Wait, Are They Allowed to Do That?

What weird formats can teach you about power, permission, and the shape of your story.

- BY JESSICA BERG, ROSECLIFF LITERARY

There's a quiet thrill in reading something that makes you pause and think: Wait, are they allowed to do that?

A novel written in text messages, like Where'd You Go, Bernadette.

A love story told through diary entries.

These aren't cheap gimmicks designed to lure you past page one. They're deliberate craft choices that can carry surprising emotional weight.

WHAT IS AN UNCONVENTIONAL FORMAT?

For our purposes, an unconventional storytelling format is any narrative that borrows a shape not traditionally associated with fiction. Think:

• Epistolary novels (emails, DMs)

• Hermit crab essays (menus, instruction manuals, legal forms)

• Lists, receipts, transcripts

• Faux-digital formats (blog posts, forum threads, social timelines)

In short, anything that rejects the usual beginning-middle-end march counts as unconventional. Most of us were taught that stories should build like an arc: rising tension, a significant turning point, and a neat resolution. But author Jane Alison, in her book Meander, Spiral, Explode, points out that this “arc” isn’t the only way to tell a story and maybe shouldn't always be the default. The takeaway here is that shape can reveal what the story is about and not just what happens in it.

WHY THAT'S GOOD NEWS