Mini writing workshop: What is magical realism?

This mini fiction writing workshop dives into one of the genre's: magical realism. I was unfamiliar with it, until one of my fellow Write Club members recently posted a writing prompt that described the genre:

A literary genre or style associated especially with Latin America that incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction.

In other words, the setting and storytelling in magical realism stories is realistic, but the events can be fantastic — things that would never happen in real life. Let's explore this!

When I first read the story prompt, it was with a sense of dread. I can't write fantasy stories. I'm solidly in the literary genre.

But I was wrong about a few things.

Magical realism vs. fantasy

The first thing I was wrong about was that magical realism is the same as fantasy. In fact, they are two distinctly different genres. I found some helpful descriptions in an article from Luna Station Quarterly:

Tsvetan Todorov, a literary theorist famous for his treatment of the fantastic, said that magic realism disrupts the reader’s sense of reality whereas fantasy creates another completely enclosed reality.

Whereas fantasy “imposes absolute closure” and “implies complicity on the part of the readers,” the literary fantastic seeks reader hesitancy.” The story begins in the “real world” and when something unreal happens and the reader is never sure if the cause is supernatural or natural, such as a psychotic break or a drug induced hallucination.

To put it even more simply, whereas fantasy stories typically create a whole alternate world, magical realism sits solidly in reality and introduces elements that are not possible.

Writing in the magical realism genre

The second thing I was wrong about was that I can't do it. I perused my story collection, and realized that I actually have done it. Here are three examples, all written for Steemit contests:

• Forward and Back
• En Route
• Gnarled Wood

I think with anything we do in life, we just have to try things. Especially when it comes to creativity. Experiment. See what works. I wrote all three of these stories when I felt I needed some sparkle — a little something beyond the norm. They are not fantasy stories by any stretch of the imagination, but they all have magical elements.

And yesterday, I wrote this 250 word micro-fiction story: On the way home. The story is very real. It's just the story of an old man walking along a road and talking to a young girl. Nothing unusual at all. Until the very last line.

If I can do it, you can too

But how? Well, if it feels foreign, try writing a micro-fiction story first. Write a very short piece that is about a moment or event that is realistic — something that could happen in real life. And then add a element that is odd and not quite believable. Or even incredibly strange.

A boy is walking in a forest. He hears the sound of a brook nearby, crickets, birds warbling. Then from far off there is another sound. Hooves. Many of them, perhaps hundreds. As he crouches behind thick bushes, a herd of stampeding satrys runs by.

Play with it. See what you come up with.

Magical realism in published literature

In case you are as unfamiliar with the genre of magical realism as I was, there are plenty of examples from well-known writers, and in fact you may have read some of them, as I have!

Here's another quote from the Luna Station Quarterly article that provides several great examples:

Magic realism is often the intersection of culturally competing definitions of reality and that creates an inherent tension. In the case of [Gabriel García Márquez's], 100 Years [of Solitude], it’s the intersection of indigenous and Catholic culture. This is the kind of tension you find in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (the tension between White and Black culture) and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony (the tension between Native American and White culture), even Karen Russel’s story, Reeling for the Empire, about Japanese women sold into slavery and turned into human silk worms by poisoned tea.

What do you think? Will you try it? Or have you, in fact, written stories in this genre? I would love to hear from you.

Oh! And if you do enjoy writing micro-fiction, please check out my weekly contest. Last week's prompt is here. I issue a new prompt each week, with the #microfiction tag.

Thanks for reading!

Want to work with writers and editors to improve your writing? @tanglebranch runs "writers workout" workshops each week in The Writers' Block on Discord.

The writing workshop collection

You can browse my entire collection of writing workshop posts in the links below.

Mini workshop series

Short posts on specific writing topics:

• Mini writing workshop: Should you write in present tense or past tense?
• Mini writing workshop: Must your character do that? (About writing tics and character pet peeves)
• Mini writing workshop: What's it all about? (About story lines)
• Mini writing workshop: Must we fight? (About conflict in fiction writing)
• Mini writing workshop: What's the point? (About making things happen)
• Mini writing workshop: What prompted that? (About writing from prompts)
• Mini writing workshop: Who said that? (Tips for writing dialog)

Mini workshops in 50-word prompt posts

Brief workshops, typically 3-5 paragraphs, at the top of 50-word short story challenge posts:
• Mini writing workshop on "tense"
• Mini writing workshop on the editing process (with a walkthrough example)
• Mini writing workshop on taking time to write
• Mini writing workshop on the power of editing
• Mini writing workshop on critique
• Mini writing workshop on fixing punctuation errors
• Mini writing workshop on mainstream publishing (with a resource for 50-word story authors)
• Mini writing workshop on voice and language (as compared to the importance of plot)
• Mini writing workshop about becoming a great writer
• Mini writing workshop on contests and challenges
• Mini writing workshop on what makes a story a story
• Mini writing workshop on demystifying story writing
• Mini writing workshop on 50-word short story writing process
• Mini writing workshop on the steps for writing 50-word stories
• Mini writing workshop on micro-fiction and writing succinctly
• Mini writing workshop on the "why" of writing
• Mini writing workshop on the challenge of micro-fiction

In-depth workshop posts

The original writing workshop series:
• Writing workshop volume 1: The beginning
• Writing workshop volume 2: Exploring voice in writing
• Writing workshop volume 3: Say what you want to say
• Writing workshop volume 4: Serial fiction projects on Steemit
• Writing workshop volume 5: Getting organized and actually writing
• Writing workshop volume 6: Tips for writing anywhere, anytime
• Writing workshop volume 7: Should you write historical fiction?
• Writing workshop volume 8: Prompts, contests and challenges - oh my!
• Writing workshop volume 9: Pushing through insecurity and writing anyway
• Writing workshop volume 10: Perspective and POV in fiction writing
• Writing workshop volume 11: Second person point of view in fiction
• Writing workshop volume 12: How to write your character's background
• Writing workshop volume 13: What to do with all these voices in my head?
• Writing workshop volume 14: Write your story from a logline
• Writing workshop volume 15: Three tips for improving your fiction
• Writing workshop volume 16: How to accept criticism on your fiction writing
Thank you, as always, for reading, following, upvoting, connecting, HODL'ing, resteeming, laughing, sharing, and being you.

Note: The image is sourced from Pixabay.





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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://jaynalocke.com/2019/01/27/mini-writing-workshop-what-is-magical-realism/

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