The Weirder, the Better

[This article originally appeared in the November/December 2025 issue of Writer's Digest magazine.]

This might seem like a strange notion, but we need to rethink weird.  

When I was a kid in the ’90s, being branded “weird” was about as bad a label as one could get at school … yet we’d all rush home to tune into Nickelodeon’s “The Ren & Stimpy Show,” one of the weirdest kid’s programs of all time. 

Heck, as an adult, no one wants to be dubbed weird either, at work, socially, or even in politics, as the last election cycle showed. But when we cozy up to the couch at night, we’re watching “Severance,” one of the weirdest (and best!) TV shows in years.  

Historically, weird has long had a lock on great media at large. While I never had the pleasure of meeting any ancient Mesopotamians, they are responsible for one of the oldest surviving literary works, the Epic of Gilgamesh… which I would dub one of the oldest surviving (and weirdest!) literary works, what with the angry gods and goddesses, a creature made from clay who turns into a man after a weeklong sex romp with a human, a king on the quest for eternal life. Heck, the DNA of most fairy tales is likewise decidedly gonzo—and yet those stories built one of the most successful media businesses of all time, The Walt Disney Company. 

This is all to say, weird works. We may be weird-averse in the course of our social lives, but weird has long been utterly critical to culture. And that brings us to another curious myth at hand that desperately needs busting: That the strange side of life is only the domain of fiction scribes. Nonfiction writers are told to keep things level-headed, even-keeled, objective, prose in a veritable suit coat (or straitjacket). But the truth is, weird just might be the thing that weirdly takes your writing to all-new heights. 

Here’s why—and how to begin throwing prose curveballs that will entrance editors and readers alike. 

What does it mean to be weird? Per Merriam-Webster, “of strange or extraordinary character.” But I would define it as that which cannot be defined—a true je ne sais quoi. (As Mark Peters put it best in an etymological breakdown in Mental Floss, “Like beauty, weirdness is in the eye of the beholder.”) 

What impact can it have? Consider the Von Restorff Effect, which is often discussed in the context of advertising. In a 1933 study, the German doctor Hedwig von Restorff reported that when presented with a medley of similar items, the one that breaks the norm is the one that we remember most. To get really reductive, if you’re presented with a list of basic sentence articles like “an,” “the,” etc., alongside the word porcupine, you can probably guess which one you’re going to recall. The same goes for novels, movies, and—yes!—nonfiction.    

So many nonfiction essays, newspaper and magazine stories, and books are boring, and thus forgettable, like those aforementioned sentence articles. I can’t tell you who wrote the last bit of economic news I just read, but I can tell you who writes the best, most outside-the-box profiles for Esquire and others (Tom Chiarella) or who built an emulation-worthy career writing fascinating subculture pieces before breaking big with Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert). Whether it’s voice or subject matter or a unique focus on the telling details that would have gone overlooked by another writer, authors like these massively open the aperture of possibility in nonfiction—and that’s without even going down the rabbit hole of New Journalism and writers like Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Truman Capote … even though you absolutely should. After all, a well-stocked bookshelf is the best MFA. 

From the outset, my goal in journalism was to write for magazines, where there’s more room for storytelling and voice … but I started out as a newspaper reporter in the middle of nowhere. The good news: Nobody seemed to want to write the long weekend features. Moreover, no one seemed to particularly care what was in them as long as they filled space—so I had an absolute ball writing profiles of local mall Santas, “haunted” schools I heard about on the police scanner, and more. I knew I was onto something when I went to a laundromat and saw people reading my narrative feature on said school and talking about it (“one of the weirdest things I’ve ever read in a paper,” one person quipped, to my delight).  

And then I launched a strategic initiative: At the recommendation of a former professor, I began writing one story a month that represented the type of work I wanted to do more of in the future. Soon enough, despite all the county government articles and police blotter pieces I turned out to fill a quota, I had a portfolio hinting at all the strange, fascinating things I loved covering—and then I used that as a springboard to get magazine gigs where I could do more of it (and, with hope, make more than the $18K salary I was pulling in toiling in the literary mines). 

I used to take curiosity for granted. But then I realized there’s cachet (and cash!) when you learn to harness it in your work—especially when it deals with novel subject matter. A few years ago, I grew apoplectic looking at those gross ad boxes at the bottom of various news sites featuring fungus-like spores, closeups of toenails and that sort of thing—and I failed to turn anything up on Google explaining what they were and how they worked. So, I pitched a pal at Fast Company an article on just that, and discovered they have a name (“chumboxes”) and in fact lead to clicks due to the same principles that underlie the Von Restorff Effect. That article led to a multiyear gig as a contributing writer at the site. 

Similarly, during the Papal conclave, I found myself staring at the bizarre striped clown-like outfits worn by the pope’s protectors, the Swiss Guard, and wondered how the heck they came to be. So, I pitched my Fast Company editor, who greenlit the idea, and the subsequent piece took off.  

Last year, I was waiting at a red light in front of a Sherwin-Williams paint location, and my mind wandered to how odd it is that a modern category leader has a logo featuring the planet being doused in a moon-sized can of paint with the slogan “COVER THE EARTH”—so I pitched my Fast Co. editor a story on that. It yielded more reader feedback than anything I wrote that year, with others sharing in my bafflement.  

All of this is to say: If you’re wondering about some strange slice of life, there’s a good chance you’re not the only one—and a good editor knows that’s fertile ground for a story. 

On a parallel note, keep track of all your weird thoughts for a rainy day. I have a running log in the Notes app on my phone where I jot down all sorts of miscellaneous musings, which I look to if I’m on the hunt for something to pitch. One such: Because I subscribe to seemingly 10,000 streaming platforms, I don’t have basic cable—but I love staying in hotels because I can watch it there, and revel in only having a few dozen entertainment options. Which is a funny, weird character trait. The result: “You Have Enough Subscriptions. It’s Time to Uncut the Cord,” a counterintuitive (and hopefully amusing) essay on the paradox of choice in the modern streaming era. 

I managed submissions inboxes (aka slush piles) at magazines for years. And I can assure you that when an editor is going through them, they’re going for speed. They have to get through 150 pitches by 5 p.m. on a Friday, and it’s currently 3:45—so you’ve got to grab their attention with the unique, the interesting and, yes, the odd. That’s the angle, the hook, what makes your story different from everything else in the slush pile, and notably the other pieces that have been written on this subject before. Find that in any given pitch, and make it pop as much as possible. Moreover, spend time on a solid title for your query, because in the modern web era, an editor will be thinking in terms of headlines and what will draw in the most readers. The quirk factor is often it—such as my recent articles like “How Olipop Went From a Laundry Lab to a Billion-Dollar Soda Company” or “What This $1,500 Book Tells Us About the Future of Modern Publishing.” $1,500 for a book?! That’s weird. Let’s see what’s going on there … 

A couple of years ago, I wrote a fun series of profiles of writers’ homes for this magazine. No matter what I’m writing about, I usually run my subject matter through the newspaper/magazine database ProQuest (which is likely available for free through your library’s online portal) and read from “Oldest First.” Doing this deep dive gives so many of my articles their secret offbeat sauce—such as, say, in the case of Château de Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas’ insane, over-the-top castle he built for himself outside Paris, this from The Washington Post: “Upon hearing Dumas describe the elaborate house he envisioned … [the architect] supposedly exclaimed, ‘But all that will cost you a fortune!’ ‘I certainly hope so,’ a beaming Dumas was said to reply.” It’s a telling detail that encapsulates Dumas and the property—and one I wouldn’t have found had I not gone spelunking for it, knowing that quirk has always been a key ingredient of great nonfiction. 

In that series I also documented the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum in Key West. One comical find that made the article came from a 1964 New York Times article: Hemingway added a wall around the home not entirelybecause people were flocking to get a glimpse of a famous writer, but rather because Papa was fond of swimming in his pool au naturel. 

Or, as I worked into a Smithsonian article about the history of Phantom Ranch—the only accommodations seven-and-a-half miles below the rim of the Grand Canyon—that Swedish Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf and Princess Louise rode through the property on mules named Bob and Flo in 1926. Collectively, the great thing about such random odd details is that they add color and humanity to your nonfiction, liven things up and buy you space for the nerdier, perhaps more boring background details—a veritable spoonful of sugar. 

Nonfiction writers are also often told to suppress their writerly voice. It’s advice that … should be suppressed. Covering the offbeat often uniquely allows you to flex your voice to rise to the occasion of the subject matter—and that’s a fantastic thing, because the one thing that sets you apart from every other writer is your voice. Don’t hesitate to use it in your lede*, which is your first chance to showcase to the reader what this story is and how it’sgoing to be told. Making it memorable is crucial, and leaning into the stranger sides of life often does just that. (For instance, for a WD profile of R. L. Stine, I led with, Something about R .L. Stine freaks me out. Not high literature, I know—but with hope, an unexpected intro that hinted at the comical tone of the story to follow, and Stine’s humorous macabre at large.)  

FOOTNOTE: *Questionably spelled journalistic slang for the first sentence of an article. 

Kids, in particular, love weird. I wrote a handful of installments of a National Geographic Kids column called “Wild Vacation” that should have been called “Weird Vacation,” because that’s exactly what it was—profiles of such places as a snow hotel in Finland, a mini hotel inside an airplane in Costa Rica, a pod hotel in Kyoto, and more. It’s a good reminder for me to think beyond my usual markets—because the peculiar appeals across the board. 

You can sow weird into writing of any type to great effect. I pitched a book about the band Modest Mouse’s record The Moon & Antarctica to Bloomsbury’s cult-favorite 33 ⅓ music series, and leaned in on the eccentricity, because that’s what gave it a truly great narrative. It’s a strange story about a strange, brilliant record. The lead singer got his jaw broken by strangers in a park as the album was being made, necessitating his mouth be wired shut (!)—and that’s only the tip of the iceberg of oddity. I leaned heavily into it all on the back-panel copy, and the first print run sold out immediately. Which, of course, is a testament to the band’s fans … but just maybe the power of weirdness, as well. 

As much as I’m an advocate of all things outside the box, I should add that it all compounds—and balance is key. Hunter S. Thompson famously said, “It never got weird enough for me,” but, well, it gets weird enough for your readers if it overwhelms, feels forced, feels too tangential. As in every other realm of writing, don’t be afraid to kill your darlings if you have to, no matter how delightfully absurd you may think they are. The good news: Any good editor will be there with a scalpel (or Sawzall) as necessary. 

*****

A few years ago, I traveled to Guelph, Ontario, for the magazine Eye on Design, to profile a literary graphic novelist who goes only by the name “Seth.” Known for an artistic style that tips a hat to mid-century New Yorkercovers, he had deeply integrated elements of his stories into his daily life, blending fiction and reality—from his custom 1940s-style suits to the miniature town of 100 buildings from his books that he constructed in his basement to sculptures of his characters to a kitchen filled with antique appliances to a memorial library named after one of his protagonists to a fictional historical society that has meticulously documented everything in his story-verse, right down to the boulder on his front lawn that, of course, comes with its own narrative (in plaque form). 

It was as eccentric as you could get—and I was in heaven. Because it all translated to pure story, and perhaps my favorite article I’ve ever written. As we walked to lunch along active railroad tracks above the city, I have never been more fully ensconced in the world of an article. Which strikes at the heart of all this: You get to explore your curiosities and passions. Travel to foreign countries. Walk along railroad tracks with the most interesting person you’ll probably ever meet. And, get paid (!) to do it all. 

And all you had to do was look at weird in a new way.