Fantasy vs. magical realism

ValerieJane

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I apologize for resurrecting an old thread, but I'm struggling with the same thing and I didn't want to start a new thread when the discussion was already here.

I'm writing a Young Adult novel set in a contemporary setting (suburban high school). My main character is a shapeshifter. He's the only one. His peers make fun of him and he's the target of bullying, because he's weird. Yes, because he's a shapeshifter, but in a "you're not like us so we pick on you" sort of way. It's more just because when you pick on him, funny stuff happens. He takes on features of a bunny or a chipmunk or something. The focus of the novel is about my main character gaining control of his shapeshifting powers so he can do what he needs to do to graduate high school and move on.

I'm struggling to place this in a genre. I don't think it's urban fantasy because no one's discovering his powers; everyone knows that he's got this. It's high school as usual. I think it may fall more in the realm of magical realism, but is that a genre I can list on my query letter, or is it more just a term to describe the mode in which it's written? If I write my query and reference my main character as a shapeshifter, can I call it a YA Contemporary? Or must I address the fantasy element in the genre somehow?

Thank you for your help.
 

TiPerihelion

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I think you could call it YA Contemporary. For one thing, most agents who accept YA accept all subcategories thereof. Also, when it comes to classifying your book, the publishing industry has different criteria than scholars. All the agent/publisher needs to know is where your book will live in Barnes and Noble. There is no shelf for magical realism, so no need to waste words on it.

As far as the scholarly classification, what you've described doesn't sound like magical realism. But without knowing the plot or having an excerpt, it's hard to say. I've attempted to write MR, and what I've decided of late is that it's more in the voice than the plot. In fact, voice is perhaps the way we distinguish all genres. Take, for example, "The Name of the Rose," by Umberto Eco. Plot-wise, it's your classic murder mystery; the main character is even a nod to Sherlock Holmes. But in voice, the novel transcends the mystery genre and concerns itself with questions far beyond the scope of "whodunnit?" Neil Gaiman has some insightful remarks on the subject as well. You can view his Julius Schwartz Lecture at MIT (start at 13:00) or check out "The View from the Cheap Seats" (essay: "The Pornography of Genre, or the Genre of Pornography").

I think what you truly need to nail in your query is: how MUCH fantasy? When you say, "MC gaining control of his shapeshifting powers," does that mean in a supernatural sense (e.g. training with a shapeshifting mentor), or a realistic sense (e.g. therapy)? That's what I'm wondering, and I'm pretty sure it's not what you want to leave the agent wondering. I realize what you wrote here is not a polished query, so this may be an issue you've already addressed. :)
 

ValerieJane

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I think you could call it YA Contemporary. For one thing, most agents who accept YA accept all subcategories thereof. Also, when it comes to classifying your book, the publishing industry has different criteria than scholars. All the agent/publisher needs to know is where your book will live in Barnes and Noble. There is no shelf for magical realism, so no need to waste words on it.

As far as the scholarly classification, what you've described doesn't sound like magical realism. But without knowing the plot or having an excerpt, it's hard to say. I've attempted to write MR, and what I've decided of late is that it's more in the voice than the plot. In fact, voice is perhaps the way we distinguish all genres. Take, for example, "The Name of the Rose," by Umberto Eco. Plot-wise, it's your classic murder mystery; the main character is even a nod to Sherlock Holmes. But in voice, the novel transcends the mystery genre and concerns itself with questions far beyond the scope of "whodunnit?" Neil Gaiman has some insightful remarks on the subject as well. You can view his Julius Schwartz Lecture at MIT (start at 13:00) or check out "The View from the Cheap Seats" (essay: "The Pornography of Genre, or the Genre of Pornography").

I think what you truly need to nail in your query is: how MUCH fantasy? When you say, "MC gaining control of his shapeshifting powers," does that mean in a supernatural sense (e.g. training with a shapeshifting mentor), or a realistic sense (e.g. therapy)? That's what I'm wondering, and I'm pretty sure it's not what you want to leave the agent wondering. I realize what you wrote here is not a polished query, so this may be an issue you've already addressed. :)

Thank you for your insightful reply! Query-writing and pitching are parts of a whole new world to me, so I can get a bit lost sometimes. I appreciate what you've brought up about how much fantasy there is. He learns to control his powers in a more realistic sense. I actually hadn't thought about making that distinction in my query, but now I definitely will! Thank you so much for your help.
 

TiPerihelion

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Sure. Full disclosure: I've never been published, and I haven't even gotten to the query stage. So feel free to take my words with a grain of salt and get 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions. But as near as I can tell, a query is supposed to accomplish the same thing a movie trailer does: conveying genre, tone, theme, and story arc, without getting too bogged down in the details. I can tell from a three-minute trailer whether a movie is a rom com, a sci-fi, a fantasy, a thriller, etc. I also get a general idea of the story arc, minus details and spoilers. It's pretty nifty.

If you haven't heard of them, the QueryShark and Miss Snark blogs are legendary and have whole libraries of deconstructed queries, both successful and unsuccessful. I've found both helpful when thinking about how to accurately and succinctly describe my in-progress novel to a stranger.