14 September 2021

The Challenge of Writing Humor


In yesterday's column, Steve Liskow talked about the challenge of writing exposition. With another of my columns due today--the calendar says it's been three weeks since my last post here, but I swear it's been three hours--I decided to follow up on Steve's approach and talk about the challenge of writing humor.

As a former newspaper reporter, I know that a professional shows up when it's time to write and gets the job done. On some days, writing may flow more easily than others, but as long as you have an idea of what to write (whether a detailed outline, a high-level outline, or a jumping off point for you pantsers out there), a professional writer should be able to make progress each day with the story at hand. (Ideas can be harder to come by, at least for me. That's why I email ideas to myself whenever I get them so when I have writing time, I have lots of ideas to choose from. And of course finding that writing time can be another big problem, at least for me. But I digress ...) 

If you're sitting there cursing me out for telling you should always be able to make progress, when you know it's not that easy, you're about to feel much better. Because I have days when I can't make progress either, at least not when I'm trying to write humor.

Writing dark stories, dramatic stories, really, most any kind of crime story, I can do that on most any given day if I have an idea to work from. But if I am trying to write a funny story, all bets are off. If I'm trying to write humor and I'm not in the right mood, that sucker's not going to be funny, no matter how hard I try. You gotta feel the funny. At least I do. 

That said, sometimes when I'm trying to write a story that is supposed to be funny and it's not working, it turns out it's because my idea isn't developed enough. Take my story "A Tale of Two Sisters." (Please! Just take it! ... I know, I know, I'm no Henny Youngman.) Anyway, the story came out in May in the anthology Murder on the Beach. Writing that story was a slog. I knew I wanted to write about a wedding at which the bride's tiara is stolen, then retrieved, then stolen again, then retrieved etc. It sounded like a good idea until I tried to write it. The humor wasn't working. What I ultimately realized was my idea was too simple. A tiara being stolen repeatedly may be vaguely amusing, but to make the story funny, I had to add in more humorous situations and--most important--I needed to add in more humorous characters. 

I gave my main character, Robin the maid of honor, an overbearing mother, whom Robin reacts to in a sarcastic manner. I made Robin feel responsible for making sure her nervous sister, the bride, has a good night, then I had a dog crash the wedding. I made Robin starving but unable to get a bite of food. Basically, I kept upping the ante and setting up funny situations and amusing people for Robin to react to. Once I did that, the writing started to flow.

I faced a similar problem when I started writing "Humor Risk," my story in the anthology Monkey Business: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Films of the Marx Brothers. This book is coming out this Sunday, the 19th, and--as you can imagine with an anthology inspired by the Marx Brothers--I had to write something funny. No pressure. 

When editor Josh Pachter approached me about writing a story for this book, I told him (don't hate me) that I don't like the Marx Brothers and wouldn't be right for the anthology. Then he had an idea. The Marx Brothers' first film, Humor Risk, was never released. The history of the movie indicates that the one print of it might have been burned or stolen. There's very little detail about it. What if I wrote about that, Josh said, about the film being stolen. Maybe I could create a PI who hates the Marx Brothers but needs to find the movie. Okay, I said, I could work with that. 

Easier said than done. I came up with the idea of a PI tracking down the only print of the film to a hoarder house. The guts of the story would be this guy versus the house, with him getting hurt over and over. It sounded funny until I tried to write it. After one scene, the story became tedious. I realized I needed more characters, people my main character could react to. Once I figured that out (and changed him from a PI to a thief), the writing began to flow. I still have my main character, Dominic, searching in a hoarder house, but the humor comes not just from pratfalls but from voice--Dominic's thoughts and the dialogue of the other colorful characters. Changing the story's setup made all the difference. 

So, my takeaway from these experiences: If you're trying to write something funny, don't rely only on funny things happening in the story. You also need people reacting to the events. That's where the real humor will come in. 

One more thing: don't forget that sometimes the funniest parts of a story come from surprises. Like this one: It wasn't until after I finished writing "Humor Risk" and it was accepted that I realized I'd made a mistake. It's not the Marx Brothers I can't stand. (I don't love them, but I don't hate them.) When I told Josh I couldn't stand the Marx Brothers, the old comics I actually was thinking of were ... The Three Stooges.

Oops.

If you'd like to pick up Murder on the Beach, it's available in trade paperback and ebook. The book's in Kindle Unlimited, so if you want an ebook, you'll only find it on Amazon. Click here to go there.

If you'd like to order Monkey Business: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Films of the Marx Brothers, it's coming out in trade paperback and ebook. You'll be able to buy it in all the usual places, but your best price will be from the publisher, Untreed Reads Publishing. And if you order the trade paperback before the publication date (i.e., before this Sunday, September 19th) directly from Untreed Reads, you'll not only get a 25 percent discount but you'll also get a free ebook of the anthology in the format of your choice (Kindle, EPUB, or PDF). To get this deal, click here.

25 comments:

  1. Humor is like pornography--it's hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

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    1. Obscenity too. ;)
      Thanks for stopping by, Kathleen.

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  2. Thank you for this glimpse into your writing process. It reminds me that even consistently successful writers struggle sometimes, so I shouldn't let my own writing struggles stop me. I needed that encouragement.

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    1. I'm glad to be helpful, Leone. You definitely shouldn't stop. You're a good writer.

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  3. "Dying is easy, but comedy is hard." I've seen that quote attributed to dozens of actors, and they're all right. I love comedy, but I hate trying to write it.

    Try out a joke on five different people and you'll probably get one great laugh, a chuckle, a shrug, one person who doesn't get it, and one who gets it but doesn't think it's funny. And that's if you're not dealing with a sensitive/controversial topic. Satirists have a rough job.

    All I can say is that I prefer comedy or humor that comes from the character more than from the plot. A funny situation is like a cream pie. Once you throw it, it's a mess. You can show something about a character by how she or he reacts to a situation or another person, and MAYBE you can build on that.

    I only remember two or three stories that I wrote deliberately to be funny because that was in the submission guidelines, and they were hard to do. I have a couple of submissions floating around now that have humor, and one of those is the product of about 15 rewrites. The other, strangely enough, came to me almost intact. I wish that happened a lot more often!

    Thanks for the tip on Monkey Business. I need to check that out.

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  4. I'm with you about The Three Stooges. I like humor that sneaks up on me, not knocks me down! It's very hard to write, for the same reason that you have better success with movie recommendations when they are dramas than when they are comedies.

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    1. Humor is so subjective--except when I write it. Then everybody loves it! :)

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  5. I can't write humor intentionally, but it sometimes shows up when I'm writing about a hapless creature getting himself deeper and deeper into trouble. But then, none of it is easy for me so maybe it's not humor any more than any other mood or genre. Thanks for sharing our process.

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  6. Oops! "your" process. I meant "your process." (And me too on the Three Stooges.)

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    1. You're welcome, Susan. And boy, not a lot of love today for the Three Stooges. Not from anyone. It's nice when we all can come together in a common purpose.

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  7. Humor seems to be the way I get through life especially now that I am older (read that "old"), so I rarely write anything that isn't humor. Each time I've tried to compose a serious story, the humor comes creeping in. Realizing that I always put humor out there, I feel an additional obligation to create great characters, setting and plot as well as be funny. so, yes, some attempts are a struggle. I also have a story in MONKEY BUSINESS: CRIME fICTION INSPIRED BY THE FILMS OF THE MARX BROTHERS ("The Cocoanuts"). Like Barb, their films were never my favorite, so I struggled with the story and the humor. I was just happy I wasn't asked to write a short story for the work of The Three Stooges. I'm not much for odd hand waves.

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    1. I write a lot of stories that don't have humor in them, but I find that I often get a lot more feedback on my funny stories. People like to laugh, and it's a joy to get to entertain people in that way.

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  8. Thank you! Humor is so hard. I wrote a paper in a grad lit class about the humor in a Joseph Conrad story and learned from reading journal articles how difficult is to do that. I think it's William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" that's written from 4 points of view and the 4th. is very funny IF you can tune into it. Congrats on a great article. Now, if I can just get something published, LOL

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    1. Uh oh, sorry, d.conrady@sbcglobal.net

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    2. Faulkner isn't known for humor, but he could be hilarious when he wanted to. Check out his story "Shingles For the Lord," which I read years ago in grad school. I'd never read much Faulkner up until then, but that spurred me to find a collection of his short stories.

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    3. Thanks for stopping by, D. And keep plugging along on your work. I hope you'll get there.

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  9. Humor seems accidental to me, and sometimes I don't even remember writing something "funny." Then, when I'm rereading, I run across something that makes me laugh out loud. Happy accident.

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    1. Reminds me of an exam I took in law school. My prof said I got the highest grade in the class because I was the only one who addressed public policy on the exam. I looked at her like she was nuts and said, "No, I didn't." And she said, "Oh yes you did." We went into her office, she dug out my exam, and there it was. An entire page on public policy that I had no memory of writing. I realized right then and there the secret to success in law school--take every exam when you have the flu.

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  10. I have a couple of narrating voices that seem to be innately humorous; of course, they're also limited in the stories they want to tell (yes, my characters at times tell me off). Meanwhile, I can take 4 minutes, max, of the Three Stooges, but I love the Marx Brothers. "Hooray for Captain Spaulding, the African Explorer!"

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    1. It's always nice when your characters tell you off. Keeps you humble!

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  11. Great column, Barb - I love your funny stories and will be looking forward to the Marx Brothers one! Also, you are so right - I just finished a humorous story and it was hard work. Time for something more serious :)

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    1. Thanks, Adam! I hope you enjoy the anthology.

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  12. I'm so happy you don't hate the Marx Brothers! Stooges, ugh, I agree with you.

    A family I know who sound like a novel all their own– father a physician, mother a ballerina (I know!)– doesn't permit their children cable or broadcast television. Instead they have a TV with a DVD player. I visited their local library and checked out a number of movies for them including the Marx Bros. They didn't like Laurel & Hardy slapstick, but they loved the wordplay of the Marx Bros.

    Barb, congratulations on the anthologies!

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    1. Thank you, Leigh. This reminds me how I loved Abbott and Costello when I was in elementary school. Who's on first never gets old.

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