Is it Magical Realism or Fantasy?

Magical Realism is a term first used by a German art critic, and over time, it evolved into a literary term. Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) is usually the writer most referenced when discussing Magical Realism, but other authors have employed his techniques, and now there are several whose work is held up as an example of the style of writing.

Sometimes, as authors, we use the term to describe a genre, but the elements of Magical Realism can be found in several genres. There are, however, similar threads that run through stories generally recognized as being Magical Realism.

Erroneously, Magical Realism is often described as fantasy, or science fiction. It is neither of these. Fantasy is speculative, allowing us to wonder, “What if vampires were real?” or “What if there were werewolves?” Magical realism, on the other hand, is always serious, and never escapist. It tries to convey the reality of a world view that exists, or did exist.

Magical Realism tells a story from the perspective of people who live in our world and experience a different reality. It shows the world through others’ eyes. In Magical Realism, unreal elements are very real. It invites the reader to see the world like fellow humans might see it. Elements of story portray the ordinary as astonishing, and the astonishing as ordinary.

Perhaps it is best explained by saying the reader of Magical Realism remains grounded in the real world, while experiencing a scene as another might see it. Fantasy, on the other hand, is not grounded in reality, but rather in the unreal.

Only by reading authors like Marquez, or a book like Leslie Silko’s Ceremony, can we fully understand what Magical Realism is. When well done, levitation and flying carpets, such as Marquez used in One Hundred Years of Solitude, leave us sorting through the experience long after the book is finished, trying to return to what we see as objective reality. As an example, read an excerpt from one of Marquez’ short stories. It opens with this:

“On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs

inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard

and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a

temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench.

The world had been a sad thing since Tuesday. Sea and sky were a

single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach, which on March

nights glimmered like powdered light, had become a stew of mud

and rotten shellfish. The light was so weak at noon that when

Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the

crabs, it was hard to see what it was that was moving and groaning

in the rear of the courtyard. He had to go very close to see that it

was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud, who,

in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn’t get up, impeded by his

enormous wings.”



The writing and scene is grounded in the real world, where an old man with wings lies on the ground.

Leave a comment and let me know if you've read any of Marquez’ books. Authors, do you use Magical Realism in telling your stories?

Do Authors Need a Fan Page?

At the RWA National conference, I sat in on an informative workshop about building your career with Facebook and Twitter. The speakers were Sheri Brooks, Cissy Hartley, and Jayne Ann Krentz. Here are some key points they made, and a few hints that might be helpful for other writers who, like me, are scrambling to keep up with how we can best use our time to market our books.

I don’t Twitter (not yet, anyway) so most of my notes were about utilizing Facebook as a tool to make friends in the reading/writing community.

The speakers emphasized the benefits of a Fan Page on Facebook. Even though you may not have “fans” that you know of, a fan page is a place to update what is taking place in your writing life. Before you say, “Whoa. I don’t have time to keep another page up,” let me explain. You can add an RSS feed on your Page, so that updates go there without you having to do it individually. It holds your book covers and any other content you want to put there, such as upcoming releases or signings.

Put Widgets on your FB page so entries will go to your Home Page. Also, use the Discussion Tab on your Fan Page. The speakers suggested holding a writers’ workshop, where people can pose questions.

Fans can interact with each other by using the Wall or Discussion Board on your fan page. Also, as admin, you have access to stats on the traffic for your fan page.

On your Fan Page, you can have a Favorites Pages box, where you highlight other pages you like. It could serve as a link-exchange tool and bring you more fans.

Once you get your Fan Page up (and you can do it all behind the scenes before you click “Publish”), put out an announcement that you’ve opened a Fan Page and that there is a contest there. A prize offering will guide them to your fan page.

So, now that I’ve told you what I learned, I’m going to try to build a Fan Page myself. Authors: Let me know if you have one already, or if it’s something you want to do. Readers: Would you like your fav author to have a fan page, where you could keep up with her books and discuss them with other fans?

Publisher information at RWA

In a departure from my usual blog postings, I'm going to offer a quick replay of what I learned in various Publisher Spotlight sessions at the recent RWA conference in Orlando this past week. In spite of the change of venue, necessary because of the floods in Nashville, the conference went off smoothly. For my workshop on Researching for Historicals, the room had been prepared and all was in readiness. That, combined with my capable moderator, Megan Kelly , herself an author with a later workshop, made the workshop a success, if I can judge by the comments afterward.

     Before attending national, I was familiar with local chapter conferences, where I honed the craft and improved my writing skills. To this day, I strongly recommend  RWA workshops to any aspiring author, no matter the genre.

     That said, the RWA National offers not only wonderful workshops about the craft, career choices, and marketing, but also includes something that smaller conferences cannot justify, financially. Bringing top-notch N.Y. editors from popular publishing houses to present panels on what they're looking for and how to submit, makes the price of the conference fee worth every dime.

     To my surprise, I learned that Sourcebooks, Grand Central, and St. Martin's all take unagented material from published authors, if done according to their guidelines. (Email me if you need further info.) Since my previous agent and I have parted ways, my ears perked up when I heard this. 

     For unpublished authors, talks by agents like Ethan Ellenberg, Kristen Nelson, and others, gave an insight as to how to write the query and synopsis that will grab their attention. They are, after all, looking for that next great author who will rise from the slush pile to the NYTimes best-seller list.

     So save your pennies (well, okay, dollars) for next year's RWA National in N.Y. City. I promise you, you'll not be disappointed.

If You Love History. . .

One of the highlights of my recent London visit was to Westminster Abbey, the church in which many historical figures were married, crowned, and buried. The abbey is a virtual history of England, and to visit there was like walking into the past.

London Skyline from the Thames

Your ticket allows entry to almost every part of the abbey and grounds. Some of the more memorable sights in the abbey were the St. Edward Shrine, Henry VIII’s Lady Chapel, and the coronation chair used by Edward I in the 13th century (and by every succeeding monarch during the coronation ceremony).

Thousands of notables are buried at Westminster Abbey, from kings and statesmen to men of ordinary birth who later gained fame, such as Charles Dickens, George Frederic Handel, and Charles Darwin.

The Pyx chamber is one of the earliest parts of the abbey, and one that caught the eye of this medievalist. The chamber was built around 1070 and has low vaulted ceilings and tile floors, giving at a medieval feel. It was probably used as the treasury in the 13th century, and Henry III may have used it as a sacristy. In 1303 the treasury was stolen while the king was in Scotland. The abbot and monks were suspected and sent to the Tower, but were later released when the real culprit was identified and hung. After the theft, builders installed heavy double oak doors, which guard the entrance to this day. Inside the chamber are two large 13th century chests, emptied now of their valuables. Earlier, the Pyx Chamber held wooden boxes (pyxes) which contained coins of the realm. The coins awaited the recurring public demonstration, where a few coins were melted down to prove their purity.

I could have spent another full day or two in Westminster Abbey, but there were other places I needed to see, like the library I’ll blog about in my next post.

Medusa Heads and a Sinking Palace

Justinian, the 6th century Byzantine emperor, built a system of cisterns beneath the city of Constantinople, now Istanbul in Turkey. One of these cisterns, dubbed the “sinking palace” by locals, can be seen by visitors, and is unusual because the cistern itself resembles an abandoned palace. It is one of several hundred cisterns which lie beneath a thriving metropolis of trams and city streets.

The 336 Roman columns supporting the massive structure are what give the cistern the look of a palace hall, but the columns do not match, having been brought to the site by the builders, who confiscated them from Roman ruins throughout the city.

The columns support an area designed to hold 27 million gallons of water, which was piped in from twelve miles away through clay pipes and aqueducts.

Through the years, the pipes became clogged and the cistern fell into disuse. In the 15th century, a Dutch visitor to the city discovered the abandoned cistern when he noted that families were getting water from buckets dropped through holes in their basements. The citizens discovered the Roman columns and quickly realized they had a treasure beneath their city. A clean-up operation was begun, which unearthed a mystery.

Two marble Medusa heads are wedged beneath two of the columns. One head lies on its side, the other is upside down. There is disagreement as to why the heads were brought there. Some believe they were simply put there to elevate the two columns to the required height to match the others, but others believe the heads were taken there because of the Medusa legend, and the fact that statues of Medusa were said to protect a building from damage by attacking armies.

What is known is that we will never discover the truth about the Medusa heads, nor why an emperor would have condoned the use of recycled building materials for a project so vital to the city. Could it have been his wife, that much-maligned empress Theodora, who may have suggested recycling the Roman columns, thereby teaching the emperor a lesson in frugality?

Chained Library at Hereford

Documents dating from the 8th century draw researchers to this old library in the UK. The cathedral stands on a site where worshippers have joined together for twelve-hundred years. Today, the library of the Hereford Cathedral is known for its medieval books and the precious Mappa Mundi, a medieval map that gives visitors an insight as to how medieval scholars saw the world.

The library is perhaps best known for its unique security system. Chaining books was a widespread practice during the Middle Ages, when printed books were priceless and hand-written volumes took years to produce. The Hereford Cathedral library is the largest surviving chained library. The chains, rods, and locks are intact, just as when first utilized.

Chains are attached to the front of the books, and the forepages, instead of the spine, face the front of the shelf. That way, the books can be removed for reading at the desk, without the risk of tangling the chain. The library also has blocks and printing presses from 1611. Music recitals and other cultural events are held there. The library currently serves as a research center for the cathedral, and is a major tourist attraction for the town of Hereford.

Medieval Manuscripts in a Swiss Library

This is the second of several blogs about old libraries that are worth seeing.
The Abbey Library of St. Gall in eastern Switzerland holds over 140,000 manuscripts, including some original parchments dating from the 9th century.
The library has been in existence since 719, and was named after St. Gall, an Irish hermit whose hermitage was on this same spot. After his death, a small church was erected on the site. The church later developed into the Abbey of St. Gall, which came to be an important monastery renowned for its scriptorium and the scholars who worked there. The institution became secularized in the 18th century, after a series of political wars.
The library is one of the richest repositories of medieval literature in the world, and is designated as an UNESCO World Heritage site. Many of the manuscripts were copied by Anglo-Saxon and Irish monks. As the holdings of the library became known, Charlemagne requested chanters be sent from Rome to the abbey, and these singers helped spread the use of Gregorian Chant throughout the territory.
Over two thousand handwritten books remain in the library collection, and the digitalization of the priceless collection is still underway. Some of these documents can be seen on the Codices Electronici Sangallences webpage, and at Intuit in UK (register to search and save data), the manuscripts are translated into several languages, including English.
The abbey library interior is in the Rococo style, with carved wood, stucco, and paint exemplary of the period (see picture above). Exhibitions and concerts are held there, and the library is open to the public.