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It's Only a Little Funny
Have you ever read something funny in a book, turned and read it aloud to someone else, and they didn't think it was as humorous as you thought it was?
Writing humor can often be similar. There you are, in the middle of your story, think up something absolutely hilarious and inject it into your writing. You chuckle to yourself harharhar and go on with your story.
Then the time comes for edit; you reread and wonder, "Is that really funny?" I have gotten to that point in my edit, pondered if it was actually funny. What then? I read it aloud to several people. And even though they hadn't read the rest of the story, they thought it was humorous. I considered it a success.
"There is one attempt in which failure is unforgivable -- the attempt to be funny."
The Youth's Companion for Feb. 1, 1926; "Fact and Comment"
This in turn lead me to the subject of my newsletter, humor. In my research, I found and compiled some important advice:
Do have the frame of mind to write, and use your imagination. Don't try too hard to be funny: That makes your humor feel stilted, if not pained. It should reflect your style.
If you're going to write humor you have to take it just as seriously as if you were going to write about anything else. You have to really work hard to get it to work. It's writing, it's not sitting and talking to your friends. And you may be very funny sitting and talking to your friends but there's a definite craft involved in taking strangers and getting them through something that you've written in a way that they find it to be amusing.
Don’t use humor that mixes up your message. Keep your story plot online and moving. Don't let your characters laugh at their own jokes: This is the prose equivalent of a sitcom's laugh track. Let the reader decide what's funny.
Words that portray movement are yet another way the writer can paint a funny picture for the reader. A character that is moving, like an actor on a stage, has more potential for hilarity than one that is not moving.
Don't tell the reader that something is funny. Let the reader discover this for himself. Do this by painting a picture with words that the reader can relate to with all five of his senses. Describe the smells, textures, tastes, sights, and sounds.
Colorful adjectives help the writer paint the exact image he wants the reader to experience. Keep a dictionary and thesaurus handy to look up adjectives that will spice up your writing.
"She was not just a cow
but a sauntering bovine beauty
with chocolate-bar swirls of milky browns
and milk-shake white on a suede background --
the most delicious contented cud-chewer I'd ever seen."
Be surprising. Humor should defy our expectations; don't let your own expectations limit you.
Satire and irony adds humor to the written story. Irony is the use of words to express the opposite of their literal meaning. Satire is the use of irony or wit to attack something. Be careful with satire and irony; a writer can easily miss his mark, leaving the reader confused.
*** Verbal Irony: what is said is opposite of what is meant ("Lovely day out" when the weather is the opposite).
***Situational Irony: an outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected.
***Dramatic Irony: the audience realizes implications of words or acts that the characters do not perceive.
Blending description, metaphors, and similes with dialogue is another way for the writer to expand his medium. Humor diva Erma Bombeck had that one down to a fine science. She never drowned her readers in ‘like or as’. She let one slide in and take its toll on your mental images and merrily went on her way with the story. In many cases, analogies can kill the reader’s attention …be cautious.
Dialog and mannerisms in themselves can make a character funny.
"Mission Implausible" Even humor has to be believable. Don't sacrifice truth for a funny effect: Good humor always contains a grain of truth; without truth, it's just playing with words.
Death may not become you. Be careful when using humor and death, no one likes to disrespect the dead. Unless that's your intention with your character.
I located this list and saved it for future reference. What a great tool!
Different Types of Verbal & Written Humor
Adviser: the comic adviser gives uncalled for advice in a Punch prototype. Ex: Advice to people who want to buy a puppy: Don't.
Anecdotes: any interesting event, either having to do with a celebrity or something smaller, that helps the humorist make a point. Anecdotes are great for the speaker and writer.
Aside: a thought added as if something the speaker was saying reminded him of it.
Banter: good-natured teasing back and forth; exchange of witty remarks.
Blendword: blending two or three words to make a new word. Ex: smog for smoke and fog.
Blue Humor: not appropriate for the public speaker. Humor based on easily offensive subjects like making love, body parts, and bodily functions.
Blunder: wit based on a person who makes a mistake, which makes them appear foolish.
Bull: a humorous statement that is based on an outrageous contradiction. Ex: "The best people have never had kids."
Burlesque: a form of satire. Burlesque ridicules any basic style of speech or writing. (Parody makes fun of specific writings.)
Caricature: exaggeration of a person’s mental, physical, or personality traits, in wisecrack form.
The Catch Tale: a funny story that messes up the reader or listener by implying an awful ending but then stopping with a small declaration.
Conundrum: a word puzzle that can’t be solved because the answer is a pun. Ex: why do cows wear bells? Their horns don’t work.
Epigram: clever, short saying about a general group. Mostly satire about mankind. Two types, wordplay and thought play.
Exaggerism: an exaggerated witticism that overstates the features, defects, or the strangeness of someone or something.
Freudian Slip: a funny statement which seems to just pop out, but which actually comes from the person’s subconscious thoughts.
Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration.
Irony: a leading part of humor. Irony is using words to express something completely different from the literal meaning. Usually, someone says the opposite of what they mean and the listener believes the opposite of what they said.
Joke: short story ending with a funny climactic twist.
Nonsensism: inclusive of the epigram and the wisecrack, it is any kind of funny nonsense in speaking form. Nonsensism includes all kinds of absurdity without realistic logic and makes a general observation of absurd reference.
Parody: humorous version of any well-known writing. Ex: Weird Al Yankovic’s "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi".
Practical Joke: a joke put into action. You hear an oral joke, see a printed joke, and feel the practical joke. The trick is played on another person and the humor comes from what happens.
Recovery: a combination of blunder and wit, where a person makes an error, and then saves himself with a fast correction.
Repartee: includes clever replies and retorts. The most common form is the insult.
Satire: wit that is critical humor. Satire is sarcasm that makes fun of something.
Situational Humor: this is comedy that comes from your own life. No one in your audience will have heard it and it can get a group used to you. This type of humor is based on a humorous situation that you have experienced.
Switching: a common form of switching is changing the main parts of the story, such as the setup or the punch line, and creating a new joke.
Understatement: making something that is regular or large seem extremely smaller or less. Intentionally down-sizing a large object.
Wisecrack: any clever remark about a particular person or thing. Wisecracks are quick wordplays about a person.
Wit: humor, irony, sarcasm, satire, repartee. Wit is funny because of the sudden sharpness and quick perception. Wit can bite. Verbal wit is a type of humor known as Wordplay.
Overall, think about enriching your stories with humor. It can be an effective and useful tool to lighten and tighten your work.
References and links:
http://library.thinkquest.org/J002267F/humor_writing.htm; References were: L. Audrieth, Anthony "The Art of Using Humor in Public Speaking" 1998.
http://www.satiricquill.net/tips.html; "Five Tips For Writing Humor"
http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/may02/hornung.htm; "Seven Steps to Better Humor Writing"; Jan Hornung
http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/ph_humor_and_irony.htm; "Humor and Irony in Eudora Welty's The Ponder Heart"; Jill Melancon
http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/interviews/dbarry/db02.html "On Humor"; Dave Barry
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Excerpt: She sat solemnly on the sun-lit sandy shore. Seemingly sad as she thought about Steve, her husband, and the slander he stated about her that he supposeably heard at the ski shoppe Saturday.
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Excerpt: "I want you to know, Daniel, there's no place your grandfather would have rather been when he died," Aunt Gerdie said.
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Excerpt: Her pale, almost white thumb was much like a signpost, contrasting against the black night sky. She looked like she had stepped out of a black and white photograph., her hair being a raven black, which matched well with her dark gown.
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Excerpt: Dregor was very displeased this morning. When he lumbered out of his straw hut stretching his wings, the last thing he wanted to see was a hairless screaming beast. The fallen cherub squinted his beady eyes at it while his large ears twitched and strained to understand the being’s cries. It flailed two of its appendages while giving off a vibrant blue glow.
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Excerpt: As he was all too prone to do Clive had let his Sunday stroll carry him to the local car boot sale. Each week he purchased some treasure and each week Sara rolled her eyes as she saw him walk up the garden path before saying “What do you need that for?” Sara, he had to admit, was a long suffering girl friend. Clive loved her.
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Excerpt: “Let’s go to the park.”
“No.”
"C’mon, I wanna go to the park.”
“No. Go out in the yard.”
“I’m sick of the yard. I want to go to the park.”
“You know you can’t go to the park anymore. You scare kids.”
“I’ve only scared two kids, and they both deserved it.”
Excerpt: Once upon a time, in a far off Kingdom, a man died. Then another, and another. Another man died. Soon King Sapiebalatrus became unhappy.
"Why are all our men dying, my dear?" he asked, picking moodily at his green salad dinner. "I don’t LIKE it."
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Excerpt: It may be that the Saturday night jailbreak was the first time Clayton Fawkes ever fooled anyone, which is exactly why he fooled them. Fawkes and his partner, Sven Robeson, were the only inmates in the county jail that night. The jailer, tired of spending his weekend nights shooting scrap-paper baskets in the bare, over lit office, was overjoyed by his cousin’s invitation to dinner and a movie.
Excerpt: "What by Durin's beard are you doing?" a gruff, familiar voice. "This is no time for a nap. Geddup!"
I crack open an eyelid. Alberich, my muse, is there and he's looking impatient. As usual.
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This month's question: How do you work humor into your writing? Do you think a writer must be a funny person to be able to write humor?
Last month's question: What are some of your favorite alliterative phrases?
iwill  writes: I hadn't really ever given any thought to alliteration in short stories. As you say, we often think of that as a technique for poetry. You really knocked it home for me by mentioning children's stories frequently use alliteration. I don't know why, as a writer, I never paid attention to this technique while reading all those Dr, Suess stories to my kids. Thanks for the info.
My pledge remains to maintain what I've learned from Legerdemain. (Well, I tried!)
billwilcox writes: I think your explanatory explicative needs further exponible expository. Great Job!
intuey GoT Survivor!  says: Good newsletter I enjoy reading alliteration. It's a lot of fun! Anyone who hasn't tried it, should break out a dictionary and give it a whirl. :)
Tracey
I appreciate your comments!
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Short Stories: April 26, 2006 Issue [#995]
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