Love this post as I write surreal stuff and sometimes it is ludicrous, funny, sad but it is always weird in some way. My favourite here has to be The School!
Love all these ideas--thanks! And I just recently read that Tobias Wolff story for the millionth time, and I'm always surprised. Totally here for the strange or even just a little off-kilter in fiction.
Your list is so much longer than mine! Hard to believe i didn't think of "abnormal," or "peculiar" but I did not. Two i had that you did not: "off" and "off kilter." I also threw in "tilted" and "slanted." It was a fun exercise. Thanks! Allowing the strange to enter my writing is something I've only recently been trying out--it really does change everything.
Thanks for the comment Mary - glad you found the little exercise useful. And yes, just allowing that element of the strange into your writing, even at the subtlest level can produce some interesting results - whether you are writing flash fiction, short stories, novels or even creative non-fiction.
Love this post as I write surreal stuff and sometimes it is ludicrous, funny, sad but it is always weird in some way. My favourite here has to be The School!
Thanks Rani. Glad you are making use of the strange already - it really does add something, doesn’t it, especially for a postmodernist like Barthelme.
Love all these ideas--thanks! And I just recently read that Tobias Wolff story for the millionth time, and I'm always surprised. Totally here for the strange or even just a little off-kilter in fiction.
Thanks Rebecca. Yes, it's the same for me, one of those stories that you keep coming back to, like a favourite album track.
This idea of the quirky and off-beat seems to have struck a chord with people, so I'll probably do something else around this topic.
Your list is so much longer than mine! Hard to believe i didn't think of "abnormal," or "peculiar" but I did not. Two i had that you did not: "off" and "off kilter." I also threw in "tilted" and "slanted." It was a fun exercise. Thanks! Allowing the strange to enter my writing is something I've only recently been trying out--it really does change everything.
Thanks for the comment Mary - glad you found the little exercise useful. And yes, just allowing that element of the strange into your writing, even at the subtlest level can produce some interesting results - whether you are writing flash fiction, short stories, novels or even creative non-fiction.