One of the best ways you can make your fiction weird is by getting inspiration from other art forms! 

At its heart, weirdness is all about unique interpretation. Instead of describing the world or how you feel in the same way as everyone else, you are aiming to be unique and tell us how you specifically see the world and respond to what’s come before.

Reinterpreting the work of someone else is a great way to start being weird in your writing! It works even better if its in a form that isn’t your own - for example, reinterpreting poetry into stories, paintings into poems, songs into essays.

Let’s try reinterpreting some works from other forms!

Exercise #3:

Let’s take a look at this painting by Frida Kahlo. Look at the painting closely and zoom in if you like! Try to notice all the little details Frida has placed in the image. Once you’re done, answer the follow questions on your paper!

1. Describe this painting in three words.
2. What name would you give this painting? 
3. If this painting could speak, what would it say?

This painting is called “The Two Fridas”

Let’s write a short poem about the two yous! So if your name is Alice, the poem will be called “The Two Alices.”

Think about how the two versions of you are different and how they are the same. Do different parts of you come out in certain situations? 

Need a hand starting? Write two separate stanzas of four lines each, one stanza for each version of you. Start with the line “The first me is …” 

Write for ten minutes.