To further increase their "magic realism," works of paranoid fiction often employ common devices and archetypes from other genres, including a detective-solving structure, plot twists, or philosophical themes, to create a surrealistic tone and an atmosphere of fear and dread. Plots also tend to be fanciful and occasionally futuristic to emphasize their inherent absurdity and imaginativeness, but also maintain some measure of realism to comment on how apparently unrealistic stories can, in fact, be (often frighteningly) closer to real life than one might think at first glance.[1]