Avid fanfiction reader.

You are already writing in a space where the "original" text exists. You are already in a postmodern position! You are engaging with an established text, remixing it, and adding your own voice. Lean into it.

How to Apply It to Your Fic

Metafiction (The "Story within a Story"): Have your characters realize they are in a story. Maybe Harry finds an old textbook that describes his own life in the third person, and he starts arguing with the narrator.

The Unreliable Narrator: Stop telling the truth. Write a fic from the perspective of a character who is actively trying to rewrite history or has a faulty memory. Make the reader question if anything they are reading actually happened.

The Rejection of "Grand Narratives": Rowling’s story is about Good vs. Evil. Postmodernism says: "That’s boring." Instead, focus on the micro-narratives—the small, messy, contradictory stories that don't fit into the "Good vs. Evil" box. What were the house elves thinking during the Battle of Hogwarts? What happened to the bureaucracy of the Ministry while the war was raging?

Intertextuality & Collage: Don't just stick to the books. Bring in muggle pop culture, newspaper clippings, diary entries, or even "archival" documents from the wizarding world. Turn your fic into a dossier of evidence rather than a linear chapter book.

The TL;DR for your next update:

Play with Perspective: If you’ve always written from Harry’s POV, try writing from the POV of an object, a portrait, or a minor side character who sees the "hero" as an annoying, dangerous menace.

Challenge the Canon: Use your fic to highlight the contradictions in the original books. If the wizarding world is so "magical," why is it also so incredibly bureaucratic and prejudice-ridden? Lean into that absurdity.

Own the Remix: You don't have to be "canon-compliant." Postmodernism celebrates the remix. Be bold, be ironic, and don't be afraid to break the "rules" of the world.

Make your setting a character: Ranpo didn't just write scenes; he built worlds that felt like a fever dream. Whether it’s a dusty antique shop or a cramped apartment, he knew that the right atmosphere can make a reader feel as trapped as the characters.

Obsession is your best friend: His characters are often driven by intense, borderline-unhealthy fixations. If your slow-burn feels a little flat, look at why your characters are obsessed with each other. Crank up that psychological intensity until it’s uncomfortable. That’s where the gold is.

The "Impossible" is just a puzzle: Ranpo loved a locked-room mystery. As fic writers, we love our angst and our "how will they get out of this" scenarios. Use logic to build the trap, but don't be afraid to add that touch of the surreal or the unexpected to keep your readers guessing.

Embrace the weird: Sometimes, the most memorable stories are the ones that take a sharp left turn into the strange. Don’t be afraid to lean into your fandom’s most niche or unsettling tropes. Ranpo would definitely approve.

1. The Algebra of Need

For Burroughs, everything is a transaction. Whether it is junk, power, or validation, the character is defined by the "need"—a cold, mechanical hunger. The protagonist isn't driven by complex Dostoevskian morality, but by the biology of withdrawal and the desperate, frantic search for the next fix, which acts as the only thing keeping the "Control Machine" from tearing them apart.

Writer Tip: Describe the "need" as an external entity. Don't just say the character is craving something; describe it as a parasite with its own voice, commanding the character to bypass their own ethics.

2. The Cut-Up Reality

Burroughs believed that language is a virus. In your writing, break the flow. Inject non-sequiturs, technical jargon, medical descriptions, and fragmented street slang into the prose. Reality for a Burroughs character is a collage of sensory overload where the past, present, and future bleed together.

Writer Tip: Use sensory disorientation. Shift tenses suddenly or insert a completely unrelated thought in the middle of a sentence to mimic the fractured consciousness of someone who has lost their grip on objective reality.

3. The Architecture of Control

Every setting is a cage. Burroughs’ worlds are filled with "Interzone" spaces—liminal, nightmarish places like bureaucratic offices, hospitals, or back alleys that serve as transit points for sinister authorities (the "Flesh Gardeners," the "Liquidators"). The protagonist is always trying to escape a system that is constantly watching them.

Writer Tip: Make the environment aggressive. Buildings should feel like they are trapping the character; the police or authority figures should feel like faceless, interchangeable automatons.

4. The Virus of Language

Burroughs viewed lies and propaganda as infectious agents. The protagonist’s internal monologue should be unreliable, filled with the "virus" of societal conditioning. He isn't rationalizing; he is repeating the slogans of his oppressors until he believes them, even while his body is rejecting the truth.

Writer Tip: Use repetition. Have the character repeat a phrase or a lie until it loses all meaning and becomes a mantra of their own enslavement.

The TL;DR for Your Next Fic

Focus on the sensation, not the emotion. Cold, clinical, visceral descriptions of physical states.

Use the "Cut-Up." Interrupt the narrative with sudden shifts in setting or perspective to reflect a shattered psyche.

Emphasize the System. The character is never alone; they are always part of a larger, sinister network of control that they are trying—and failing—to manipulate.

Inspired by the Master

Burroughs' influence on pop culture is profound, particularly in the realms of science fiction, rock music, and counter-culture literature.

David Bowie: Bowie famously used the Burroughs "cut-up" technique to write many of his lyrics, including the fragmented, surreal narratives on Diamond Dogs and beyond.

Kurt Cobain: Cobain was heavily influenced by the raw, nihilistic grit of Junky, eventually collaborating with Burroughs on a spoken-word piece called "The 'Priest' They Called Him."

Patti Smith: Often cited as a mentor figure, Smith channeled the visceral, rebellious energy of Burroughs into her poetry and music, blurring the lines between the physical body and spiritual decay.

The Cyberpunk Genre: Without Burroughs' vision of a high-tech, low-life world dominated by "the system," authors like William Gibson (who coined the term "cyberspace") would have had a significantly harder time imagining the dark, dystopian futures that define the genre.

1. The Terror of Propriety

For Wharton, status is not a static thing. It is a performance that requires constant, exhausting labor. The Malfoys would be portrayed as people who are never truly at rest because they are always "on." Lucius would not just be a Death Eater; he would be a man terrified that a misplaced word at a gala will destroy his reputation. Narcissa would be the guardian of the family gate, her every polite smile serving as a weapon to keep the "unworthy" away.

Writer Tip: Describe their social interactions as if they are high-stakes skirmishes. Use words like "maneuver," "position," and "exposure." Make the reader feel that a breach in etiquette is just as dangerous as a duel.

2. The Gilded Cage of the Manor

Wharton was a master at using houses to represent the souls of their owners. Malfoy Manor would be a beautiful, oppressive, and utterly lonely place. She would describe the high ceilings and cold, expensive rooms as a way to show how isolated the Malfoys are from the rest of the world. They have everything they could ever want, but they have no one who actually loves them.

Writer Tip: Use sensory details that emphasize coldness and luxury. The smell of expensive wax, the chill of marble, the weight of velvet curtains that block out the sun. Their home should feel like a very rich tomb.

3. The Tragedy of Blindness

Wharton’s characters often destroy themselves because they are too arrogant or too focused on the wrong things to see the reality of their situation. The Malfoys’ descent into the service of Voldemort would be framed as a fatal social miscalculation. They would think they are securing their position in the new world order, only to realize that they have handed their agency over to a power that does not care about manners, lineage, or silver.

Writer Tip: Show them trying to apply the logic of high society to a war. They try to "negotiate" with monsters using the etiquette of the parlor, and they are horrified when it fails.

4. The Erasure of the Individual

In Wharton's world, family legacy often demands the sacrifice of the self. Draco would be the ultimate example of this. He would be a boy who has no choice but to inhabit the role carved out for him by his parents. Wharton would write him not as a brat, but as a young man who has been trained to hide his own heartbeat behind a mask of indifference.

Writer Tip: Focus on the performative nature of his relationship with his parents. Show the way he watches them, mimics them, and tries to earn their approval by stripping away his own personality.

The TL;DR for Your Next Fic

Keep it polished but cold. The prose should be elegant, sharp, and detached.

Focus on the domestic setting. The most important scenes happen in the dining room or the drawing room, where the true power dynamics of the family are revealed.

Highlight the futility. The Malfoys work so hard to maintain a status that is essentially meaningless in the face of the actual war.

1. The Psychology of Resentment

For Dostoevsky, Peter’s betrayal is not about politics. It is about a long, slow accumulation of small humiliations. He would focus on how Peter feels when James laughs, or when Sirius looks at him with casual, unconscious pity. This resentment is the core of Peter’s personality. It is a slow burn that eventually consumes his moral compass.

Writer Tip: Show the moment the resentment turns into a physical sensation. Maybe it feels like bile in his throat or a cold weight in his stomach. The betrayal is his way of finally having power over the people who made him feel small.

2. The Tortured Rationalization

Dostoevsky’s characters are experts at convincing themselves they are the victims, even when they are doing something horrific. Peter would spend hours in his head arguing with himself. He would tell himself that he had no choice, that James and Sirius were arrogant, and that he was just doing what a rational, terrified person would do to survive.

Writer Tip: Let him justify everything. Make the reader listen to his internal logic until they almost feel the pull of it, before pulling the rug out and showing the ugly, selfish truth underneath.

3. The Terror of Being Invisible

The greatest fear for a character like Peter is that he is nothing. He is the person who is only remembered because he stands next to someone more interesting. Dostoevsky would explore the terror Peter feels at the thought of being forgotten or replaced. His loyalty to Voldemort becomes a twisted way to be "seen," even if it is only as a servant.

Writer Tip: Focus on his need for belonging. Show him hanging onto the edges of the Marauders' group, terrified that one day they will notice he does not fit.

4. The Spiritual Desolation

Dostoevsky was deeply interested in the soul. Peter’s story is a tragedy of a man who chooses to kill his own humanity to save his skin. By the time he reaches the end of the story, he is a man who is physically alive but spiritually dead. He has traded his friends, his honor, and his self for a few extra years of breathing.

Writer Tip: Use the environment to show his inner state. As he gets deeper into his betrayal, make the world around him feel emptier, colder, and more oppressive.

The TL;DR for Your Next Fic

Focus on the internal monologue. Make it frantic, obsessive, and self-justifying.

Highlight the contrast. Contrast the "sunlight" of the Marauders' friendship with the "darkness" of Peter’s secret life.

Make him pathetic, not grand. He is not a cool villain. He is a man who is deeply ashamed and terrified, and that is what makes him so dangerous.