Thread: How Weird Is Too Weird?

So.

I write Science Fiction, primarily (I play around with other genres, but my main focus has always been on Low Fantasy), and I typically am a little out there in terms of what I'll try to put in a story. Most of the time, it isn't a problem. I can make it work, and it isn't so lunatic as to turn people off; in fact, those who've read it usually seem to the like the unique approaches.

However, in one of the things I've been trying to work on lately, I think I might have crossed the line into the totally crazy: Psychics, a sociopathic CIA agent, unicorns, an entire planet dedicated to LARPing, a rape victim out for revenge, and a guy who becomes a deity.

Is that just too far out there to even contemplated as readable, much less writable? (I can explain the plot if someone requests, but I'm hoping you'll be able to judge just by what the content is.)

Help?

If you wish to specifically label it low fantasy, then yes I'd suggest it's too much. However, as a general story goes, weakening it might be detrimental to sales prospects. Bookstores are full of high fantasy fiction, with demi-god heros, evil deities, ridiculous super powers, secret world organisational schemes and the like.

Books on shelves suggest crazy is readable, and in fact preferred. But it depends on what you're comfortable writing. (eg) Romance sells, but you mightn't be able to write it.

Hope my lazy dibble is useful.

If you can do it well then it should work. Look at some of the well known stories and try to assess how weird they are. Imagine JK Rowling sat wondering if the idea of a boy going to wizard school and fighting demons with his school chums was too weird.

It is good to ask this of yourself though. It shows you are aware that a story could lapse into just plain ridiculous, so that should help keep things steady. The trick may be to draw the reader in well enough so that they will accept the scenarios and characters you introduce. Perhaps start off with what you consider the least weird scenarios and characters, then progress from there.

One word, Heavy Metal.

One Title, whatever. Anything can be written correctly, thus any idea is a good one. Expect as the craziness goes up, however, that you will have to be that much better at writing these things perfectly as can relate not only to your thought processes, but everyone elses as well.

Depends on whether you can write about these things with sufficient depth and bring them all together in a believable way. If these ideas are just lumped together because, "Hey cool, it's weird," then it probably won't succeed.

Write it! it sounds interesting and I agree with the above posters, if Douglas Adams had sat back and thought twice about any of the happenings in the Hitch hikers's guide, it wouldn't be the book it is.

And personally, after all the twinkly vampires and angsty werewolves that have been forced down our throats lately, I think it's high-time unicorns made a come back.

Those things sound more like fodder for satire to me. Otherwise, I'm not going to tell you to write it -- who can judge based on a list of plot elements?

I tend to write over the top stories so in my eyes weird is good as long as it's well written. I like originality as well. It doesn't get any weirder for me than people fighting genetic nightmares with tapes in their occipital lobes.

Real life is weird enough.