Trying to Understand Types of Fantasy - MG

What happens in your story?

You might try a wiki search for Fantasy types and tropes...

Does your story take place in the modern world with some magic added? Does it take place in a fantasy world? Or does it take place in both?

LauraAnnSwanson said:

takes place in a fantasy world, almost medieval setting, with magic . It's the first written book in a plotted series of 3

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That sounds like high fantasy to me.

Added: I agree that the definitions are vague. They also overlap. I'd go with high fantasy because it seems to be the most general of the three. But a lot of people group high and epic fantasy together, and heroic fantasy seems to be a variation of the other two. Maybe somebody else who knows more will come along. I write contemporary fantasy, so I don't use these terms much.

It sounds odd to separate out heroic, high and epic. But if that's what they want, that's what they want. What I'd suggest is...

If you have a small scale conflict in a magical land, call it high fantasy. By small scale, it might be a child looking for their lost parent or saving their village. It won't be saving the whole world or universe.

If you have a large scale conflict in a magical land, it is either epic or heroic fantasy. Call it heroic if it's about an unlikely/unwilling hero who discovers their destiny to smite evil (most likely by being an awesome magic user or a warrior). If they're relying more on intelligence, their thieving abilities, political manipulation or anything like that, call it epic.

(I'd note this is just a simplification. Many books are all three, as there's a lot of overlap in the categories. You won't see many people trying to split categories like this. Most epic and heroic fantasy is also high fantasy... I'm just assuming that being epic outweighs being high. And that being heroic outweighs being epic.)

I think Polenth said it very well.

This is a side question but do agents like fantasy divided like that in one's query?

playground_king said:

This is a side question but do agents like fantasy divided like that in one's query?

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I've never seen a fantasy agent try to split heroic, epic and high fantasy into neat and separate categories. It sounds more like the person who wrote the conference stuff wasn't really a fantasy reader.

So for this, Laura's got to pick one, because that's what they told her to do...

But it's not what you'd do in the real world of querying. Some people like to list their sub-genre, but for most fantasy of that type, you could choose any of those tags and it'd be fine. You can just call it fantasy and it'd be fine.

I agree. The only place where I've seen it matter is that some agents do NOT want "high" fantasy, but they will consider magical realism or contemporary novels with a fantastical twist (like Savvy, for example).

LauraAnnSwanson said:

and see... I also have a hard time separating some kinds on fantasy in my mind from magical realism.
Magical realism is where you don't differentiate between the magic and other actions, correct? I don't really understand how that is different from a high fantasy in which magic is an accepted part of the world.

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I always thought Magic Realism was taking normal day things and making them magical. I can't remember the name, but I remember reading a famous spanish story with something about a faucet or something flooding an apartment and the little kids sailing away out into the street or something. I haven't read it in forever. And that man that wrote that was famous for his stories all being magic realism.

I think Magical Realism is a very fuzzily-defined genre. Basically, it's modern realistic fiction except there's also magic, or else magic suddenly happens without warning. AKA fantasy, just not high fantasy. I mean, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" could be called Magical Realism. And fairy tales were pretty much the equivalent, in their day.

I think sometimes, people use "high fantasy" just to denote the setting (aka, medieval, there's magic, may have elves, wizards, trolls, etc.), while heroic and epic are more plot-specific. Between the two, I have no idea how you'd actually differentiate. Perhaps heroic focuses on one hero/heroine, and their life (like Hercules), while epic involves the fate of the world (like LOTR). No. I just don't see a clear way to separate them, really.

Magical realism is actually pretty well-defined, if you get started studying Latin american literature. García Marquez and Borges are prime examples of authors who defined the genre.

Magical realism is set in our world. Things happen that we would consider impossible (like the woman who ascended to heaven with her drying laundry one afternoon), but IN THE STORY they are treated without surprise or comment, as though these sorts of things happen every day.

If it seems magical to the characters in the story, if they react the way you or I would react, then it's not magical realism.

In fantasy, magic is talked about. The characters are aware that there is magic and also not-magic, and they can tell the difference. In magical realism, strange and not-strange are dealt with the same, as though there isn't a difference between the two extremes.

There's also an intense focus on the mundane things in life. In fantasy, magic is big and bold. Things work on a larger-than-life scale. In magical realism, the impossible moments happen in the tiniest things. It isn't magic serving a higher purpose or achieving a lofty goal. It's just random, sparkling moments of magic that serve to alter our perceptions of reality.

In a sense, fantasy is a deliberate escape from the real world. Magical realism is an intensely focused celebration of the real world.

@MsJudy -- Thank you very much! That explained the whole concept to me so much more clearly than I've heard it from numerous people before. I've read a little of García Marquez, but nothing else that I think actually falls within that genre, then.

Does the presence of that "everyday magic" usually sort of escalate throughout the story, and play part in the climax? Or is it more often spread out here and there, without necessarily being tied in to the biggest moments of the plot?

In magical realism, the magical elements are often just there. The central plot is something else.

Dave might talk about his school problems with the centaur who lives down the road. But the story is not about discovering there is a centaur. The centaur is simply accepted as normal. It's about Dave getting some good advice and sorting out his school issues.

In fact, a lot of the time the magical elements seem completely random.

There's a very light touch to the magic in magical realism. A very innocent sense of wonder, the way young children believe in magic. It's just there because it could be. And meanwhile the plot itself may be dealing with some of the horrific political events of the modern world--rape and torture and political disappearances. The magic elements really become an act of defiance. A declaration of how beautiful life is, even when the latest dictator is doing his best to make it horrible.

I think it's harder to manage magical realism for MG readers because they've only just outgrown that magical thinking. They're less willing to just allow a few unexplained magical elements to weave into a story.

If anybody can think of a really good MG example, I'd love to read one.

Garcia Marquez! That was the author to the book I read. I couldn't remember his name, I just remembered reading his story in Spanish and being like, dang this is good, haha.