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Jun. 17th, 2011 02:02 pmI have been reading Jorge Amado's "The War of the Saints" for the past few days, which is kind of a relief after Fear Of Flying -- it was a good book but on the depressing side of intense, and Amado is no less intense but much more lighthearted. Plus the cover is more exciting.
I keep thinking I'm engaging in a small-pool fallacy, but I've started making notes on Standard Structural Elements Of Magical Realism. Which is just as well because I am this close to finishing up the rewrite of Trace (the rewrite of a rewrite actually, that stupid climax with the riot is going to kill me). My experience in this genre is confined to three books, a tv show, and two films, but that's enough to notice commonalities like minimal use of dialogue (even in Carnivale and films like Chocolat, the visual is much more emphasised than usual).
I suspect this stems from the fact that many of the stories cultivate a sort of dreamlike quality, and too much talking grounds the story too close to reality. I'm not sure I agree with not-grounding-the-story, but then I'm a dialogue guy. On the other hand, Magical Realism with a lot of dialogue frequently looks suspiciously like well-written Horror.
The other thing I've noticed is a truly epic amount of backstory. My god there's a lot of backstory. That's not a bad thing, it's just surprising given how little the literary world as a whole values work that is based on stuff that happened twenty years before the story opens. Bodes well for Trace, though in the future I think I'll try to keep away from backstory, it's more trouble than it's worth.
Um. So in essence my studies have led me to believe that everything I do is wrong, but more fun than doing it right. Which has pretty much been the case since I was fourteen, so I'm not overly worried.
I keep thinking I'm engaging in a small-pool fallacy, but I've started making notes on Standard Structural Elements Of Magical Realism. Which is just as well because I am this close to finishing up the rewrite of Trace (the rewrite of a rewrite actually, that stupid climax with the riot is going to kill me). My experience in this genre is confined to three books, a tv show, and two films, but that's enough to notice commonalities like minimal use of dialogue (even in Carnivale and films like Chocolat, the visual is much more emphasised than usual).
I suspect this stems from the fact that many of the stories cultivate a sort of dreamlike quality, and too much talking grounds the story too close to reality. I'm not sure I agree with not-grounding-the-story, but then I'm a dialogue guy. On the other hand, Magical Realism with a lot of dialogue frequently looks suspiciously like well-written Horror.
The other thing I've noticed is a truly epic amount of backstory. My god there's a lot of backstory. That's not a bad thing, it's just surprising given how little the literary world as a whole values work that is based on stuff that happened twenty years before the story opens. Bodes well for Trace, though in the future I think I'll try to keep away from backstory, it's more trouble than it's worth.
Um. So in essence my studies have led me to believe that everything I do is wrong, but more fun than doing it right. Which has pretty much been the case since I was fourteen, so I'm not overly worried.
