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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45545
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

 **Genre should be seen largely as a way of connecting a writer with the audience most likely to enjoy his or her book _based on elements shared with other books_.** It isn't an exact science, and for this, a hybrid subgenre, you'll be looking for a signature combination of traits, rather than a single defining one.

I'm not previously familiar with the label "New Weird," but it seems quite clear, and I can readily identify work I've encountered that would arguably fall in that (non-exclusive) category (_Dreams of Shreds and Tatters_, _House of Leaves_, _Coyote Kings of the Space Aged Bachelor Pad_, _Sandman_, _Black Mirror_, _Kafka on the Shore_)\*. If I had to redefine it, I'd call it

> Contemporary magical realism, but with a horror-influenced sensibility.

It needs to feel **fresh and new** , not old and musty. It needs to have **supernatural** or science fiction elements, but it needs to combine those with a semi-realist setting, not a wholly fantastic one --even if set in an invented setting, it needs to give the sense of strange things intruding into the **real world** in which we live, rather than presenting an escapist fantasy. Finally, it needs **a mood that is dark** , eerie, disturbing, cautionary or horrific, not one that is twee, playful, childlike, mythic, wish-fulfilling or reassuring.

\* _Note, I'm not much for horror, so my examples are probably on the lighter end of this spectrum._

Original score: 15