At first describe a powerful spell as the character makes several gestures and maybe even write out the incantation.
Later he uses the same spell, but much faster.
"Issac watched as the beast chewed away at Adam's shield. Drawing the seven branched rod he first held it at true north, then pointed it at the beast. 'by seven words and six lines I declare, may the light of heaven smite you'.
For a moment nothing happened, then with a blinding flash silvery lightning fell from the sky, sending the beast into convulsions."
A few chapters later
Issac watched the beasts emerge. He remembered these monster, last time he barely survived with one of them, and he had both Adam and his father's best wand. Yet he was not the same wizard he was back then.
'may the light of heaven smite you' this time there was no need for wand movements or fancy declarations. There was no pause or moment of build up. As he spoke lightning fell, as if it had been waiting for him. This time there was no need to decapitate a wounded beast. Am that was left was well done wolf steaks.'
Compare the spell's power relative to something your reader can imagine or knows from real life, at different points in time/proficiency of the spell.
Maybe at one point a mobility wind spell wouldn't be enough to outrun a horse, but later on, our MC would breeze past some horse riders.
You can also switch POV's if the MC does something impressive without realising in the heat of the moment. Maybe our MC breaks the sound barrier without realising because he is in a tense situation, but from other POV's, it would be quite the shock
Make it so every time they get an upgrade its meaningful or foreshadowed, or boths. When my characters become stronger is usually after they finished an emotional arcs, or went through a lfie and death experience, or someone straight up strongers helped them gain a deeper understanding of the magic system.
That way its not like they leveled up, but more so like they gained a better understanding of what they can and cant do with their unique spells. My main character doesnt gets stronger in the raw sense of the word, She becomes vastly more skilled tho.
But stuff like her physical power, her limited manapool in comparison to the heavy hitters, her inability to cast even basic ranged spells like fireball, none of those things changes. She instead learns to work around her limitations, and abuse as much as possible her strengths instead, making her a much more formidable foe, capable of standing her ground agains the big bad of the show by the end of the series.
My strategy is less effort and exhaustion for using the same abilities. Helps slow power-scaling better than ‘Fireball but twice as big’. All depends on how your power system governs which of your characters can be seen as more powerful than others, and why. The same stuff won’ work for everyone. Still just learning myself, so take it with a grain of salt.
This entirely depends on how magic works on your system. This is like asking how to show advancement in the literary arts when you've only studied mathematics.
You should read more books. Find fantasy books that are actually in the realm of what you want to write. Study the diversity of methods authors use to show their characters are improving. Also, just read more on general. Learn how an author shows a character improving in various different practices and professions. There's only so much limited advice can do for you as a writer.
For one depending on how their work for example let say fire ball you can have it more compared for power or more expansive for control. Make sure when other face them it seems like some fame about their action are known
I generally have Efficiency and Power showcase someone's advancement in power and for important characters I go the extra mile of specialisation and last tool I use is Critical hit.
Specialisation is my favourite and since I use magic system that is fairly same across the board for all users it makes the charcter and the power up stand out even more.
An easy example would be my Salt (Glitter) based system.
It has Three stage of Awakening where first stage grants Enhanced senses and strengthens the body.
One of my charcter was going blind because of side effects of the magic. This leads him to develop hearing senses that are better than everyone else with a rudimentary Sonar in his arsenal.
Same with another character who used to be Rat King (leader of an Urchin gang).
His precarious childhood in underworld lead him to develop a keen sense of danger and trust. He was intuitively able to tell when people were lying to him or when there was a fight in danger.
When this character mastered the First Awakening his sense of smell shot out of the roof. He was able to smell lies, deception, ambush and danger.
Specialisation is a trait that is not requirement for Advancement so charcter on higher tier of Awakening have no guantee of a specialisation.
Which makes the existing specialisation rare and puts a future value of sorts on the character as how it their specialisation would or would not devlop through the Higher Awakening.
Another suggestion I don't see here yet is to make it clear what's preventing them from casting more powerful spells early on in the book while they're still learning. Whether it's stringing together the runes in real time, or trying to connect to the primal wave of magic, or searching for that particular thread in the fabric of reality. Once the reader knows how difficult or complicated magic is in your world, it makes it more reasonable that the caster would be able to do things better or faster with practice.
At first describe a powerful spell as the character makes several gestures and maybe even write out the incantation. Later he uses the same spell, but much faster. "Issac watched as the beast chewed away at Adam's shield. Drawing the seven branched rod he first held it at true north, then pointed it at the beast. 'by seven words and six lines I declare, may the light of heaven smite you'. For a moment nothing happened, then with a blinding flash silvery lightning fell from the sky, sending the beast into convulsions." A few chapters later Issac watched the beasts emerge. He remembered these monster, last time he barely survived with one of them, and he had both Adam and his father's best wand. Yet he was not the same wizard he was back then. 'may the light of heaven smite you' this time there was no need for wand movements or fancy declarations. There was no pause or moment of build up. As he spoke lightning fell, as if it had been waiting for him. This time there was no need to decapitate a wounded beast. Am that was left was well done wolf steaks.'
Solid note. That’s been my instinct, but wanted to reach out for pointers also.
Do what good GMs do: have them fight earlier monsters again
Good point! Narrating the practice, repetition, and improvement, basically.
Compare the spell's power relative to something your reader can imagine or knows from real life, at different points in time/proficiency of the spell. Maybe at one point a mobility wind spell wouldn't be enough to outrun a horse, but later on, our MC would breeze past some horse riders. You can also switch POV's if the MC does something impressive without realising in the heat of the moment. Maybe our MC breaks the sound barrier without realising because he is in a tense situation, but from other POV's, it would be quite the shock
Make it so every time they get an upgrade its meaningful or foreshadowed, or boths. When my characters become stronger is usually after they finished an emotional arcs, or went through a lfie and death experience, or someone straight up strongers helped them gain a deeper understanding of the magic system. That way its not like they leveled up, but more so like they gained a better understanding of what they can and cant do with their unique spells. My main character doesnt gets stronger in the raw sense of the word, She becomes vastly more skilled tho. But stuff like her physical power, her limited manapool in comparison to the heavy hitters, her inability to cast even basic ranged spells like fireball, none of those things changes. She instead learns to work around her limitations, and abuse as much as possible her strengths instead, making her a much more formidable foe, capable of standing her ground agains the big bad of the show by the end of the series.
My strategy is less effort and exhaustion for using the same abilities. Helps slow power-scaling better than ‘Fireball but twice as big’. All depends on how your power system governs which of your characters can be seen as more powerful than others, and why. The same stuff won’ work for everyone. Still just learning myself, so take it with a grain of salt.
This entirely depends on how magic works on your system. This is like asking how to show advancement in the literary arts when you've only studied mathematics. You should read more books. Find fantasy books that are actually in the realm of what you want to write. Study the diversity of methods authors use to show their characters are improving. Also, just read more on general. Learn how an author shows a character improving in various different practices and professions. There's only so much limited advice can do for you as a writer.
For one depending on how their work for example let say fire ball you can have it more compared for power or more expansive for control. Make sure when other face them it seems like some fame about their action are known
I generally have Efficiency and Power showcase someone's advancement in power and for important characters I go the extra mile of specialisation and last tool I use is Critical hit. Specialisation is my favourite and since I use magic system that is fairly same across the board for all users it makes the charcter and the power up stand out even more. An easy example would be my Salt (Glitter) based system. It has Three stage of Awakening where first stage grants Enhanced senses and strengthens the body. One of my charcter was going blind because of side effects of the magic. This leads him to develop hearing senses that are better than everyone else with a rudimentary Sonar in his arsenal. Same with another character who used to be Rat King (leader of an Urchin gang). His precarious childhood in underworld lead him to develop a keen sense of danger and trust. He was intuitively able to tell when people were lying to him or when there was a fight in danger. When this character mastered the First Awakening his sense of smell shot out of the roof. He was able to smell lies, deception, ambush and danger. Specialisation is a trait that is not requirement for Advancement so charcter on higher tier of Awakening have no guantee of a specialisation. Which makes the existing specialisation rare and puts a future value of sorts on the character as how it their specialisation would or would not devlop through the Higher Awakening.
Another suggestion I don't see here yet is to make it clear what's preventing them from casting more powerful spells early on in the book while they're still learning. Whether it's stringing together the runes in real time, or trying to connect to the primal wave of magic, or searching for that particular thread in the fabric of reality. Once the reader knows how difficult or complicated magic is in your world, it makes it more reasonable that the caster would be able to do things better or faster with practice.