How to Write Magical Realism

Magical realism is closely related to fantasy, but it is a different genre. Unlike fantasy, which focuses on a sense of wonder, magical realism presents the fantastic as if it’s mundane. When writing magical realism, you should focus on character development and interaction/conflict, symbolism, metaphor and strong imagery.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Choose a scenario for the story. It should be in a realistic setting with characters who are living normal, everyday lives.
2. Start thinking about your characters. Develop their outlooks on life, biases, fears and any other characteristics you will use in the story. This is particularly important because the symbolism and “magic” in magical realist stories often reflect the inner psychological states and conflicts of the characters.
3. Decide on your point-of-view character or characters and the narrative point-of-view.
4. Decide on your point-of-view character or characters and the narrative point-of-view.
5. Think about dreams. A lot of the imagery in magical realism is like dream imagery, and characters respond to it as if it’s normal. In dreams, the most spectacular events and symbols can seem mundane or common.
6. Begin writing your story and add the “magical” to it. The magical aspects can be based on myth, tall tales, dream logic and folktales. The magical can also play with aspects of time. As is true in dreams, time in magical realism doesn’t have to progress naturally.
   
   Make sure you have strong details and vivid description. You want to engross your reader in the world you’ve created with both the magical and the mundane.
7. Have your characters react to the magic as if it’s absolutely normal. For example, a husband and wife can be sitting at the kitchen table when the ghost of the wife’s uncle walks through the wall, enters the kitchen whistling and then walks through the opposite wall to enter the den. The husband and wife are used to the uncle’s ghost, and the husband can say good morning to the ghost without looking up from his paper.
   
   You want these instances to shock and delight the reader. An important way magical realism does this is by making them seem unspectacular in the world of the story.
8. Make sure your symbolism and imagery are consistent. If you’re using the fantastic elements to reflect what’s going on psychologically, you don’t want to use symbolism that doesn’t match. For example, a character with a calm demeanor is not going to be associated with fantastic elements that are catastrophic. Imagine a place where storms and tornadoes come through a town every day from 3:00 to 3:15 PM. Everyone in the town is at odds with each other for different reasons. Then, one Monday, a woman who is at peace with herself comes walking down Main Street at 3:02. The storms run away from her, and sunlight follows her, breaking up the clouds.