How I Write Puerto Rican Magical Realism

Hey friends, it’s been some minutes. Last month, I was super thrilled to be published in a new short story anthology from Speculation Publications. It’s called “Aurora: Tales of Winter Dreams – Winter Lore 3” and the story I published with them is called “Don’t Wake Up Too Fast.” Please consider giving it a look here.

The story is YA magical realism built out of Puerto Rican folklore. For context, I’m a Puerto Rican writer who resides in California, and I’ve spent the last five years rigorously studying various Caribbean mythology. Specifically Taíno and other indigenous myths. One of my long-term goals as an author is to introduce this wonderfully vast and vivid mosaic of fantasy and history to people who’ve never heard of it. Which is a big reason why I’m so proud of this particular story.

OK, so on to the main event. How do I write magical realism based in Puerto Rican lore? I have a few “rules” I like to live by. And sometimes I even follow them! Here are just a few that are most relevant to “Don’t Wake Up Too Fast.”

First, I truly believe that voice should carry the story. In the case of my story, the narrator has a specific tone that is wry, impatient, and tender. I wanted it to feel authentically adolescent without being juvenile. To actually achieve this, I made the protagonist skeptical enough to ground the supernatural elements while still inhabiting them fully. She even code-switches between English and Spanish at key moments, which by the way is a tricky thing because when done incorrectly, it can come off as performative.

Next, make sure the mythology earns its mystery. This story has a magic system called dreamwalking, which is pretty much what it sounds like. But I made the mechanics for how it works specific enough to feel rooted in something tedious, like the character needing nightshade from Cabo Rojo and honey under a new moon, and so on. We don’t know why it works like this, but we don’t need to because we can trust the readers to follow the logic and details without over-explaining everything.

This is a tougher one: try to go for double meanings. In short stories, we’re pretty limited on our economy of characters and scenes and “moments.” So to make the themes shine, we kinda have to outdo ourselves with symbolism and the layering of what something means. In my story, there’s a double of the main character who shows up, and her “meaning” works on multiple levels. She’s visually distinct from the narrator but also shares her scars. She never speaks, only acts. Paces like a shark. Functions like a death-harbinger, but also a shadow self, but also the narrator’s own suppressed knowledge that something’s “wrong.” And that does a lot of work in setting up the final revelation so that it doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere.

And finally, please please please land your emotional core with grace. I won’t give away what happens in my story in case you haven’t read it yet, but there’s a revelation that explains what’s really been going on all along, and it reframes much of the story and how it starts. Short stories thrive on ambiguous endings that make you want to reread the whole thing. But this only usually works if the emotion of it all hits. If it’s built around the main character being unable to save the day in an easy way, or to get exactly what they want without any cost or consequence, then congrats! You’ve managed to add some tension in a compressed format. And that’s not easy, so give yourself a pat on the back.

Special thanks to Speculation Publications for publishing this story along with so many other wonderful entries from some seriously great writers. The anthology is available online and in paperback via the big book store channels.

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