So, I was on a panel at Balticon last year (two years ago? What is time anyway?!) about Unusual Story Formats, and as a result I got turned on to some new (to me) unusual-format stories that I want to catalogue here (plus a couple that I missed in the last batch).
One of these is Wile E. Coyote v. Acme Company (Ian Frazier) in the New Yorker (!!) starring our favorite hapless coyote in his lawsuit against his mail order provider of various explosives, etc.
List of Items in Leather Valise Found On Welby Crescent (Alex Acks) published in the late and much-lamented Shimmer. I love me some listicles, especially ones like this where the whole story comes through the items, or at least you draw the connections between the items enough to satisfy your story-brain.
Bucket List Found In the Locker of Maddie Price, Age 14, Written Two Weeks Before the Great Uplifting of All Mankind (Erika L. Satifka) in Lightspeed. Another listicle, although very different from the previous one, but still a delight.
Unknown Number (Blue Neustifter) on Twitter, and subsequently nominated for the 2022 Short Story Hugo. This is a terrific use of a medium like this and is (in my mind) a homage to all the memes of bad text exchanges.
Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather (Sarah Pinsker) in Uncanny, which beat out Unknown Number for the 2022 Hugo for Best Short Story. Told in the comments on a music forum, with links to performances, this is such fun. I’m an old folkie so this hit me in the right spot.
Tweeting (Mari Ness) from Translunar Travelers Lounge. This is somehow sadder since the demise (or at least decline) of the Birdiverse but is still fun to read.
Ten Steps for Effective Mold Removal (Derrick Boden) from Apex Magazine. Right on up there with the listicle, a story written in product reviews just makes my day brighter.
Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU (Carmen Maria Machado) This novella (!) was in The American Reader, and while it feels a little like fan fic, it’s also just a wild read, written entirely in descriptions of fictional episodes of the TV show.
Selections from the Aarne-Thompson Index for After the End of the World (Stewart C. Baker) I don’t know how I left this off either of my two earlier posts as it’s been one of my favorites forever. (But I am a nerd, and I recognize that.) It was originally in The Next Review, and reprinted in The Sockdolager (edited by my splendid friend Paul) which is where I first saw it.
Flash Fiction Online regularly publishes things in interesting formats; I may have to do an entire post on some of the stuff they’ve published. Check them out!
As always, if I’m missed a favorite of yours, please share! Here are links to Part I and Part II of this (exceedingly irregular) series.
Insufficiently Obsequious 