WRITING MAGIC REALISM

How often when faced with dreadful situations do we dream of a magical escape? Bills are overdue and we buy a Lotto ticket, we take a chance, putting our hopes on some stroke of magic to save the day. Is this where fairy tales and myth, parables and fables come from; to help us cope with difficulties and explain the unexplainable?

So just to be sure we’re on the same page, magic realism is not fantasy. In fantasy our characters abide in the fantastical milieu, there is no place for the realistic. In magic realism our characters are faced with a situation that cannot be realistically explained in the cold light of day.  An event, a happening, a shift from the real into the unreal and back again changes the story. A folk tale or myth, intuition or clairvoyance comes to light in the midst of a realistic situation.  We are the wiser for this information and we’re left with a new understanding of the story.

Often magic realism is woven throughout the story as in Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, it is the lynchpin of the whole book. In Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield, magic realism pops up in folk tales and visions that, like the river, inundate the story and weave their magic into the lives of the villagers. The magic realism these stories reveal explains the whys and hows of events that we thought we understood but now have a new and better understanding, and all now makes delightful sense.

Other times a little magic is used as a character faces a dark night of the soul and finds himself in a world of new-found understanding through a supernatural experience. Think Scrooge, he doesn’t need to explain his ghosts to anyone but he is forever changed.

Magic realism is often found in different language, intimate words and metaphor that speak of symbols and allegory. It is a magical place we can go to in our story to give it an edge of enchantment and save it from the mundane.