Fantasy as Technique

When I'm being especially cynical, I don't see "magical realism" as anything other than a marketing technique. I'm instantly reminded of attempts to categorise John Crowley and Samuel Delaney as "magical realist" as if to salvage them from the spurious association with straight fantasy.

I've always considered this a technique, not a movement.

Another sister techinque/movement I haven't seen mentioned is "surrealism".

The difficult line to draw is not between SF/F and magical real, but between surrealism and magical realism.

As a political literature, I think it is important to note that the term is utterly American. Garcia-Marquez rejects it, as do many practicioners of the "form". Magical realism is a fancy way for Western literary critics to apologize for elements of myth and whimsy in otherwise "serious" realistic literature, because in "Western" academia we over-emphasize - perhaps even fetishize - realist, everyday, occasionally turgidly self-important prose best represented by Ernest Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Chekov, and Tolstoy and others like them.

As the term was invented to separate "serious" literature of the fantastic from fairy tales and adventurist fiction, I find the term hollow and meaningless. Fairy tales and adventurist fictions are quite capable of astonishing literary depth, after all.

I prefer to think of numerous MR scribblers as mere surrealists, including Carpentier and the guy who ran for president of Peru... what was his name... Blah. Mindblank.... I prefer to think of Borges as a Speculative Fictionist. Garcia-Marquez and Gunter Grass are more like Faulkner than any of the other magical realists that supposedly share their artistic medium.

Simply defining a work of art by one writing technique is so limiting as to be laughable. to me, it has far more to do with our academic obsession with exactly one kind of "Great... American... Novel..." than with any actual categorical truth.

Team 2012 said:

Well, it's certainly not a "movement" or "form", but it's pretty hard to call it a "technique".
Is fantasy a "technique"?

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Actually, that's exactly what fantasy is.

When people say "Fantasy" or "Science fiction" they're actually referring to adventurist literature, inspired by the pulp adventure books, that utilize the stylistic techniques of "fantasy" or "science fiction" in what is, fundamentally, an adventure narrative.

The reason "Urban fantasy" is an adventurist book is about the form of the narrative, where the primary motivation is the entertainment generated by the exciting events.

It's still an art form, and capable of great literary invention. "Against The Day" is an adventurist novel, as is "American Gods".

The reason, by the way, that MR is nothing like Urban Fantasy, has more to do with the dilineation between Adventure Fiction and Literary Fiction.

I hate using the term "Literary", but at the moment, it's the only term I know to use to distiinguish the two, though the unintended implication of quality granted by the term "literary" is incorrect and certainly not intended.

Jerry Cornelius said:

When I'm being especially cynical, I don't see "magical realism" as anything other than a marketing technique. I'm instantly reminded of attempts to categorise John Crowley and Samuel Delaney as "magical realist" as if to salvage them from the spurious association with straight fantasy.

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Many things are nabbed by marketing departments in this way, but that doesn't make them only that. Yes, sure, there's a marketing technique of using magical realism. That doesn't restrict magical realism itself, however, and the side that isn't marketing is a lot more relevant to us



Toothpaste -- my only issue with your definition was that it risks restricting Urban Fantasy to The Genre That Is No Longer Called Paranormal-Romance, which is a limitation I object to hugely on principle. So if my annoyance was coming through, apologies -- it was not with anything you're actually saying about MR, but with the crowds of people who seem not to know that Urban Fantasy existed before Paranormal Romance got renamed, and it was a label for different and interesting work

I really like this conversation, overall, I just think we need to be careful anytime we say "Well it's not just X, because X is limited in these ways", not to undersell X.

On the same topic, badducky, I think you're underselling fantasy and science fiction by placing restrictions on them that don't always apply
I'd agree your definitions work -- most of the time. But - for example - I'd have a lot of trouble seeing Butler's Kindred as adventurist, though it's clearly fantasy. I'd have a lot of trouble seeing Delaney as adventurist, too, or Karen Joy Fowler, or many of the Tiptree winners. Both SF and fantasy do cross the pulp/lit line, (IMO especially at the short fiction level, but also in long form).

Ah, Shweta, but the application of the technique of fantasy or science fiction does not require adventurist prose.

Marketing distinctions in bookstores and academic distinctions for useful debate are not equal entities.

badducky said:

Ah, Shweta, but the application of the technique of fantasy or science fiction does not require adventurist prose.

Marketing distinctions in bookstores and academic distinctions for useful debate are not equal entities.

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Sure, but I'm saying at least some applications of the techniques of sf/f on literary prose are still sold as sf/f. They're not necessarily Suddenly Something Different.

And I'd call each of those a cluster of techniques/presuppositions, rather than a single blanket technique, but that's a quibble

I agree with your quibble completely, but I didn't feel like talking about continuums of influence and the ultimate meaninglessness of terms inside both marketing and academics when the cluster of influences that create different works of art can be so divergent from author to author inside the same supposed "movement", technique, or genre.

badducky said:

I agree with your quibble completely, but I didn't feel like talking about continuums of influence and the ultimate meaninglessness of terms inside both marketing and academics when the cluster of influences that create different works of art can be so divergent from author to author inside the same supposed "movement", technique, or genre.

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Don't get me started on category structure

Perhaps you guys should define your terms? So far your disagreement sounds to me like it's rooted more in the terminology than in substantive differences of opinions.

If I'm wrong and you have a real disagreement, of course, that's interesting and I'd like to know what it is

You use ballerina, rock climber, etc to talk about the difference in technique. That's misleading.

Compare, instead violinist to violinist. What is the difference between a country fiddler and a rock electric violinist and a classical musician?

In the specific case of violinists there is a thing about what kind of repertoire they have. As writing is generally not a performance art in the same sort of way, I dismiss that completely.

The technique of a fiddler is the difference between the actual musical creation of a fiddled country riff versus a rockin' electro-punk riff and the musical phrase of a symphony orchestra.

Fantasy is a technique, that can be mastered. It can be applied to other narrative structures. The same is true of science fiction, mystery, academically/literary, etc.

I think the notion that this is a minority opinion is a disingenious way of dismissing something I learned from others, by the way.

The interstitial movement oft' takes those techniques and blurs them, or places them on top of narrative structures not generally associated with the technique.

badducky said:

Compare, instead violinist to violinist. What is the difference between a country fiddler and a rock electric violinist and a classical musician?

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I think this is an interesting take, and pretty consistent with my general take on genre as conversation/culture. Technique comes from who you're listening to/reading, after all, as well as what you're trying to accomplish.

I don't think either this or my way is the only useful way of seeing it, but that's another matter again

I'd still like to see a definition of technique, and of what you'd say fits into that -- is it merely the way the words order themselves into sentences? Some people might say that. Is it the way plots can go, the sorts of character interaction one focuses on, the general toolkit?

badducky said:

Compare, instead violinist to violinist. What is the difference between a country fiddler and a rock electric violinist and a classical musician?

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Actually, I'd argue that the "violinist" is the actor you hire for your audio book. You provide the sheet music. Writing is not a performing art, and there's only so much you can do to influence a reading. Any text is inherently incomplete until it's read. Same as sheet music, really.

Dawnstorm said:

Actually, I'd argue that the "violinist" is the actor you hire for your audio book. You provide the sheet music. Writing is not a performing art, and there's only so much you can do to influence a reading. Any text is inherently incomplete until it's read. Same as sheet music, really.

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You may be reading this as a much more direct analogy than I am.

I see it this way: the fiddler, the classical violinist, and the whateverelse all have the same instrument (analogous to language for the writer) but learn to approach that instrument differently and think about what they're doing with it differently, based on training, practice, and general familiarity with others doing similar things.

Take that abstraction out and look at specific instances of performance and yes, there are too many differences to draw the analogy, but I think it's still there. Just not where you're looking

Fantasy is a mental muscle memory, a series of comfortable modes one becomes familiar in.

And, it is learned.

I will split this discussion out of magical realism when I have the time...

but in the meantime, personally, I'm becoming less convinced by either of you with every post. Your words sound nice, but you're neither of you grounding them in specifics that would let them mean much.

If this is actually a discussion you want to have, rather than a contest of nice-sounding phrases, then please define your terms. We can't have a real meeting across genres and areas of specialization unless you do.

Team 2012 said:

The term "technique" already has a definition, actually.

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It has several. "Learned muscle memory" is really only one possibility out of many. Or visual artists would not have techniques. Engineers would not have techniques. And they do.

It would be good to know which definition or subset of definitions you were using, and claiming that there is "a definition" does not help matters.

The idea of comparing musicians who work different genres, however is a good one, and lllustrates the point. There aren't really a whole lot of different techniques involved. A little variation, but nothing compared to the whole harrowing business of putting the fingers down in in exactly the right place, moving the bow seamlessly, all that rote practiced stuff. The difference between two genres is one of style, gesture, imagry, etc. Nothing technical about it.

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Actually, if you look at truly different types of music -- like for example Indian classical and Western classical violin -- there are distinctly different muscle memory patterns involved.

And depending on your definition of technique, certainly different styles have different techniques. You're not ornamenting Celtic fiddle the same way you are baroque music, and trying to use the same pattern of note shifts on both is just silly. Going from the subdominant to the tonic is a technique to give music a sense of closure, regardless of the particular muscles associated with doing so. It is in some definitions the same technique whether you do so on the piano or the violin or the tromboon.

It is in this sense that I was interpreting Ducky's use of "technique", but then this gave me pause:

badducky said:

Fantasy is a mental muscle memory, a series of comfortable modes one becomes familiar in.

And, it is learned.

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This is maddeningly vague.
It sounds really nice, but could mean so many different things that it doesn't mean anything.

Sent from my iPhone...

You go to Clarion to learn how to wrap your mind around the form of SF/F. No structure or ornamentation is natural. Requires repetition to bend your mental muscles around the pathways of the structure, and reading to bend the mental muscles around the structures of the technique/form.

Shweta we're on the same page.

badducky said:

Sent from my iPhone...

You go to Clarion to learn how to wrap your mind around the form of SF/F. No structure or ornamentation is natural. Requires repetition to bend your mental muscles around the pathways of the structure, and reading to bend the mental muscles around the structures of the technique/form.

Shweta we're on the same page.

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We might well be! Thing is, I cannot tell quite what your page is from your words. That's my issue.
By mental muscles do you just mean learned patterns of thinking?

(Also, talking to a cognitive scientist about mental muscles is like talking to one about phrenology.)

Shweta said:

You may be reading this as a much more direct analogy than I am.

I see it this way: the fiddler, the classical violinist, and the whateverelse all have the same instrument (analogous to language for the writer) but learn to approach that instrument differently and think about what they're doing with it differently, based on training, practice, and general familiarity with others doing similar things.

Take that abstraction out and look at specific instances of performance and yes, there are too many differences to draw the analogy, but I think it's still there. Just not where you're looking

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Heh, you're probably right. Analogies, if they're not frightfully close, tend to confuse me more than help me understand. Do you know those picture-thingies that look like colourful patterns, but if you stare long enough at them they turn into a picture? For me they turn into a headache. And remain colourful patterns.

Interestingly, figurative language doesn't give me problems in fiction...

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Highlight: "...all have the same instrument (analogous to language for the writer)..."

My problem's here. Many of the techniques (term?) a writer uses aren't concerned primarily language based. For example, I could plot a story entirely through storyboarding (if I were the visual type, which I'm not). Also, I find most of my characterisation is pre-lignual: for example, I noticed that I can often answer questions about my characters even if I don't remember ever thinking about these aspects of their lives. (I've filled out online quizzes for my characters. It's fun, and not hard at all; although, since I'm writing fantasy or SF, some of the questions baffle them.)

Incidently, from time to time my "word-capacity" fills up, and then I become word-weary. I can't write, I can't read; I'm slow to respond to people when they talk to me, and I have trouble of listening in the first place. Usually, these are the times when music works best for me. The sounds just flow along and are themselves and have no referential meaning; they just do within me whatever it is they do. And it's different from words.

Introducing lyrics is a good way for me to get rid of word-wearieness.

Maybe this also sheds light on why a music analogy gives me trouble when I think of writing. These two artforms are almost opposites the way I experience them.

Anyway, I'm not sure what this has to do with 'techniques', much less with magical realism. Except maybe that magical realism feels closer to music than, say, Fantasy or Science Fiction...

Strange thought.

Dawnstorm said:

Highlight: "...all have the same instrument (analogous to language for the writer)..."

My problem's here. Many of the techniques (term?) a writer uses aren't concerned primarily language based. For example, I could plot a story entirely through storyboarding (if I were the visual type, which I'm not). Also, I find most of my characterisation is pre-lignual: for example, I noticed that I can often answer questions about my characters even if I don't remember ever thinking about these aspects of their lives. (I've filled out online quizzes for my characters. It's fun, and not hard at all; although, since I'm writing fantasy or SF, some of the questions baffle them.)

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Course, I tend to think far more is both linguistic and conceptual than most linguists do
And this has wandered from MR; I'll split thread if Sharon doesn't get to it first. But for now, sleeps.

Mod powers are both magic and real.