How do I write Magical Realism?

J

JoanDrake

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Really, I've been reading Kafka, Philip K Dick and Gabriel Garcia Marquez for months now and I enjoy them so much I've really just got to try my hand at it. But I need some more insight. Is there any text or author's tutorial on how to write this genre?
 
Magical realism must come from the heart, not from a manual. It is as the colour of love or the dance of a butterfly's wings. Now, I must tend to my flock of sheep.


(So, in summary, I don't know :D)
 
It is a genre i think you have to read/ watch to know. Pan's Labyrinth is brilliant, if utterly tragic, and a brilliant film which is, in my understanding of the genre, very close to it. The shadow of the wind is a brilliant example of the genre. Anything by Isabelle Allende touches onto it. Davies' deptford trilogy is close.

I love it, as a genre, one of the few fantasy genres I dig. (But, remember in Ireland, we believe in the wee folk, or at least don't dare disbelieve). One day, when I am a growed up writer I will do my magical realism changeling story. And therein lies the challenge for me; the writing skills have to be exquisite and well beyond my current ability. (But it still calls me...)
 
We did. I chose it, but I think that was a mistake, because although there were many excellent stories, just considered as stories, very few people really "got" what magical realism is.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
We did. I chose it, but I think that was a mistake, because although there were many excellent stories, just considered as stories, very few people really "got" what magical realism is.
Click to expand...

Ah, but that month made me explore it and see that many of the writers i love touch onto it and made me look deeper into the genre. The problem, maybe, was how to do it in 75 words. I had a fairy glen one which i could not get down, which was much closer to the genre than my entry, but which made a lovely 1000 worder which i must get off my bum, review and submit to a few places! The challenges are nver wasted...:)
 
My entry that month was nothing like magical realism (that bit dropped off in the editing and I didn't notice, and even then I wasn't very close).

However, if you look at the entries there are two or three (I remember Teresa's and slinderman's) that are very clearly magical realism, so it might be a useful exercise to have a look.

Even now, after that, I'm not sure I could write magical realism. It's a tough one.
 
I agree Hex, it seems to be a very tough genre to write. I wouldn't know the first thing about it.
 
There are some other authors you might want to look at Borges (one of my favorites, everyone should read him anyway). Robert Bolano's 2666 or Savage Detectives. One of my favorite books to sell while I'm at work is Shadow of the Wind. I don't know if it helps but also Vargas LLosa
 
I read that for Magical Realism, you believe in all those things that you see out the corner of your eye. The odd shapes in the woods, the little movements of furniture, the dancing of the shadows. They're no longer a trick of the light, or a momentary bubble on your eye, but the Fae, ghosts, and the things that really do go bump in the night. Everything else, though, is pretty similar to the everyday world.

Another writer to read is Angela Carter. One of my favourite authors, not that anyone would guess. ;)
 
Well, if Hex, Springs and Warren Paul can't do it, I surely have no chance.

Then again, no one can fault me for failing if I try either

I actually just thought it was sort of like these "All The Conspiracy Theories Are Real" type things (and if that is an element, then does that make the MIB movies comedies in the genre?)
 
I think Magical Realism is, for instance, when magic or the supernatural briefly intrudes into a mundane setting and the characters don't really question it, even though magic is not usually a part of their world.

It's as if you wake up one morning and find some fabulous beast in your backyard, and you think, "Oh, I've never seen anything like that before," and you go to work without worrying about it too much, only to come home and find that it's eaten your cat. So then you call Animal Control at your local police department and ask them to take it away, but they say, "Sorry, we only handle domestic animals, not wild ones." Which means that you have to try a whole series of different ways to get rid of it, but none of them work, until, mysteriously, you wake up on another morning and the beast isn't there. So you spend the rest of your life looking for another one like it, but you never do.

Or you're the man who owns a little grocery store, and you think your mother-in-law is working spells on you. You suspect she's always slipping things into the tea she always insists you drink when you visit her house, and you've almost caught her a few times, but never quite. Also, she always smells like Chinese herbs, hemp, and old socks. You tell your best friend and he says, "Well, mothers-in-law will do anything. Mine always sneaks into our house when we're away and does all the cleaning. I wouldn't mind, but the last time she threw away my favorite t-shirt, the one I had since High School." It keeps troubling you, so you go to the library and search all through the stacks until you find a single book about magic written in the 1930's. There is nothing there that can help you, but you decide to find out if the author of the book is still alive, and write to him and see if he has a solution to your problem. He writes back and says he isn't a magician, he wrote the book because he's an anthropologist, but there is a spell that the natives in Peru use to repel hostile magic. You try the spell and after that your mother-in-law is just a sweet little old lady, but you never know for sure if she was really a witch and your spell worked, or it's just that her disposition mellowed after she won $20,000 in a lottery.

Sort of like that, if I understand the genre correctly.
 
Glitch said:
But the weather warmed up and it went away. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

They do that, just when you've learned to depend on them to amuse the cat.

_________

I forgot to mention that if you are writing one of these stories, you get extra points if it all happens somewhere in Latin America. Double the points if you live in Latin America.
 
Not one of my genres, so take this with a grain of salt.

On the "realism" side of things, just write the world. A focus on the injustice and brutality of the world, usually from a some disadvantaged social or economic viewpoint, is common- but mainly just tell a good story.

On the "magical" side of things, when you would normally use metaphor or other symbolism, said symbolism should be accepted by the characters as the literal truth. For instance, an innocent man is acquitted of a brutal murder. He walks out of the courthouse a free man, looks up into the clear blue sky, then spreads his wings and flies away. Also, at least one main character usually has a worldview in which magic is accepted.
 
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