So I have a pretty well-defined plot for a "magical realism" story where my main character is around age 9-11 and the tone of the story is very much in this age range being told with a 9-11 year old voice. My MC is thrust into a situation in which she has to deal with some villainous magical occurrences in her life. But they are interpreted through her perspective. I started working on the back story for the motivations of my main adult characters and creating a magical system to explain why these occurrences are happening in her life. The magical system and back story feels much more serious and complex and now I am having a hard time reconciling the too. The tone of each feels very different. I feel like I have two separate stories now. I don't anticipate including very much of this backstory detail within the story, but do feel I will need to offer some explanation to the MC (and the reader) eventually when I reveal what is going on. If I age up the main character I feel like I lose the original humorous "magical reality" quality of the original premise. If I make my villain's motivation or the magical system less complex and more transparent, it feels that I am making it too shallow and contrived. Any thoughts? Thanks, CieeCiee
Yeah... I hate it when that happens. I can only tell you what I would do: Just keep working on it. Work on the part that appeals to you the most. I mean, you're gonna have to rewrite it anyway, one way or the other, right? The only reason you should stop working on it entirely is if you can't think of anything else to write or if you just lose your enthusiasm for it. Whichever part of your story you feel like working on, that's the part you should work on. Don't try to force yourself to reconcile all these different pieces of story--I mean, not unless you are under contract or something. If you're not under contract then just take your time and have as much fun as you can. yours in Chaos, Scarlett
Keep them separate, and don't worry about the different styles. The feel of The Hobbit is very different from that of The Lord of the Rings, but they coexist well. Anne McCaffery has dragonrider books for younger readers as well as those for adult readers. Again, the tone differes greatly, but anyone who reads both can see and appreciate the connections.
A fun way to do it would be using the point of view of an older- let's say MUCH older- character, maybe even villain, every now and then to polarize the tone. so while the child is running around, having fun adventuring, you could reveal a darker side that is present simultaneously. Also, if you age the character over the course of the storyline, you could reveal more darkness later on and still have the fun beginning. But if you find you're losing something by including everything, then cut something out! (how much sense did THAT make?)
