Profile picture
Melissa Caruso
@melisscaru
, 8 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
Fantasy vs. Magic realism:

So you're walking home from work and you meet a talking moose.

Fantasy: Tells you why/how the moose talks (Moose shifter, fairy blessing, etc)

Magical realism: Look, it's a fucked up world and sometimes you meet a talking moose, what do you want
Also, importantly, magic realism has a specific (Latin American) cultural origin & lineage.

Also also, fantasy can be literary without being magical realism!

But I don't have moose analogies for either of those. 😂
(Obligatory "Oh hey this blew up" tweet, feel free to ignore)

So, uh, while I haven't written magic realism since college, I do have a fantasy trilogy: amazon.com/gp/bookseries/…

No talking moose, alas, but lots of twisty political intrigue and fire magic! A few elk in Book 2. 😂
Some really excellent additional, serious, non-moose-related expansions/clarifications have come up in the comments, like this:

And this...

I should add that if your moose is really random, meaningless, and/or silly, it's probably absurdist, surrealist, or comic rather than a magic realism moose. Magic realism moose is part of a deeper truth.

(Fantasy can also use magic/moose as metaphor for RL issues, though.)
Also this, and I second that 100 Years of Solitude is an AMAZING book and one of the great classics of magic realism:

There's more good stuff in the comments (and a lot of moose jokes 😂), I just can't keep up! 😁

I should add the disclaimer that I am not a magic realism expert, I'm just a fantasy writer with a literature degree who impulse-posted a moose tweet. 😅
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to Melissa Caruso
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @melisscaru see all

Profile picture
Melissa Caruso
@melisscaru
Oh crap. I think I finally figured out publishing.

IT'S THE FAIRY REALM.

Think about it.

(Thread)
Time passes differently there. A hundred years can go by in the time it takes for an agent fairy to read a single query.
Sometimes an evil fairy may appear before you pretending to be a good fairy, and offer to make all your wishes come true. You must be on your guard and pay careful attention to the phrasing of your contract.
Read 9 tweets
Profile picture
Melissa Caruso
@melisscaru
I just had a great question that has inspired me to do a thread about the many stages of editing! And also how other people (CPs, agents, editors, etc) get involved in the process, and who ultimately does what.
(Spoiler: Ultimately, you do everything. But other people can be INCREDIBLY SUPER HELPFUL AND AWESOME.)
So, stage one: Write novel. Done? YAY!!! Congratulations!

Stage two: Edit it yourself. You can do this any way you like, but I find it really useful to approach it in rounds that more or less mirror the editing process at a publisher:
Read 31 tweets
Profile picture
Melissa Caruso
@melisscaru
I got a whole bunch of great suggestions for a craft thread! I may use some of the others later, but right now I'm going to try to tackle engaging dialogue.

So...dialogue craft thread ahoy!
Dialogue is a huge topic.There are so many different ways to write it well, and so many different factors that go into it. I'm just going to spew out a bunch of tips. This isn't going to be any kind of all-inclusive How To Do Dialogue manual (if there could even be such a thing).
Some important factors:

Voice! Every character should have their own unique voice. Ideally, I should be able to guess who's speaking without tags.

Word choice, sentence length, cadence, exclamations & expletives, worldview, how they describe things, etc all factor in.
Read 22 tweets

Related threads

Profile picture
Jessica Price
@Delafina777
Also one of my best friends (I'll let him identify himself if he wants) grew up Catholic in New Mexico, so, like Legit Catholic. He and a coworker were walking home from work when the missionaries approached them.
My friend said, in the voice a door would speak with as it slammed shut, "I'm Catholic," and kept walking. His coworker stopped and engaged.

"So," my friend says when telling this story, "I left him there."

"You abandoned him!?" we always gasp.
And his answer is, "I showed him what to do. He didn't do it."

Catholics do NOT MESS AROUND, yo.
Read 4 tweets
Profile picture
Victoria Brownworth
@VABVOX
I don't think men really understand how different it is to be a woman out in the world and how quickly things can turn dangerous.
When I was living in New Orleans, I was walking home from work one night. It was fall--dark early & foggy.
A man came out of the fog toward me.
1/
He said hi, I said hi.
As he started to pass me, he asked me if I had the time.
I looked at my watch, looked up, he had a gun pointed at me.
He hit me so fast I wasn't able to steel myself.
I fell to the ground.
He said, "I could rape you right now, but I don't have time."
2/
He wanted my money.
I had the grocery money for the entire house (I lived with 3 other people) in my purse.
He took it and disappeared into the fog.
The whole thing was maybe ten minutes, start to finish.
I was shaking so hard I could hardly get up.
My head was bleeding.
3/
Read 20 tweets
Profile picture
Flakmagnet #FBPE #WATON
@Flakmagnet1
WHY I LOVE THE EU- a personal HISTORY thread.

I'm going to start with the story of a young man, born at the end of WW1, in France. This man, much later, became my grandfather. I will refer to him as GP (GrandPa).
His parents were from farming stock. The family had lived in the same sleepy rural village for centuries. In time, his father, a lucky survivor of the trenches, became mayor of the village. Wanting his son to have a better life, he sent him to train as an agronomist.
This was a highly respected job in a farming community. By the time he was 20, life was good. He had a SPORTS CAR, some money, respect from the local community. He was popular with LADIES. Life was GOOD.
Read 25 tweets
Profile picture
Lincoln's Bible
@LincolnsBible
lonepinepublishing.com/cat/9781894864…
Read 29 tweets
Profile picture
Tanmoy Goswami
@toymango
Every day next few days I'll share one #depression/#anxiety insight from my own experience. If it helps anyone a wee bit, it'll be worth it.
1. "#Happiness" can scare #anxiety patients. In our heads, things are always going wrong. Fear of a "happy" moment undone is doubly painful.
Sorry, this won't be a daily affair as I had earlier imagined. But here's insight #2 based on my brush with #depression/#anxiety.
Read 96 tweets

Trending hashtags

#GUESS #SnowRemoval #Ratlines #MBep10 #shitshow #publicdefender #CONCERT #HolySmear #EmilyXaver #Selfie #stress #DIRTYLAWYERS #perpetrators #crimescene #DIRTYCOPS #ThisIsPasco #DIRTY #profoundly #MBrewatch #home #compassion #colouring #opportunity #admitted #cliche
Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!