At Poets United, the first Sunday of
every month is for prose: short stories (fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir
bits), essays… delicious prose. No poetry,
at Poets United, on the 1st Sunday of every month.
I hope everyone is having a fantastic
day. Since my 42nd birthday was just 2 days ago, I want to be greedy
and give myself the gift of writing and reading my favorite genre: Magical Realism, “a literary genre or
style […] that incorporates fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise
realistic fiction”. Or, as Matthew Strecher might have put it, I wish to delight
in short stories and essays where “a highly detailed, realistic setting is
invaded by something too strange to [be] believe[d without a whole lot of
eyebrow raising and wild blinking].”
One of the most important aspects of
magical realism (in my mind, at least) is that the characters aren’t surprised
by what happens to them, the strange happenings are perfectly natural in their
minds.
Here is an example of magical realism,
from One Hundred Years of Solitude,
by Gabriel García Márquez:
“He went
from house to house dragging two metal ingots and everybody was amazed to see
pots, pans, tongs, and braziers tumble down from their places and beams creak
from the desperation of nails and screws trying to emerge, and even objects
that had been lost for a long time appeared from where they had been searched
for most and went dragging along in turbulent confusion behind Melquiades’
magical irons.”
And a second example, from First Frost, by Sarah Addison Allen:
“The
apple tree in the background, just barely visible, was stretching a single limb
out to her, as if wanting to be in the photo with her.”
For today’s prompt:
in 313 words or fewer, write a new
short story or essay (fiction or nonfiction), using magical realism as your
genre.
If
you wish, you can take one of your old poems and turn it into a short story or
essay (of 313 words or fewer), which
includes magical realist elements. *
This prompt will remain open until
Tuesday night. Links to entries not written in prose will be deleted. Only one
story per participant, please. Visit other storytellers. Let magic kiss realist ink and
tell.😉
the wee notes…
* If you missed Sherry’s “Blog of the Week”,
you should go back and take a look-see. She had a chat with Carrie, and it was pure yum. On “The Living Dead”, Rosemary honored our poetic ancestors. You don’t
want to miss that either. This coming Wednesday, Sumana’s prompt for the
Midweek Motif will be: Temptation
- Last month, I said that you’d be able to take one of your poems and turn it
into a short story using a topic of your choosing. This created confusion, so
I’m taking it back. From now on, all contributions will follow the new prompt.
But you can still choose to develop one of your poems into a story (if it
includes the new prompt).
- This is only our 2nd prompt. We are still evolving. Feel free to
make suggestions.
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illustration, from One
Hundred Years of Solitude
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