Things I’ve Learned From Reading and Writing Strange Fiction
“I delight in what I fear.” —Shirley Jackson
Before I moved to the UK four years ago, I’d never heard the term strange fiction (also known as weird or uncanny), partly because in Romania, my native country, this genre of writing isn’t very popular. I knew of H.P. Lovecraft and his cosmic weird tales and I was a great admirer of Edgar Allan Poe’s dark and macabre prose and poetry, but that was pretty much the extent of my knowledge on the subject. So when I was first introduced to Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, Franz Kafka, Daphne du Maurier, Octavia E. Butler, Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Robert Aickman, Kelly Link, John Langan, Mariana Enríquez, Helen Oyeyemi, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and M. John Harrison, to name a few, I felt like a new world had opened up for me. I had finally discovered a way of telling stories that fitted my style—one that challenges the rational and the mundane, but isn’t that preoccupied with elaborate plots and twists, or set-in-stone explanations and conclusions.
The tradition of exploring the Other in the form of the weird tale has had a fascinating journey, from its rise in the late 19th century. Weird fiction is a mode of writing derived from the Gothic and the ghost story and is part of the speculative fiction umbrella, but defining it isn’t straightforward and I believe that’s the beauty of it. The strange tale can be found at the boundary between realism and the supernatural, and can be explored in many ways, from folk and urban weird, to magical realism and surrealism.
In the ‘Foreweird’ to The Weird (2011) edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, Michael Moorcock explains that ‘there are no established rules for the weird tale’ and that it can contain supernatural elements but it doesn’t have to. While horror surprises us with a clear and undeniable state of physical and emotional brutality, and fantasy can provide escapism through the characters' quests and the elaborate world-building, strange fiction’s main purpose is to disturb. The weird tale can be subtle or bold, transgressive, frightful, defiant, or haunting—it plays with things hidden and repressed. The strange story makes us ask ‘why do I reject the unknown?’ and it enables us to peek beyond the veil that separates reality from an otherworldly space that may or may not exist outside in the world or within our unconscious.
Moorcock says, ‘what is good about the majority of these [weird] stories is precisely that they leave you with many more questions than answers’. Understandably, many people prefer to know who, what, why, and how, and strange fiction doesn’t hide the answers to these questions completely, but it allows the reader’s imagination to fill in certain gaps. After spending the last four years reading and writing in this form, I feel like I’ve found my craft and the liberty I needed as a writer. A few of my friends have told me they don’t always understand what my writing is about, but that they can still appreciate the symbolism of my work. Perhaps one of the best compliments I’ve received on my way of telling stories is that they are quietly grotesque.
The weird has seen a rise in popularity in the past decade, with many writers shifting to it from horror or other genres. This isn’t because writing strange tales is the ultimate form of fiction and better than others—though it appeals to writers because it allows room for experimentation and offers the freedom of not feeling forced to make work fit any one category—but because in our current ever-shifting climate it’s vital to acknowledge our biggest fears and worries in order to come to terms with them.
The Weird can be transformative—sometimes literally—entertaining monsters while not always seeing them as monstrous. It strives for a kind of understanding even when something cannot be understood, and acknowledges failure as sign and symbol of our limitations. —Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
If you want to start writing in this genre, the best advice I can give you is to read weird fiction, both from classic and contemporary writers. Don’t be afraid to explore your creativity. Give yourself the chance to tap into your most unconscious ideas by doing whatever inspires you. I like to say that being a writer of the weird is a lifestyle, not just a writing mode, so embrace your uniqueness. In a world where literature is threatened by the desire to escape through social media and other things that bring quick fixes and gratification, weird fiction reminds us of the value of being patient, curious, open-minded, unapologetically imaginative, and, most importantly, strange.
About Liliana Carstea
Liliana Carstea is a Romanian writer fascinated with the macabre, the ancient, and the magical. She lives in the UK and has a BA with Honours in Creative Writing from the University of Bedfordshire. She is currently working on her first short story collection.
Her work has appeared on Black Flowers and Civilian Global, and she was interviewed for Write or Die Tribe for the ‘In the Spotlight Series’. Some of her flash fiction stories made it to the second round in the SmokeLong Flash Fellowship for Emerging Writers in 2019. You can find her on Instagram, @adaughterofmoths, and read some of her work at www.adaughterofmoths.com
