I'm not even sure if this is the right forum for this, since one of the points of magical realism is that it takes place in the real world. However, if anyone else is attempting a magical realist novel, I'd love to chat about it. I fell in love with Julio Cortazar and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in a writing workshop last year and decided I wanted to write something, if not exactly in that style, incorporating magical elements into an otherwise realistic world. My novel is still being fleshed out, but it was originally conceived as a historyical fiction set in 18th century Ireland. It still is, but I've decided to draw plot structure and themes from Irish folklore and I thought magical realism could fit in with that (in some strange sort of way that possibly only makes sense in my head).
I don't exactly have a specific question for you guys, but if you have anything to say about magical realism, I'd love to talk about it.
----------
51,327 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 09 23
I'm not writing magical realism so much, but I adore it as a style. I'd like to try writing it some day.
I read One Hundred Years of Solitude a couple of years ago, and loved it. Another author who does magical realism well is Isabel Allende; if you haven't read her stuff, go check out The House of the Spirits.
Good luck on you novel!
----------"What, I'm not allowed to hit people?"
"Not people capable of genocide."
2006: Whole (won)
2007: Still Undead (pending)
0 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 09 36
If you're setting it in Ireland, there is all sorts of potential for the "fairy tales" to be true. Perhaps none of your human protagonists are able to cast magic, but they've done kindnesses to the Wee Ones or the Proud Ones, who in turn protect and/or assist them in ways they could never have imagined.
50,195 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 15 08
My Nanwrimo novel last year was based in reality...Well, sort of. I used a lot of Celtic mythology as well as it was about the trininty (maiden, mother, crone) and a section of it was set in Dublin (I spent some time looking up actually professor names at Trininty College to make it more real). I think modernizing folklore and mythology just brings you closer to your roots.
I had a blast researching my novel. It moved around in time a good deal...to make a long story short, each major section had to do with some actual world catastrophe. Imaging my characters in historical situations was exhausting, but very rewarding.
Journals on the internet and library research helped me IMMENSLY.
I say, go for it and lots of luck!
21,031 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 15 28
My Nanowrimo novel will be very similar. Its going to be set in Boston in 2008. It will simply be a world where magic is something most everyone does and has always done. Sort of like singing. For some it will be for pleasure, some for knowledge some tied to religion or what have you, but it will have always been a part of the world history, And history will have played out exactly as it has despite the existance of magic. Some events will simply have had a different aspect to them.
3,500 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 17 02
I've never written an entire novel in the Magic Realist genre. I've done short stories. It can be hard to pull off, because it has to have the atmosphere just right for it to work. Read Marquez's "Strange Pilgrims", a collection of short stories, to see what I mean. Many of these stories have no magic in them directly at all, but they still have the atmosphere.
----------13,352 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 18 15
Other books of Magical realism include 'The Thief Lord' by Cornelia Funke and 'Anansi Boys' by Neil Gaiman. I'm not writing magical realism though.
----------Sublime Dissonance - NaNoWriMo
An author is fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations…. – Charles De Montesquieu
0 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 18 21
Try reading the Codex Alera by Jim Butcher series. I know it in itself isn't in a modern world but a system similar to his would work well.
----------Do the best you can with what you have.
83,759 / 50,000
Oct 17, 2007 - 19 57
I'm not entirely sure if what I'm writing is magical realism or not...
The setting isn't entirely real: it's a sort of generic woods-near-mountains town in an age that's sort of ancient/14th century/Kievan Rus' like. It's sort of the place equivalent of an Everyman. It's called simply Forest Glen.
There is a lot of confusion. Magic is linked to insanity, so most people who can do magic are usually also insane, and thus, most sane, non-magical people don't believe in magic. This is helped, of course, by the fact that acts of magic look just like coincidence. And the few sane magic people don't dispel this.
All three of my main characters spend most of their time in my novel being insane. It's written in 1st person switching POV. This allows each character to believe what they believe and also show which things they believe are real... except that none of the other narrators are 100% reliable either. So, a big question is: "What's real?"
For example, in one planned scene, Isobel thinks she's surrounded by several dwarves (definitely more than four) and that she's having a conversation with a dwarf named Alric. In the same scene from Alric's point of view (Alric is not a dwarf), he sees three dwarves and one human (but no other dwarves or humans), but he thinks he's talking to a woman he used to love, named Mahaut.
In reality, it *is* Isobel, and she has three dwarves that she has created through magic to help her survive in the cave in the forest after running away from her stepmother (who is Mahaut, the third POV character). Sarah, Isobel's family's housekeeper is also there, but Isobel thinks she's a dwarf, because at this point in the story, she can't perceive anyone as anything other than a dwarf. Alric thinks Isobel is Mahaut because he's obsessed with Mahaut.
The magic is hidden, and I plan to NEVER explain what is actually going on. What is actually going on is that the world of fairy tales has found a way to slowly seep into the world. This is creating more magic but that world is static, and can only recreate the archetypal versions of stories. So anyone coming in contact with it is forced into a fairytale role (the stepmother's insanity makes her evil, for example). This world is there, but I'm never going to actually talk about it in the story...
Anyway, it's definitely what I'd call Dark Literary Fantasy, but that might mean Magical Realism... I just don't know for sure.
----------The Mirror Crack'd: Literary Dark Fantasy? Symbolism, Archetypal Plots, and Insanity, oh my! And, psst... what's with all the dwarves?
13,352 / 50,000
Oct 18, 2007 - 04 29
No it's not. Magical realism is defined by setting a book in the world as we know it, in the current era, and then adding magic. For instance 'The thief lord' by Cornelia Funke is totally set in the present day except for the McGuffin; a magical carousel.
However while what you're writing is not Magical realism, I'd love to read it.
----------Sublime Dissonance - NaNoWriMo
An author is fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations…. – Charles De Montesquieu
40,458 / 50,000
Oct 18, 2007 - 04 38
Question for you all...
How does magical realism differ from urban fantasy? Or from the earlier incarnation of urban fantasy--these days, the genre is filled with a lot of vampires and werewolves, so I think I'm asking how magical realism differs from the books of Charles de Lint, Emma Bull, Pamela Dean...those old (and not so old) stories set in the real world with magic slipped in?
----------Avangyline, fear_and_faith