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Q&A What is the most important characteristic of New Weird as a genre?

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 th...

posted 5y ago by Chris Sunami‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:01:39Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45545
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Chris Sunami‭ · 2019-12-08T12:01:39Z (over 4 years ago)
 **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._

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-05-29T14:56:06Z (almost 5 years ago)
Original score: 15