The Magical Realism of the Ryland Creek Saga
A swamp in the forests of Painted Post
A Continuing Theme
There are many “catch phrases” throughout the entire Ryland Creek saga.
One of those repeated themes: “There's a magic here in the forests of Painted Post, if you know where to look.”
For those who’ve been in these forests for any length of time, you know what I mean. Particularly at night.
But that’s more “real” than magical realism.
A Working Definition
When books are categorized, we often associate them with a genre. At the broadest level, we could categorize a book as either fiction or non-fiction, but these categories are broken down into more definable genres for readers to quickly find in libraries, bookstores, and search engines.
Fiction has many genres:
There are many “catch phrases” throughout the entire Ryland Creek saga.
One of those repeated themes: “There's a magic here in the forests of Painted Post, if you know where to look.”
For those who’ve been in these forests for any length of time, you know what I mean. Particularly at night.
But that’s more “real” than magical realism.
A Working Definition
When books are categorized, we often associate them with a genre. At the broadest level, we could categorize a book as either fiction or non-fiction, but these categories are broken down into more definable genres for readers to quickly find in libraries, bookstores, and search engines.
Fiction has many genres:
A cloudy night in the forest.
Note: The "special effects" were caused by my headlamp, not magical realism . . . Or was it?
- Literary fiction
- Women’s literature
- Science fiction,
- Fantasy
- Horror
- Family sagas . . .
To name a few!
As a writer, it’s important to know your book’s genre—particularly if you’re querying literary agents to take on your book to a traditional publisher—as literary agents often specialize and won’t consider your book if it’s not one of their preferred genres.
However, magical realism isn’t so much a genre as an element of a book’s story.
Basically, magical realism occurs in a story that is primarily set in the real world that we know every day but also has hints or elements of magic embedded in the plot. So, if you have wizards and dragons (a la J.R.R. Tolkien or J.K. Rowling) in your story, that’s not magical realism, per se, but outright fantasy, because magic is readily a normal/accepted part of that world.
There are numerous elements/hints at magical realism within the Ryland Creek saga, beginning with Book I:
- A rogue bear, borrowing from the Iroquois legend of the Great Bear
- Tales of horrid beasts, immortal Jesuit priests, witches, and ghouls in the hills and swamps of Painted Post . . .and are they (really) just stories?
- Battling wizards of long ago, creating the Black Swamp
- Avenging, ghostly Seneca chieftains
- An odd fellow, Joe the Storyteller—first formally introduced in The Master of Hounds—but you begin to wonder if Joe wasn’t in the background for the entire saga all along.
- Painted Post—the land itself—reaching character status
- Time travel to a Painted Post of yesterday, which allowed to sneak in a lot of history, legend, and lore into the story line of The Time of the Backroads, with a new character, retired NY State Game Warden, Fulton Wainwright
So, it became a great deal of fun to intertwine magical realism into the nighttime ringtail chases in the darkened forests of Upstate New York, where an element of the haunted can go a long way.
And here’s (the real) Seth trailing a raccoon. Now, truth be told, I never took my cell phone out of it’s case, but it wouldn’t have made any different as I’d turned off my headlamp to listen to my faithful hound. And as you listen along, you’ll hear someone else make a (vocal) entrance.
It’s sort of magical. But then again, it is Painted Post, after all.