1. Be certain

2. Write the symptoms, not the cause

3. Be firm, visceral, and vivid

4. Things to Avoid

People often struggle with writing weirdness that fits a Fallen London tone. When you get weirdness wrong it manifests as prose that's full of foreboding and light on substance. It can be mystifying and unsatisfying. Here's some guidance on how to approach it instead:We write specific weirdness, not generic. Know where this bit of weirdness fits into your world. Tie it in tight.Bad:Better:The player or audience is confronted with the symptoms of the weirdness, not its root cause. Address what's tangible about it: what it's doing, what danger it's causing, what opportunity it has created.Examples:To diagnose these symptoms, ask yourself questions. You're distilling something abstract into something immediate. Keep asking questions until you get from the former to the latter.When you've written a few different manifestations of the weirdness in your story, people will start putting the symptoms together and working out the root cause. And they'll feel the satisfaction of having done so.Situate yourself in the character's senses and situation. Always think how the weirdness harms, impedes, advantages, or eludes them.If you're struggling, take a step back and look at the scene as a whole. How could the weirdness affect it?Make the players’ action specific and provocative. "Examine the skull" is bland "Reach into the skull's left eye socket" is not.: Most good weirdness can be summarised in a single sentence. You need to be able to communicate what's happening easily.: This probably means you don't have a firm grasp of what you're trying to communicate. One image, potently expressed , then move on. (If this is happening, simplify the weirdness or ask yourself more questions to dig into its symptoms)shadows, radiance, smoke, darkness, visions, whispers, weird eye effects (often, weird eye effects – like glowing eyes, red eyes, etc – are signs you haven't got a better idea. You CAN do interesting things with weird eyes but they need a clear spin)(Great is used so much it's become bland. Instead use a word that suggests size AND threat or size AND composition. Vast, enormous, cavernous, monolithic, gargantuan, etc. Or use a comparison.)