Real World Mythology

[SarahMacManus]

If you were reading a fantasy/magic realism tale based on real-world mythology that you weren't that familar with, how much detail on the original myth would you want provided? Would you prefer it were presented as new mythology, or would you like the story more filled in?

Say you picked up something based on the old Coyote stories, would you want to know a bit about Coyote, or would you rather delve right into a new story without knowing who Coyote is or where he's from?

And if you were writing them, how would you approach it?

Maybe I should ask Neal Gaiman. :)

[mscelina]

My Asphodel series is an epic fantasy retelling of the Trojan War myth. Although I used the Iliad as a guide, it's a completely different take on the war using current fantasy archetypes instead of the original characters. The thing for me about using the real-world mythology as a hardcore basis for the story is that every writer should make the material their own. You can find numerous examples of the Arthurian legend, for example-- like The Once and Future King or The Mists of Avalon or the Mary Stewart series and every one of them has a different point of view. So if you use real-world mythology, you have to be certain that it's your own narrative voice in order for it to work.

[Kitty Pryde]

My take as a reader who enjoys a little mythology all up in her SF/F: don't present it as if it's new, because your well-read readers will think, uhh, why is she pretending she invented a trickster coyote? Also don't give all the background information on it. Let The mythological figures be revealed a little bit at a time, the same as any other character. If he's going to be elusive and mysterious, leave little clues about him. If he's all up in your plot wreaking havoc, then show him doing so. readers who know who you are writing about will nod their heads knowingly and readers who don't will enjoy a fully-fleshed out character based on a really old archetype.

There are approximately a zillion fantasy novels with Coyote in them if you seek further inspiration.

[BravoYankee]

Personally, being someone very familiar with certain forms of mythology (greek, norse, aurthurian), if I picked up a book that didn't follow it to some degree, and instead deciding to take it in whole new direction, I'd be pretty unhappy. At least if it was done in some illogical way that at least doesn't preserve the integrity of the "characters" . That said, if you were writing about any kind of "real world" mythology, I think you would need to supply certain amount of detail and background knowledge so that people who are familiar are appeased, and those who aren't familiar get enough information. Its a fine line that is hard to define.

I actually always wanted to write a goofy story set in an American high school with all that great teen angst one would find on television using the Greek gods as the characters. I mean... all the cliche clicks are already there, lol.... its a dumb idea, but I thought it would be fun.

Oh, and Mscelina, have you ever read Dan Simmons' Illium and Olympos? There's an interesting take on the Trojan War, lol.

[SarahMacManus]

My take as a reader who enjoys a little mythology all up in her SF/F: don't present it as if it's new, because your well-read readers will think, uhh, why is she pretending she invented a trickster coyote? Also don't give all the background information on it. Let The mythological figures be revealed a little bit at a time, the same as any other character. If he's going to be elusive and mysterious, leave little clues about him. If he's all up in your plot wreaking havoc, then show him doing so. readers who know who you are writing about will nod their heads knowingly and readers who don't will enjoy a fully-fleshed out character based on a really old archetype.

There are approximately a zillion fantasy novels with Coyote in them if you seek further inspiration.

Coyote was just an example I was using, this would be on order of Coyote's sister or the story of his first wife after she turned him into Coyote and left him sort of thing. Would you want me to tell a little about Coyote to let you know how it ties in, or would you like to figure it out yourself?

Or say it was a story about the people who escaped from Atlantis before it sunk? How much detail do you think you would need about the original Atlantis to feel "satisfied" - a great deal so you knew more about them? Just enough so that you would know where they came from? Just enough to make you look for the information yourself? None at all, so that it's a whole new story and you'd have to be very clever to deduce it?

Neither of these things are what I'm writing about, but they're good examples.

[RavenCorinnCarluk]

I would say (and this probably sounds like a cop out) that you should put in exactly as much as you need to be in there. Like, Neal Gaiman did in American Gods. He gave the background myths to the characters there were actually involved, or at least enough so you would know who they were, and he left it at that. Any of the gods that weren't important to the story were simply mentioned by name, so you could go find them if you wanted. No reason to delve into complex pantheons for someone who's just a piece of the background.

So, for your example, I would say; how important is it that we learn about Coyote and his myths? Is this story about his sister/wife, and we're focusing on her and the myths she's making? Maybe Coyote's background could keep coming up, because no one trusts her, because she is so intimately tied to him.

For something that's an example of how NOT to borrow a pantheon; there was a movie on Sci-Fi recently calld Thor Hammer of the Gods. The characters were all named after the Norse pantheon, but none of them were really true to the gods they were named for. It was almost insulting to someone who is even passingly familiar with the pantheon. My fiance kept having to ignore it, because it upset him so. BravoYankee pointed all this out pretty well, but I just wanted to reiterate with an example I had.

[backslashbaby]

Really interesting thread! I'd love to hear more :)

My WIP is Magical Realism and parallels parts of the Prometheus myth. But I want that part as allegory and almost completely in the background.

My favorite works that sound more like yours only include enough of the mythology as one would for any character, so that it stands on its own in the work. The rest of the myth (if there is any) is like a secret puzzle for those who know more, or that interested readers can research. Of course, I love puzzles dropped into fiction any time, so I may just be odd that way ;)

[Ruv Draba]

If you were reading a fantasy/magic realism tale based on real-world mythology that you weren't that familar with, how much detail on the original myth would you want provided?Forget the author/reader relationship in the first instance; focus on the characters' concerns. Only include the mythic history if that's critical to a characters' decision-making.

If you want to write acknowledgements/bibliography etc... do it as an afterword.

[Team 2012]

Actually, the trappings and glow of mythology are often a big reason people read books. Successful fantasy books revel in the settings and hierarchies: would Harry Potter or LOTR or GWTW have worked without the loving descriptions of Hogwards, the Shire etc, and South?

It's probably and extremely bad idea to restrict these concerns to mere plot devices.


Forget the author/reader relationship Whoa!

[Ruv Draba]

would Harry Potter or LOTR or GWTW have worked without the loving descriptions of Hogwards, the Shire etc, and South?"Loving descriptions" are cheap in fantasy and for the most part, worthless, except when they set mood or inform action.

Most amateur fantasy writing opens with interminable tracts of loving descriptions, portending nothing; some fantasy writing never breaks free from the mire of its loving descriptions. And some of it, regrettably, gets published, delivering endless setting in which nothing much happens and leading amateur writers to think that's both normal and good.

My suggestion: reread Tolkien. The Shire doesn't see a ton of loving descriptions. We're not treated to a mythic history of the Shire; the mythic origin of hobbits is parked in an academic prologue that nowadays would be an appendix. We don't get a loving description of the Buckleberry ferry -- the hobbits are too busy being chased. The history of Isildur's Bane is revealed gradually through dialogue as major characters take decisions on it -- but only revealed when it's important. We never learn the socioeconomics of Lothlorien. Tolkien draws widely from the language and ideas of Celtic, Germanic and Norse myths but never bogs down apologising for doing so.

Command of setting, relevant imagery, vivid characters, gripping action and capable voice will create a strong relationship between reader and story; but get those things wrong and no amount of prosaic putty and world modelling will keep the reader glued to your tale.

The real problem is this: amateur fantasy writers love to invent setting, but few also know to create story. So they build dolls-houses in painstaking detail, populate them with cardboard cut-out dollies, lovingly decorated, and forget to animate the dollies and bring them into significant conflict. Instead, they treat us to a Home Beautiful catalogue of all the rooms they've built and what Dolly can do in there.

[BravoYankee]

The real problem is this: amateur fantasy writers love to invent setting, but few also know to create story. So they build dolls-houses in painstaking detail, populate them with cardboard cut-out dollies, lovingly decorated, and forget to animate the dollies and bring them into significant conflict. Instead, they treat us to a Home Beautiful catalogue of all the rooms they've built and what Dolly can do in there.

What a fantastic metaphor...lol.

[SarahMacManus]

Descriptions of the setting are really neither here nor there in this particular case, nor do they have that much to do with the mythology. I'm not a real "setting as character" kind of writer, and honestly I have to remember to bump it up sometimes.

The mythology is outside of it's natural place, that's why it's magic realism rather than fantasy or historical.

Fantasy writers are subject to "World Building Seminars" - and after all that work they think they need to add all the detail. I think a lot of new writers tend to forget that although they need to make the world real in their own to write about it logically, they don't actually need to transcribe all that into the ms. Same with character building. YOU may know that Mary Sue fell out of a tree when she was 7, and what it did to make her who she is (fearful of height?), that does not mean you need a blow by blow scene of her remembering it when she gets woozy looking down from the 10th floor balcony.

[ElsaM]

I'd only include background that's directly relevant to the story. As a reader I much prefer picking up hints and putting the mythology together myself rather than being hit over the head with it. Other people may feel differently.

[Ruv Draba]

The mythology is outside of it's natural place, that's why it's magic realism rather than fantasy or historical.Magical realism in its usual form never bothers explaining itself. A recent example is the 2008 Nebula-nominated Superpowers (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307394409?ie=UTF8&tag=httpwwwgoodco-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0307394409&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2) by David J. Schwartz. Moreover, perhaps because it's realism, the mythic elements never seem to help the characters resolve anything. :)

[SPMiller]

My suggestion: reread Tolkien. The Shire doesn't see a ton of loving descriptions. We're not treated to a mythic history of the Shire; the mythic origin of hobbits is parked in an academic prologue that nowadays would be an appendix. We don't get a loving description of the Buckleberry ferry -- the hobbits are too busy being chased. The history of Isildur's Bane is revealed gradually through dialogue as major characters take decisions on it -- but only revealed when it's important. We never learn the socioeconomics of Lothlorien. Tolkien draws widely from the language and ideas of Celtic, Germanic and Norse myths but never bogs down apologising for doing so.I think you should reread Tolkien as well. He might not spend much time on human structures, but he goes overboard on lavish descriptions of random bits of wilderness. That is, after all, part of his theme: the victory of the natural over the manmade.

Granted, he was much better about certain types of infodumping than certain modern fantasy authors I'll refrain from naming...

[backslashbaby]

Quote:
Originally Posted by SarahMacManus
The mythology is outside of it's natural place, that's why it's magic realism rather than fantasy or historical.

Magical realism in its usual form never bothers explaining itself. A recent example is the 2008 Nebula-nominated Superpowers by David J. Schwartz. Moreover, perhaps because it's realism, the mythic elements never seem to help the characters resolve anything.

(Now on my reading list - thank you, Ruv!)

If the mythology is the magic, yes - don't overexplain (as Marquez said was the hardest part of his writing for him). The myths could jump out in all their glory without even a name change if you like!

Ah, so many fun ways to do it in MR, but the least-MR way would involve explaining things for the reader ;)

[Ruv Draba]

I think you should reread Tolkien as well. He might not spend much time on human structures, but he goes overboard on lavish descriptions of random bits of wilderness. That is, after all, part of his theme: the victory of the natural over the manmade.The victory of British pastoralism over military industrialism more like. :)

Since there's some difference of opinion on this, here's a random excerpt so we can see what Tolkien's actually doing and how he does it:Suddenly Frodo himself felt sleep overwhelming him. His head swam. There now seemed hardly a sound in the air. The flies had stopped buzzing. Only a gentle noise on the edge of hearing, a soft fluttering as of a song half-whispered, seemed to stir in the boughs above. he lifted his eyes and saw leaning over him a huge willow-tree, old and hoary. Enormous it looked, its sprawling branches going up like reaching arms with many long-fingered hands, its knotted and twisted trunk gaping in wide fissures that creaked faintly as the boughs moved. The leaves fluttering against the bright sky dazzled him, and he topped over, lying where he fell upon the grass.(The Fellowship of the Ring, Bk1, Ch6, The Old Forest)

There's a lot of description here and I believe that it's doing two things: 1) setting mood (the scene is just prior to meeting Tom Bombadil, and the aged willow motif presages that meeting); 2) setting up action. The willow is malign and in the subsequent passage almost kills several of Frodo's band.

I think this shows that making description relevant to action and mood doesn't mean that you must write less of it (Tolkien is indeed a prolix describer -- and has set the stamp on epic fantasists ever since); it also shows that setting descriptions fit better in the story if they're relevant and not simply lovingly detailed.

Tolkien's novel is wordy principally because he moves his characters around a lot, but at least whenever he does something happens. We can argue about whether all the somethings are equally interesting and integral to the plot (Bombadil is largely irrelevant, for example) but what we can't argue is that Tolkien's descriptions are flapping loose from the drama. Lord of the Rings had competent and devoted editing, which is more than can be said for many modern fantasy epics.

Self-editorial discipline is almost unknown among amateur fantasists, and patchy even among the pros. Evidence of editorial discipline is not so much the length of the books (fantasy readers love door-stops and so be it) but integration and parsimony in the text, and impact in the drama.

[SarahMacManus]

As long as none of you suggest that *I* reread Tolkien, we'll get along fine. I couldn't get through them the first time.

I was ready to kill elves personally, with my bare hands, by the middle of the second book.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

[Ruv Draba]

Tolkien is a convenient example because LotR is the best-selling fantasy novel ever written (est. 150M copies sold, although the Potter series has sold an estimated 400M). It also set a benchmark for setting research and mythic integrity that few other speculative fiction novels have ever met. Tolkien himself was exceedingly well-read -- none of which means that one has to like his novels, but it does give us some insight into what makes for rich and well-constructed fantasy.

Literarily, fantasy writing is all over the place and the literary experience of fantasy readers is even patchier. Many only read from the bestseller shelves. Many don't read outside the fantasy/SF/horror/romance genres. Many don't read stories older than they are. Best-selling fantasy authors themselves often have narrow reading-lists these days, which can make modelling from best-sellers a bad way to learn good (i.e. effective, impactful, engaging) writing. The argument that "Rowling/Jordan did it" ignores the fact that best-sellers often succeed despite weak setting research, poor story design, limp structure and sloppy expression (pretty images and sympathetic characters are often enough nowadays, if coupled with a strong marketing campaign). On the other hand, solid research, strong structure, good design and taut expression has never hurt sales -- especially in the longer term as Tolkien's estate can attest.

From an entertainment perspective Tolkien is optional. From the perspective of developing strong fantasy storycraft I'd say he's mandatory reading, along with Dunsany, Homer, and Hindu myth.

[SPMiller]

Well, we should keep in mind that Tolkien didn't exactly consider his work to be "fantasy" as we know it but rather modern mythcraft. His work was also much less removed from the source myths. In that sense, his fiction is more pertinent to this thread than, say, his imitators, who are legion.

[mscelina]

The argument that "Rowling/Jordan did it" ignores the fact that best-sellers often succeed despite weak setting research, poor story design, limp structure and sloppy expression (pretty images and sympathetic characters are often enough nowadays, if coupled with a strong marketing campaign).

Best-sellers succeed because they tell a good story, one that engages the reader from the beginning to the end.

[SarahMacManus]

Literarily, fantasy writing is all over the place and the literary experience of fantasy readers is even patchier. Many only read from the bestseller shelves. Many don't read outside the fantasy/SF/horror/romance genres. Many don't read stories older than they are. Best-selling fantasy authors themselves often have narrow reading-lists these days, which can make modelling from best-sellers a bad way to learn good (i.e. effective, impactful, engaging) writing...

From an entertainment perspective Tolkien is optional. From the perspective of developing strong fantasy storycraft I'd say he's mandatory reading, along with Dunsany, Homer, and Hindu myth.

I don't read much contemporary fantasy. I couldn't tell you who the latest best-sellers are, except for Pratchett. He says that anyone who claims to write "magic realism" is writing fantasy, but I disagree. Tom Robbins is magic realism - not fantasy.

I don't know what fantasy authors are reading lately, but much of it in the last 15 years has started to all sound the same to me.

[mscelina]

Wow really? I find there's such a surfeit of different and original material that it's hard to decide between them.

[SarahMacManus]

Wow really? I find there's such a surfeit of different and original material that it's hard to decide between them.

Yeah, I've been kind of "off" the stuff for the last dozen years, been reading a lot of what is usually called "literary fiction", but much of it is fantastical. I tend to read authors rather than genres, anyway.

[SPMiller]

I'm with Celina. Fantasy has recovered from its all-time low (as I see it) during 1980-1995.

[IdiotsRUs]

There's still a load of tosh about though. I have to dig quite hard in my local bookshop to find anything with a premise I want to read

I posted recently about a display they had for new authors ( not a dragon display - I asked). I checked 'em out and found:

Young orphan must learn how to ride dragons to save world

Ditto

Army of dragon riders must save the world

Jim Butcher clone ( I think I recall that one anyway)

Woman whose bloke has been turned into a dragon and she must ride him until they can get him cured

Dragons that like being ridden

Telepathic links between dragon and rider

ENOUGH WITH THE DRAGON RIDERS!!!!

It's not that often I read the blurb and think 'Now that sounds interesting / new / fresh / OOOOH!, I must give it a go' ( I realise that probably includes my own...)

But I suppose that just makes it all the more special when I do....

[SPMiller]

Dragons have been going strong for at least a thousand years. Don't think they're going anywhere.

Finding books online (and then buying them at a brick-and-mortar) is much easier than sifting through the dross by hand.

Dragons that like being riddenTouched By Venom (http://www.sfsite.com/12b/tv214.htm)? ;)

[IdiotsRUs]

Yeah I know, but can we find something different to do with them?

Maybe even the books would be fine, but if you can't make the blurb sound original / interesting, it just leaves me cold because I imagine the book will be uninteresting too.

(http://www.sfsite.com/12b/tv214.htm)Touched By Venom (http://www.sfsite.com/12b/tv214.htm)? ;)
OOh pervy, I like it! - at least it's something I haven't seen a hundred times before.

I hate when publishers just jump on a trend and flog it to death *climbs down off current peeve box*

[SarahMacManus]

Touched By Venom (http://www.sfsite.com/12b/tv214.htm)? ;)

Sounds AWFUL!
That's the sort of thing that gets thrown across the room in my house.

[Ruv Draba]

Best-sellers succeed because they tell a good story, one that engages the reader from the beginning to the end.Plenty of good stories don't become best-sellers, and defining 'good' by 'what sells today' is I think more suited to the vocation of seller than a crafter.

There's only one definition of 'good story' to my mind and that's stories that people come to own themselves -- that are told and retold over decades. You can't actually tell a good story by scanning the best-seller list -- some best-sellers are transient fiction, others aren't.

So what's a best-seller?

Best-sellers are those works which, when pushed, have the most immediate popular appeal. That's not the most original works, the best crafted works, the best executed works and certainly not the best stories.

I don't believe that immediate popular appeal is in the quality of the story. I think that it's in the transient appeal of the characters, situations and imagery -- essentially, in the same things that make MTV clips popular. As long as the voice is tolerable, the sentences scan, the scenes go somewhere (however turgidly) and there's some sense of beginning, middle and end, that suffices.

On the other hand, it's trivially easy to improve many best-sellers without damaging the appeal of their characters, situations and images. Sol Stein has a bit of fun in one of his editing books tightening up John Grisham's prose, for instance. Grisham almost looks literary afterwards. :)

[mscelina]

That's a subjective call, Ruv. Sure, anyone can say that some bestsellers aren't as well crafted as others. However, a bestseller has to engage the reader to the point that they not only enjoy the book but spread the word about the book to their friends. While it's always nice and comfortable to assume that all bestsellers are somehow 'less' than other stories in the genre, it's not always so. A bestselling author has, if nothing else, figured out what chord of resonance to strike with his and her audience and that is not a skill that can or should be downplayed.

*shrug*

[Ruv Draba]

I don't read much contemporary fantasy. I couldn't tell you who the latest best-sellers are, except for Pratchett. He says that anyone who claims to write "magic realism" is writing fantasy, but I disagree. Tom Robbins is magic realism - not fantasy.'Magical Realism' as a term has been around for almost a century, and has substantially shifted meaning across that period, and probably still is. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_realism)has quite a nice history of the use of the term:

The term magic realism was first used in 1925 by the German art critic Franz Roh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Roh) to refer to a painterly style also known as Neue Sachlichkeit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_Sachlichkeit) (the New Objectivity). It was later used to describe the unusual realism by American painters such as Ivan Albright (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Albright), Paul Cadmus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cadmus), George Tooker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tooker) and other artists during the 1940s and 1950s.
[...]
The Cuban (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubans) writer Alejo Carpentier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejo_Carpentier) (a friend of Uslar-Pietri) used the term "lo real maravilloso" (roughly "marvelous reality") in the prologue to his novel The Kingdom of this World (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_this_World) (1949). Carpentier's conception was of a kind of heightened reality in which elements of the miraculous could appear while seeming natural and unforced. Carpentier's work was a key influence on the writers of the Latin American "boom" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_Boom) that emerged in the 1960s such as Carlos Fuentes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Fuentes) and Gabriel García Márquez (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez), who confessed, "My most important problem was destroying the line of demarcation that separates what seems real from what seems fantastic."
[...]
The Mexican critic Luis Leal has said, "Without thinking of the concept of magical realism, each writer gives expression to a reality he observes in the people. To me, magical realism is an attitude on the part of the characters in the novel toward the world," or toward nature. He adds, "If you can explain it, then it's not magical realism."
[...]
Prominent English-language fantasy writers have stated that "magic realism" is only another name for fantasy fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_fiction). Gene Wolfe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Wolfe) said, "Magic realism is fantasy written by people who speak Spanish", and Terry Pratchett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Pratchett) said magic realism "is like a polite way of saying you write fantasy".
I'm with Wolfe here.

The essence of fantasy for me is its whimsy. How you apply that whimsy is a matter of taste and runs a spectrum from "localised, integral and dealt with logically" through to "ubiquitous, intrusive and dealt with symbolically". At one end of the spectrum you have what English-speaking writers are now calling "magical realism", and at the other end you have escapist magical myth. There aren't many writers who sit strictly out on one end or another. The plot of Günter Grass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Grass)' The Tin Drum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Drum) is far less whimsical than that of Tom Robbins Another Roadside Attraction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Robbins), say.

I reckon that magical realists don't want to be confused with the more escapist forms of fantasy because their intentions are often very different -- social commentary or psychological exploration vs a fun ride. But writers like Wolfe believe that the two aren't exclusive, so that division is arbitrary. He and Pratchett have no difficulty weaving social and psychological elements in what is still a fun journey, and many Spanish writers don't strip the fun out either.

[Ruv Draba]

That's a subjective call, Ruv.It's not subjective if you can find objective evidence that many best-sellers are not being edited competently (e.g. Grisham), or that their 'revolutionary' new story elements have been kicking around for decades in other best-sellers (e.g. Harry Potter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter)vs. The Worst Witch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Witch)).
Sure, anyone can say that some bestsellers aren't as well crafted as others.I'm not claiming that. What I'm claiming is that many aren't terribly well-crafted, well-produced or terribly original, but that's also true of many mid-list titles.
However, a bestseller has to engage the reader to the point that they not only enjoy the book but spread the word about the book to their friends.Yes -- but the sociology of consumption isn't directly connected to the quality or originality of product. Why did so many people smoke last century? Was the tobacco better for them then? Or how about the hula-hoop - an 'American invention' that's been around since the Middle Ages. Why did it suddenly become so popular? Answer: pretty new colours, mass-producable materials and some sharp marketing to kids who'd never seen it before.
While it's always nice and comfortable to assume that all bestsellers are somehow 'less' than other stories in the genre, it's not always so. A bestselling author has, if nothing else, figured out what chord of resonance to strike with his and her audience and that is not a skill that can or should be downplayed.Actually, I don't think that even this is true. Best-selling authors are authors that sociology selects to be best-selling. Having been selected, they naturally work hard to repeat the formula, but that doesn't mean they can teach it. :) Some are genuine crafters who add great insight to the craft; others just got lucky.

My point isn't to diss best-sellerdom. It's to debunk an idea introduced earlier in this discussion that you can write popular or even good fiction by copying best-selling authors. "Do what Rowling/Jordan/Grisham etc... did" won't produce your best fiction. "Do what you do and do it well", will. The rest is a lottery.

[SPMiller]

There are also plenty of books written within otherwise real-world settings plus magical/mythical elements. That's often called urban fantasy, and the distinction between that and magical realism is so blurry that they may as well be (and, indeed, are) the same thing. There ain't exactly a debate to be had--

--unless, of course, you want to split books up by some arbitrary method such that "message" fiction is magical realism and "entertaining" fiction is urban fantasy, but I don't buy that. Both can appear together.