best classes, and they intentionally encourage the commoners' attitude of disregarding death as a way to make them easier to control.
"Cultivator Therapist" or "The Power of Heart":
This story idea began with the inspiration that led to the Cultivator Therapist bonus post. Since that post, I have fleshed out some of the details, including how the story would start.
The main character would be a merge of two people:
A professional therapist from Earth, who chronically overworks himself in his endless drive to help people. He has a fatal car accident after an especially frustrating and tiring day of work.
A cultivator who is in an abusive relationship, and fails his first tribulation largely because of how he has been abused. The failed tribulation damages his soul and almost kills him.
The dying desires of these two people - one wanting to help others and the other needing exactly the kind of help the first can give - connects them, and they end up merging together in the cultivator's body.
The resulting merged person first deals with his own personal problems, and then proceeds to use his therapeutic expertise and scientific knowledge to work miracles in a world that is shockingly ignorant of psychology and science methodology for how much personal power for any cultivator depends on understanding yourself and how things work.
The setting would be fairly standard for the cultivation genre, though I'd put my own twists on the fleshed-out details of how cultivation's progression works. The original bonus post (linked above) could fit at a point fairly far into the story, but most story arcs would have any therapy elements integrated with some manner of action/adventure plot.
"System Discovery Research" or TBD:
While all of the titles for these story ideas are provisional, this one is especially so. A really good title for this one will likely depend on details of the story content that I haven't thought about much yet.
Start with the basic framework of the system apocalypse genre: "The System" comes to Earth and starts integrating it, people get stats, classes, skills, etc., and much chaos ensues. This System in particular would feature unlocking skills by successfully performing the skill's most basic function a requisite number of times, and also merging groups of compatible skills to form more powerful and versatile skills.
The main character for this story would be absolutely determined to figure out what the hell is up with this obviously artificial "System" thing, and takes it upon himself to seek out and acquire whatever specific skill (or skills) will enable him to properly investigate it. He doesn't know what those skills are, but he believes he'll know them when he finds them.
He keeps trying all kinds of things, unlocking many various skills, and rejecting them all to keep his options open. Then, in the story's first chapter, he unlocks the Skill Unlocking skill. He accepts it as his first skill, then proceeds to use it to unlock a bunch of other skills that are otherwise nearly impossible to get.
Once he's gotten his build properly started, he goes on an extended adventure to unearth the origins and purpose of the System. I haven't fleshed out any meaningful details of that yet.
___
Now for the poll: Which of these story ideas sounds the most interesting to you?
Comments
kapo
Firstly, I’m really glad you used the respawning concept here. I think it added a really solid layer of complexity to MiP that would have been missing otherwise. A bit of a long comment here. You can take it or leave it. I am not sure the correct way to say this, but honestly what I want the /most/ is for you to shore up your weaknesses as a writer and do a full rewrite of MiP. Your biggest and most glaring weakness is your flat characterization. I put my thoughts below and enumerated them, but more for readability than coherency. 1. Coddle Carlos and Amber less. The final fight showed you clearly have the ability to write interesting combat, so lean into that. Keeping them out of combat for almost the entirety of the series so far is an insult to your ability as a writer. You added appropriate stakes, the tension was high, you even showcased some of the ridiculous beliefs of the Crown mid-battle. Maybe you don’t like writing action? That’s okay, too, but you show a lot of potential to be good at it and most of the stories you’re proposing would necessarily include it, so hopefully you aren’t /that/ opposed. I think you could write interesting and distinct action scenes at their various levels of power. I wish you did. 2. Make it clear how both of them feel in any given situation—Carlos has expressed distrust (or at least cynicism) of the Crown and nobility, but neither he nor Amber seem to have any qualms about suddenly being nobles and having all of this power over people. They never once think about how to improve the lives of others and they barely consider the potential consequences of elevating Kindar to noble-rank (I don’t mind that they did it, but it was weird that they barely talked about it on a broader scale beyond getting Amber reparations). 3. It’s possibly neither of them /care/ about others, but it’s /weird/. If they don’t care that should be addressed. For what little we know of her, it feels out of character for Amber. Carlos has a lot of advanced thoughts about power structures from Earth, not by being particularly interested in it but simply by virtue of coming from an education system that teaches of monarchy like a thing of the past. There should at least be some incongruity there, even if he personally has little interest. I could easily imagine him sharing modern-values with Amber in an offhand way, and having her consider their application. She at least /seems/ more interested in the outside world than he is, despite both of their hyperfixations on magic. Amber has a passing historical interest as well, and it would be really interesting to lean on that. 4. Carlos found the “help” spell that he explicitly thinks was meant to make magic available to everyone, but immediately makes it a house secret. This makes sense in the short-term as he is in an admittedly precarious position while he establishes himself, but does he really not consider disseminating this knowledge? Is this another sign that he really doesn’t care about others? Even if it seems temporarily impossible to teach, I’m sure he or Amber could find a way to convey the knowledge without exposing Purple’s sapience. 5. He also has a weird relationship with secrets, extremely readily sharing them with some people but still hoarding them? It was strange that he wasn’t willing to make a deal with the crown for the enchantment on the armor. To my understanding, it wasn’t knowledge the crown could use against them, and did not in any way share more of House Carlos’s secrets. More than that, the reward would have to have been /hefty/. The Crown more than likely wouldn’t have even been able to apply them for quite a long while as none if their mages have the soul structures to work with them, so it wouldn’t even interfere with the final fight. It also wouldn’t interfere with Elston’s decision to execute them, given that he clearly was willing to kill them simply for having royal soul structures and would use any excuse. 6. Actually address it when characters do things that impact each other (e.g., Purple deciding to straight up share one of House Carlos’s soul structures, Amber deciding to use the anti-magic spell during the fight with the dragon after Carlos has sworn it off with obvious seriousness, etc.). 7. Honestly your handling of noble politics could use some work, but I can’t say that I hated its lack of dimensionality as I personally am uninterested in reading intricate political machinations in my adventure-fantasy stories. There’s just not very much nuance, or if there is nuance it hasn’t been much explored. Some of these people have gotta have /feelings/, right?? Even if you don’t change the actual actions anyone makes, I would love for there to be more dimension to their thoughts, feelings, and motivations. 8. Carlos and Amber don’t have a lot of chemistry, even though it was obviously leading to a relationship between them from the get-go. I think you were leaning into them having an emotional bond that develops slowly and steadily, but it feels pretty unbalanced. Amber offers almost nothing to that equation, though I guess her helping him understand the world could be part of it? If this man had /any/ emotions he would probably experience a /lot/ more turmoil from the very intense culture shock, and there’s an excellent opportunity there for Amber to be not just a source of knowledge but also a source of stability. The framework for that is already there. I would 100% read this story again if you revised it. I think it has a lot of potential and that you have a lot of potential as a writer, but I can’t see myself enjoying any of your other ideas unless you seriously improve the complexity of your characters: their motivations, opinions, reactions (on an emotional level), etc. Power of the Heart is the only one of your other ideas the is unique, and I think it could potentially be very good, but I genuinely don’t think you have the ability to write it right now. Carlos’s home therapy was cheesy, and given that you haven’t showcased many complex human emotions, I don’t see you writing about an abusive relationship with the care it requires unless you did extensive research. Most of what makes MiP so good is your application of solid source knowledge to a fantasy setting. You clearly put a lot of thought into their compatibility and synergy, and while I sincerely wish the development had happened a lot slower so that it could have been more thoroughly explored, explained, and tested (and that they actually had to out effort in), it was unquestionably enjoyable to read about. I’m not sure how transferrable your reader base is to these other plots, but that doesn’t mean you can’t come up with something else unique. Just maybe play around with ideas a little more?
Christian Kenney
I’m here for MiP only : /
Jonathan
I like the "What's the big deal about dying?" / "Juggernaut of Defense" option. Cultivation and system integration stories are a lot out there, and I'm not really a fan of those types. The soul story, I haven't seen that type of story. And it feels like it'd be similar to MiP in a sense.
Worros
Congratulations, you've grown quite a lot as a writer since chapter 1. I can almost feel where you're writing around you're own early decisions - the story and quality continues to improve. I love the idea of an isekai'd therapist, it hasn't been done (well?) as far as im aware, in part due to its difficulty. But. Unless you have a significant professional background I suspect it might be beyond you as an author right now. Pop psychology is so, so bad and divisive to read. It only takes a minor skim of comments on Patreon (let alone RR) of any MC (in any story) doing some "real" self reflection or emotional growth to see how your readership will react. Everyone becomes Mary Sue when that happens for some reason.
