Magical realism is a genre set in regular life, but where there is a little bit of magic. So, not a fairy tale land, where people know about fairies. Not a fantasy land where unicorns and dragons run free. But everyday, regular life where suddenly, something out of the ordinary happens.
I could make a case that the story Spindle, Shuttle, and Needle is an example of magical realism in the Grimm stories. An orphaned girl doesn’t expect magic to happen to her, is surprised when it does, but she rolls with it.
After a maiden’s beloved godmother dies, she continues to work hard and is blessed with both raw materials for her business as well as ready customers.
When a prince comes a’callin, extra strange things start happening. At this point, the maiden is already be attuned to strange things, since she hasn’t needed to buy any materials since her godmother passed away. This small bit of foreshadowing also alerts the reader, giving warning that this is no ordinary story.
The prince is looking for a bride—someone not to rich and not too poor, and when he walks away from the industrious girl spinning away, the spindle jumps out of her hand and follows him, leaving a trail of gold thread behind. He sees it and follows it back to town.
Meanwhile, the maiden has moved on to weaving and now the shuttle jumps out of her hand and begins to weave a beautiful carpet in preparation for the prince.
Next, she moves on to sewing, only to have the needle jump out of her hand and fancy up the rest of the house in preparation for the prince.
Each time, the objects respond to her wishes via a rhyme she sings.
Tips for writing magical realism:
- Begin with the normal world
- Add foreshadowing
- Let the magic happen and let the characters go along with it. They can act surprised, but they don’t bring a whole lot of attention to it.
Here are some other stories we read this week in the #GRIMMread2019 challenge. You’ll note that in the last example, we have the start of fairy tale fantasy, not magical realism because right away the magic is introduced. The author is establishing a fantasy setting, not a “real world” setting.
