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Surreal

Dream logic, bizarre imagery, and reality-bending narratives.

Want to stress-test character dynamics before drafting? Plot a relationship web in ShipCraft and bring the most compelling conflicts back into this genre guide.

Essential Elements

Dream-like or illogical elements
Reality is fluid or questionable
Symbolic and metaphorical layers
Unexpected juxtapositions
Emotional truth over literal truth
Disorientation as feature, not bug

10 Essential Tropes

Reality Melting

Physical world becomes unstable

Example: Walls breathing, gravity shifting, time looping

Impossible Architecture

Spaces defy geometry

Example: Endless hallways, rooms bigger inside, recursive spaces

Living Objects

Inanimate things gain agency

Example: Speaking furniture, moving paintings, sentient shadows

Body Transformation

Physical form shifts inexplicably

Example: Turning into animals, merging with objects, dissolving

Symbolic Characters

People representing concepts

Example: Death as person, fear as child, memory as stranger

Nested Dreams

Dreams within dreams

Example: Waking repeatedly, uncertain which level is real

Absurd Logic

Internal consistency that makes no real-world sense

Example: Bureaucracy for breathing, market for emotions

Fractured Timeline

Non-linear progression

Example: Effects before causes, simultaneous contradictions

Metamorphosis

Transformation with emotional truth

Example: Kafka's bug, becoming what you fear, identity shift

The Uncanny

Familiar made strange

Example: Home subtly wrong, loved ones slightly off

Famous Examples

  • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  • Axolotl by Julio Cortázar
  • The Garden of Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

  • •Random weirdness without purpose
  • •Confusion for confusion's sake
  • •No emotional or thematic anchor
  • •"It was all a dream" cop-out

Practice with Surreal

Generate a 250-word story demonstrating key Surreal conventions and tropes.

Mix Tropes Tool

Select 2-3 tropes to generate a story that combines them. Learn how different conventions can work together.

Select Tropes (0/3)

Surreal Tropes

Select at least 2 tropes to generate a story

Spot the Convention Quiz

Test your knowledge of Surreal conventions! Read a story and identify which tropes and conventions are present.

How It Works:

  • 1.Read the generated Surreal story carefully
  • 2.Select which tropes you think are present in the story
  • 3.Submit your answer to see how well you identified the conventions
  • 4.Get +1 point for each correct trope, -1 for incorrect guesses