Waving a wand and wiggling the fingers while magic happens is *theatrics*. In **Faust**, Goethe has the Devil make fun of a witch for being too precious and ceremonious with her magic, so you are in good company cutting out the silly hand gestures. Addressing copyright fears, **wands are "stock items"** in stories with magicians and wizards. No one can claim to own them. However, the Potter stories feature magic wands as a rite of passage, as several MacGuffins, and as a symbol for the absolute power which Harry rejects. Wands take up quite a bit of story real estate in a very prominent commercial franchise, and no living person has escaped exposure. > I love the way that wands are like gunfire and how you flick and > attack and it's instant. No weird hand movements or long unwieldy > staffs or canes to use. J.K. Rowling's current spin off series – which appears to be sinking – has reduced the wand's narrative contribution to "*pew pew pew*". You have your own wand idea, so I'd encourage you to go deeper, not reductive. I suggest if you want your magic to look like a Tesla™ plasma zapgun, give it some logical constraints that fit. If it shoots lightning then it is depleting ions and starting fires. There may be limits to how quickly you can "*pew*", how far it shoots, or the dangers of standing in water or near a conductor. Constraints are usually better narrative tools than superpowers.