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Magic Realism



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Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:06 am
JayBlu says...



I was looking up sub genre's for Fantasy and I realized if I had to classify my writing style in an exact genre, besides just fantasy...which I don't think it needs anything more than fantasy. But to be precisely exact according to some who are sticklers for "proper" and "professional" genre labeling, it would be called Fantasy with a subgenre in Fantasy called Magic-Realism. I found this through Wikipedia. May not be exactly correct but the definition they gave fit my style perfect. Where you take a normal and real world or place like Hong Kong China or Bangko Thailland and base the story in that real city, but have fantasy elements like dragons, vampires...werewolves...witches and wizards. Though somehow Harry Potter doesn't fit in that category....? Idk all these labels are irritating to keep up with. Anyways, that was my style. I usually start in a small town or maybe a small city and move onto to bigger and more grand places later on if need be. But I always have magic. Throwing fireballs or shooting lightning bolts kinda stuff. Just an example, not always fireballs and lightning bolts. But I'm having an issue with my writing now. I've hit a rut I guess. I was inspired by Naruto to try a new way of doing something. I'm not the biggest Naruto fan. It was a good anime...but not worth all the hype it receives. Just my opinion. Yet I have weird tastes anyways. My favorites were always Samurai Champloo and S-Cry-Ed. Anyways my point being I wanted to make a Naruto style storyline. Where I use a real setting like a small town or small city and eventually introduce a world within a world. Where people can use magic..and do more than what the MC thought was possible and learns just because he doesn't believe in it, did not mean it wasn't real in what he thought was the usual world. Yet as far as storyline, I want it to resemble Naruto in pacing. Like in "Arcs" I think the term is called. Where the MC takes part in multiple storylines, faces off in many "final battles"or "boss battles" to decide the fate of whatever...at least until the next one comes along. And it take place over a period of a few, several, or many years with a decent to large cast size. As well as having more then just two or three opposing factions and more than just good versus evil. I always liked stories that had lots of competing factions, with more than good versus evil whereas evil would turn on evil and good would assault and invade other good just making chaos rule completely. Having issues with it. Sorta need assistance. It's....frustrating to say the least and no one to speak about how to do it or even trade ideas for the story plot itself. Anyone available?
  





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Mon Jan 19, 2015 2:22 pm
r4p17 says...



It sound like you are writing something like urban fantasy to me.

Anyways, as for the storyline itself, I can't really help you a lot since you have focused more on the setting. I will warn you about factions though. Generally, it seems to me that factions aren't necessarily good or evil. Generally they focus on undermining each other, not doing something positive. Some might be a little better than others, but the line tends to be pretty fine. I hope this helped.
One writer with one imagination makes thousands of new worlds and stories." ~ Anonymous author
  





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Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:22 pm
Rosendorn says...



What, exactly, are you looking for help with? You've got so many things you want to cover in that post I'm not exactly sure what you're asking.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:56 pm
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Bumpeh says...



The reason Harry Potter wouldn't be included in that genre of Magic Realism is because the majority of the story takes place within a world within a world. The magic world exists separately from the muggle-world, and most of the story takes place in the magic world, specifically Hogwarts.

You do seem to be covering a lot in your post. From what I gather it seems you're trying to find some magical end-all be-all answer on how to write the story you want to write. I hate to break it to you... But there is no magic end-all answer. A lot of writers try to search for this and can't find it.

I see what you're trying to go for, but, the only way to find out how to do it is to try to do it. Keep trying and trying, and each time you learn more about the process, how the story should be, and yourself.

That's my advice to you, sit down and just try to write the thing, and keep writing. Finish a first draft, then a second draft, so on and so forth until you have a finished and polished product you're happy with.

I admire your idea involving how you want to tell the story in arcs, kind of like an anime. But I must warn you, you really should make it different than an anime in that respect.

When I first started writing, my writing style kind of reflected the anime I used to watch. Since then its adapted and evolved. There are certain ways things can be done in animes that just can't be done in books. The same thing can always be done, but it may have to be done differently depending on the medium.

Here's another piece of advice, if you want to do the story in arcs, connect the arcs. In my personal opinion, animes like Naruto, One-Piece and Bleach, while fun to watch, poorly connect their story-lines. Using Naruto as an example, the first episode kind of introduces the story well, but as the story goes on things get to be too much. Too many things are happening over too-long of a time period, and the story crawls along with certain events appearing that don't serve the plot at all in the end and are pointless action. The final-battles and boss-battles you speak of, for a reader, could possibly become exhausting to read. You want to be able to give the reader an exhilarating ride, but if every five pages there's an epic battle, the reader couldn't eventually become disinterested due to predictability.

Those battles in Naruto are fun to watch, one of my favorite would have to be the battle between Sakura and Sasori. The action is great, all the inventive use of Naruto's magic system, the puppets, the blood the poison. It's cool, but the problem is the battle is over-inflated. It takes far too long to occur.

I personally enjoyed Avatar The Last Airbender much more than any anime I ever watched. And yes, I mean the cartoon series, not the terrible film adaptation. The way it presented its story and characters was different than an anime, eventually each event served to strengthen the characters and story and it all connected together. Most animes to me feel disjointed and unconnected, and the characters seem impossibly unrealistic.

This is just my advice, I can't in the end decide how you write the story, that's all up to you. But, from one writer to the other, if you're going to write the story in arcs, have each arc serve the end story. I believe in anime they have these things called "filler-arcs" don't put those in your story. Have each event serve the end-story, connect the characters, make them seem relatable and realistic. I personally feel if animes like Naruto had cut off a few hundred episodes and connected the story, I could have enjoyed them much more.

Also, on the front of the boss-battle thing... I think it would make much more sense to give the story a varying frequency. Put action in the story that isn't inherently related to the antagonists. Or if you involve the antagonist, don't make everything be a battle to the death. To give you an example or two... I just finished reading a novel called The Martian. The antagonist of this story is the planet Mars. It's about an astronaut stranded on Mars struggling to survive. He is put through the worst events possible, and has to figure out how to fix things and survive. But not every event is a final boss-battle. Some events are more easily remedied than others, others are more intense and unpredictable. That's what makes a story more exhilarating and exciting to the reader, not a boss-battle every five pages that becomes monotonous and predictable, but a few enemy battles and a boss-battle at just the right time.

In a movie by M. Night Shyamalan called Unbreakable, he makes the story intense at one of the most trivial things ever. One of the characters who has frail bones and requires a cane to walk properly attempts to go down long subway stairs to find out if a man was carrying a gun on his person. He's chasing this man to find something out, and because he himself is sick and this kind of thing is dangerous for him, it multiplies the intensity. The director made something as trivial as going down stairs an extremely intense moment for the character and the audience. And it wasn't even a boss-battle!

This is just advice from my personal experience with stories and animes. In the end, the world you create is all up to you, write it the way you want to. And that's what's most important, is to write it and keep writing. Good luck with it!
  








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