Omarfaruq
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Wow that was savage.
Wow, you even used ‘Amen’. Such a holy word… I guess I must be a holy person now.
How to be funny and still be a good writer?
- Thread starter MC-Stories
- Start date
AliceMoonvale
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Wow that was savage.
Wow, you even used ‘Amen’. Such a holy word… I guess I must be a holy person now.
You used Wow twice, I guess you must be really surprised that people don't find you funny.
Peagreene
Member
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Comedy has to make sense, otherwise you're just recycling the "omg so random xD" trend from the Before Time. I want to know why these people have been chosen, what beautiful tensions will arise through a clash of personalities, what is the emotional heart of the story that comes from disparate people joining forces. Many people have said that comedy = tragedy + time, and most, if not all, of my favourite comedies have melancholy and tragedy underpinning the humour. It's the contrast, and also specificity, that creates humorous tension.
Even if you think "it's not that deep bro" try going that deep and see what happens.
Omarfaruq
Cute, polite and poor boy
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Hmm… The answer is both yes and no. I don’t really care whether you find me funny. You don’t pay my bills, do you?
Playerkartik
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The best way is to read something that you want to implement in your work.
TinaMigarlo
the jury is back. I'm almost too hot for smuthub.
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what we call gallows humor, originates as "laconic" humor.
the men from "Laconia", an ancient Greek area, were particularly known for it.
Hence, we call it laconic humor.
it fits in well with danger between excitement.
because that's where it was developed out of.
one of the *few* things hollywood actually gets right, by the by.
is that people in perilous jobs or ones faced with devastation every day
(cops, ambulance drivers, military) are the most prone to make gallows humor cracks.
it is a defense mechanism.
its real.
it does work.
so, for action. Laconic (gallows) humor will be both the easiest to pull off, with the bonus feature that its authentic.
no complicated humor trigonometric functions to solve the quadratic for.
time for a Ted Talk, though.
man is an advanced primate. primates, laugh. Only other "animal" that does it.
(man is an animal, though we like to think different)
primates laugh. they smile (showing the teeth) and laugh. when... nervous and getting disturbed or agitated.
laughter, produces a mild calming effect.
as humans, we gather in comedy clubs. and pay good money to professionals, to make us smile and laugh.
when we're stressed, we particularly enjoy it even more.
that's why everyone likes the "comedian" in the group.
when working hard, when things get tough...
you can laugh and keep working.
hence, the laconic humor at a grisly accident or murder scene.
it keeps the workers from losing their shit and lashing out at each other under highly stressful working conditions.
the men from "Laconia", an ancient Greek area, were particularly known for it.
Hence, we call it laconic humor.
it fits in well with danger between excitement.
because that's where it was developed out of.
one of the *few* things hollywood actually gets right, by the by.
is that people in perilous jobs or ones faced with devastation every day
(cops, ambulance drivers, military) are the most prone to make gallows humor cracks.
it is a defense mechanism.
its real.
it does work.
so, for action. Laconic (gallows) humor will be both the easiest to pull off, with the bonus feature that its authentic.
no complicated humor trigonometric functions to solve the quadratic for.
time for a Ted Talk, though.
man is an advanced primate. primates, laugh. Only other "animal" that does it.
(man is an animal, though we like to think different)
primates laugh. they smile (showing the teeth) and laugh. when... nervous and getting disturbed or agitated.
laughter, produces a mild calming effect.
as humans, we gather in comedy clubs. and pay good money to professionals, to make us smile and laugh.
when we're stressed, we particularly enjoy it even more.
that's why everyone likes the "comedian" in the group.
when working hard, when things get tough...
you can laugh and keep working.
hence, the laconic humor at a grisly accident or murder scene.
it keeps the workers from losing their shit and lashing out at each other under highly stressful working conditions.
AnEmberOfSundown
Active member
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My advice? Humor should be character-driven. That is, your characters should be funny in their own way without tipping your hand as "the funny author".
Having a variety of humor helps. Each character should have their own register. The dry wit, the foul-mouth sarcastic one, the goofy entertainer, the unintentionally-amusing innocent, etc. Don't forget the straight-man (or woman) though. Your funny characters need someone to bounce off of, to show the reader WHY they should be laughing by illustrating what the baseline is. You could write the next Ford Prefect but it won't hit the same way without also including Arthur Dent. Plus, when you finally let the straight-man land a joke, it hits like a freight train because they're not supposed to be the funny one.
Variety in the jokes helps enormously. Gallows humor is great, but don't underestimate the power of a well-timed groaner, pun, or dad-joke. Brick jokes are an under appreciated art form, IMHO.
Without a variety or a straight-man, you get Whedon-style quip circles or Gilmore-girls rapid-fire absurdity. While that can be funny situationally, it gets old over time. Everyone's clever and dry, all the time, in every situation. Blah.
edit: Grammar? Hardly knew her.
Having a variety of humor helps. Each character should have their own register. The dry wit, the foul-mouth sarcastic one, the goofy entertainer, the unintentionally-amusing innocent, etc. Don't forget the straight-man (or woman) though. Your funny characters need someone to bounce off of, to show the reader WHY they should be laughing by illustrating what the baseline is. You could write the next Ford Prefect but it won't hit the same way without also including Arthur Dent. Plus, when you finally let the straight-man land a joke, it hits like a freight train because they're not supposed to be the funny one.
Variety in the jokes helps enormously. Gallows humor is great, but don't underestimate the power of a well-timed groaner, pun, or dad-joke. Brick jokes are an under appreciated art form, IMHO.
Without a variety or a straight-man, you get Whedon-style quip circles or Gilmore-girls rapid-fire absurdity. While that can be funny situationally, it gets old over time. Everyone's clever and dry, all the time, in every situation. Blah.
edit: Grammar? Hardly knew her.
Last edited:
Emotica
Member
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I think humor is more of an author trait and signature than something to necessarily craft or hone. If you're a naturally humorous person, as in funnier than fart jokes, then you can fit it into almost any narrative. Horror media often plays with the humiliating, ironic, absurd, and down right ridiculous, allowing the audience to laugh through terror. That's high-level.
Humor is a hard trait to teach, and while it's linked to writing structurally, it's very much it's own "talent." Assuming just turning into a comedian is insurmountable (because everyone can't have every talent,) then the real difficulty lies in reeling it in. There's a reason that tragedy and comedy have been linked for so long. I just don't have the necessary degree to explain it. Irony is a literary tool that lends itself to comedy. They're the same DNA, a subversion of expectations, which most humor is. We laugh either because we're surprised, or because we're in on the joke. As most comedians would admit, jokes aren't usually funny if they have to be explained, and I think that's the key to using humor in your narrative. Let the reader discover the humor for themselves.
Literature isn't like stand-up comedy where laughing with your audience can create a self-fulfilling feedback loop. You aren't there to change your face, or tone, or even control the pacing of your delivery, though you can certainly maximize your efforts via the prose. You readers will be alone, and focused solely on your narrative. I'm thinking of GRRM a lot today, but he's a masterclass in sneaking humor into the subtext. So many deaths are utterly humiliating, but the characters never laugh, and the narrative rarely lingers on it. A reader, viewer, or consumer has the safe harbor of reality to take a moment, reread, and laugh.
Of course, if you're explicitly writing comedy, the rules are entirely different. Then you have to worry about burnout on both ends. Many children's books keep the comedy at a 10, because, well, children. You have to work a lot harder to entertain adults that have already heard all the low-brow humor. Even raw comedy, stand-up, slapstick, usually has to step away from the comedy temporarily, because a lot of things are only funny because the situation is NOT funny. If you've never watched Curb Your Enthusiasm, or King of The Hill, both are very "boring" shows, and their comedy relies entirely on piercing through the mundane reality that is real life. If you watch them while browsing your phone, you won't get it, but if you really pay attention, the same way a reader is forced to pay attention to the book, they're some of the funniest shows ever.
Going full circle though, I don't think many people dedicate time to trying to be funny, at least as an adult. People simply have different personalities. There are plenty of people that shouldn't try to be funny, either because their humor is juvenile, or offensive without nuance. There's nothing wrong with not being funny. Humor by itself doesn't actually add or negate anything from the narrative. Trying to be funny doesn't usually work out, and only career comedians have incentive to try. If you try to be funny, but your idea of funny is fart jokes, now you're actively harming your own narrative, when someone that's naturally funny wouldn't be trying to do anything at all, it would just be part of their author flair. Trying to be funny is usually associated with being annoying. If you take the funniest people you know in real life, odds are they're either the kind of person that treats every interaction like the set up to a punchline you never asked for (think like a fun uncle), or they're just someone that goes through life with wit under everything they say.
Eminem once said:
I'm like a head trip to listen to
'Cause I'm only givin' you things you joke about with your friends inside your livin' room
The only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y'all
And I don't gotta be false or sugarcoat it at all
Which is a valid critique of his own humor. Bear with me through one more fart reference. If you're hanging out with your friends, the loudest fart might send all of you into a fit of laughter, but if that's your idea of humor, it ignores the bias of friendship, when anyone with a funny bone could tell you that it has a 99% chance of flopping in any setting that actually values humor. Humans naturally seek humor, but if we considered every human to be funny, then there'd be no such thing as a bad joke. Dad jokes are known to be painfully unfunny, and yet we revere them as ironically funny, with fathers finding less humor in their own jokes, and more humor in the pained reactions.
I implied that you can't just learn how to be funny, but it's technically untrue since there really are professions and professional studies dedicated to it. I can't stress enough though that we really only see the top 1% of what makes it off a producers table, and only 1% of that 1% ends up being actually funny, and still not funny to everyone. It's less that you can't parse data and structures to make something funny, and more that it's a major waste of time trying. Someone like a comedian is basically living 24/7 in a brain that views the world through a comedic lens. That's their natural state. Trying to be funny is like asking a comedian to not see things as funny.
Quite literally, most people aren't significantly funny. I'm ranting now, but let me wrap up. If you believe in the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, which is very easy to believe in through different lens, then the theory basically states that people are inclined towards different talents/intelligences. As a writer, you're already "beating" a lot of people because you have an affinity for literary intelligence. A good comedian would probably be good with words, good with people, and very self-aware which is already three different kinds of intelligent. You obviously aren't just dumb if you're not every single kind of intelligent, but it's a short life. You literally can't do it all. People are built differently with different skills.
Conclusion: I don't know you, so I don't know if you're funny, but let it rip. If you're dedicated to exploring a whole new genre, then the best thing you could do is learn what's not funny. Too many people think in the 2020's that they're comedy savants because they offend people. If the only aspect of your humor is being offensive or gross, it's likely not comedy. Humor relies on cleverness, and even slapstick like Looney Tunes, The Three Stooges, or Beavis & Butthead are doing a lot of subtle things to make it pay off. The question is, are the writers treating this like rocket science, or are they already just that friggin' funny?
Humor is a hard trait to teach, and while it's linked to writing structurally, it's very much it's own "talent." Assuming just turning into a comedian is insurmountable (because everyone can't have every talent,) then the real difficulty lies in reeling it in. There's a reason that tragedy and comedy have been linked for so long. I just don't have the necessary degree to explain it. Irony is a literary tool that lends itself to comedy. They're the same DNA, a subversion of expectations, which most humor is. We laugh either because we're surprised, or because we're in on the joke. As most comedians would admit, jokes aren't usually funny if they have to be explained, and I think that's the key to using humor in your narrative. Let the reader discover the humor for themselves.
Literature isn't like stand-up comedy where laughing with your audience can create a self-fulfilling feedback loop. You aren't there to change your face, or tone, or even control the pacing of your delivery, though you can certainly maximize your efforts via the prose. You readers will be alone, and focused solely on your narrative. I'm thinking of GRRM a lot today, but he's a masterclass in sneaking humor into the subtext. So many deaths are utterly humiliating, but the characters never laugh, and the narrative rarely lingers on it. A reader, viewer, or consumer has the safe harbor of reality to take a moment, reread, and laugh.
Of course, if you're explicitly writing comedy, the rules are entirely different. Then you have to worry about burnout on both ends. Many children's books keep the comedy at a 10, because, well, children. You have to work a lot harder to entertain adults that have already heard all the low-brow humor. Even raw comedy, stand-up, slapstick, usually has to step away from the comedy temporarily, because a lot of things are only funny because the situation is NOT funny. If you've never watched Curb Your Enthusiasm, or King of The Hill, both are very "boring" shows, and their comedy relies entirely on piercing through the mundane reality that is real life. If you watch them while browsing your phone, you won't get it, but if you really pay attention, the same way a reader is forced to pay attention to the book, they're some of the funniest shows ever.
Going full circle though, I don't think many people dedicate time to trying to be funny, at least as an adult. People simply have different personalities. There are plenty of people that shouldn't try to be funny, either because their humor is juvenile, or offensive without nuance. There's nothing wrong with not being funny. Humor by itself doesn't actually add or negate anything from the narrative. Trying to be funny doesn't usually work out, and only career comedians have incentive to try. If you try to be funny, but your idea of funny is fart jokes, now you're actively harming your own narrative, when someone that's naturally funny wouldn't be trying to do anything at all, it would just be part of their author flair. Trying to be funny is usually associated with being annoying. If you take the funniest people you know in real life, odds are they're either the kind of person that treats every interaction like the set up to a punchline you never asked for (think like a fun uncle), or they're just someone that goes through life with wit under everything they say.
Eminem once said:
I'm like a head trip to listen to
'Cause I'm only givin' you things you joke about with your friends inside your livin' room
The only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y'all
And I don't gotta be false or sugarcoat it at all
Which is a valid critique of his own humor. Bear with me through one more fart reference. If you're hanging out with your friends, the loudest fart might send all of you into a fit of laughter, but if that's your idea of humor, it ignores the bias of friendship, when anyone with a funny bone could tell you that it has a 99% chance of flopping in any setting that actually values humor. Humans naturally seek humor, but if we considered every human to be funny, then there'd be no such thing as a bad joke. Dad jokes are known to be painfully unfunny, and yet we revere them as ironically funny, with fathers finding less humor in their own jokes, and more humor in the pained reactions.
I implied that you can't just learn how to be funny, but it's technically untrue since there really are professions and professional studies dedicated to it. I can't stress enough though that we really only see the top 1% of what makes it off a producers table, and only 1% of that 1% ends up being actually funny, and still not funny to everyone. It's less that you can't parse data and structures to make something funny, and more that it's a major waste of time trying. Someone like a comedian is basically living 24/7 in a brain that views the world through a comedic lens. That's their natural state. Trying to be funny is like asking a comedian to not see things as funny.
Quite literally, most people aren't significantly funny. I'm ranting now, but let me wrap up. If you believe in the Theory of Multiple Intelligences, which is very easy to believe in through different lens, then the theory basically states that people are inclined towards different talents/intelligences. As a writer, you're already "beating" a lot of people because you have an affinity for literary intelligence. A good comedian would probably be good with words, good with people, and very self-aware which is already three different kinds of intelligent. You obviously aren't just dumb if you're not every single kind of intelligent, but it's a short life. You literally can't do it all. People are built differently with different skills.
Conclusion: I don't know you, so I don't know if you're funny, but let it rip. If you're dedicated to exploring a whole new genre, then the best thing you could do is learn what's not funny. Too many people think in the 2020's that they're comedy savants because they offend people. If the only aspect of your humor is being offensive or gross, it's likely not comedy. Humor relies on cleverness, and even slapstick like Looney Tunes, The Three Stooges, or Beavis & Butthead are doing a lot of subtle things to make it pay off. The question is, are the writers treating this like rocket science, or are they already just that friggin' funny?
AliceMoonvale
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Emotica
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i cri evrytiemtl;dr: OP was traumatized after a hit 'n run fart joke and never recovered.
Fox-Trot-9
Foxy, the fluffy butt-stabber!
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Holy cow.Wow that was savage.
Wow, you even used ‘Amen’. Such a holy word… I guess I must be a holy person now.
AnEmberOfSundown
Active member
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A well-timed fart joke can let the wind (no pun intended) out of even the most pretentious, high-minded monologue.tl;dr: OP was traumatized after a hit 'n run fart joke and never recovered.
Now who let that low-flying duck in here?
TinaMigarlo
the jury is back. I'm almost too hot for smuthub.
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--------------------------------------
I have a police chief character I used, and he's... well, I think he's funny. To hear him go off on a "rant" with his trademark sarcasm and glib manner, is the stuff of legends. To hear him grumbling and shaking his head at dealing with riding herd over a small backwoods town and all the locals shenanigans, is... to me priceless.
of course, I'm no expert on the matter. i'd have to be asked to provide him recounting the (local cops) much vaunted "brawl at the late night diner" story he's known for recounting locally. I'd also have to defer to @AnEmberOfSundown as the obvious authority on such matters as these. I'm clearly just a try hard hack.
but, I could be persuaded to see how bad it is.
otherwise, I'm going to be relegated to being the straight man in this thread.
erm, wait a minute. that didn't come out right...
I have a police chief character I used, and he's... well, I think he's funny. To hear him go off on a "rant" with his trademark sarcasm and glib manner, is the stuff of legends. To hear him grumbling and shaking his head at dealing with riding herd over a small backwoods town and all the locals shenanigans, is... to me priceless.
of course, I'm no expert on the matter. i'd have to be asked to provide him recounting the (local cops) much vaunted "brawl at the late night diner" story he's known for recounting locally. I'd also have to defer to @AnEmberOfSundown as the obvious authority on such matters as these. I'm clearly just a try hard hack.
but, I could be persuaded to see how bad it is.
otherwise, I'm going to be relegated to being the straight man in this thread.
erm, wait a minute. that didn't come out right...
AnEmberOfSundown
Active member
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TinaMigarlo
the jury is back. I'm almost too hot for smuthub.
- Joined
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- Messages
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- 93
yeah. I don't get it.
sorry I asked for it to be explained to me,
which ruined your joke.
you have my deepest heartfelt apologies.
so as i said earlier.
I'll just be the straight man in this thread.
that didn't sound good... but you know what I mean.
if I just type random letter and numbers, that's funny?
asking for a friend.
AnEmberOfSundown
Active member
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TinaMigarlo
the jury is back. I'm almost too hot for smuthub.
- Joined
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- Messages
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if i didn't play your video game or whatever that was, i had no chance of getting it.
or maybe INT was my dump stat, who even knows these things.
I've seen clips of Steven Wright, is i *think* it was his name. Comedian, used to be big.
he had this boring, deep, deadpan humor.
"There's a 7-11 down the street."
"Been open now like 9 years."
"Seven days every week."
"Every holiday, open, every day, all day. all night, too. 24, 7. 365."
(pause)
"They have 1500 dollar Krieg, top of the line, commercial door locks, too."
(big pause)
"Why?"
that was his whole act, and he was big for a time
comedians, some of them, *notice* things, every day, all day
they make zero sense, at all, once you think about it,
we see it all day, every day, for years.
we never questions any of it, not once.
they do.
they show you, the silly and the insane we all take for granted.
it makes us laugh our asses off.
properly classified, character driven humor, to the science of comedy, is this...
the comedian plays a character. They do their whole act, in character.
the audience does not know the real them, they only see... this character.
the 80s had a long list of infamous zany comedians. Most were character driven comedians.
roseanne barr, did not, in fact... live in a trailer park. That was a character that worked, and it took over her whole act.
saw her through at least two sitcoms, one was huge.
Andrew "Dice" Clay, the Diceman himself.
after his big arc was over, he said it in an interview.
the "diceman" was just this one character, impersonation I did.
"dat dere, dat Brooklynn guy, we all know dat dude, ya know? *snort*"
he said his manager came to him. will you try just doing a whoel show, just that one character?
the jokes aren;t even that funny, but everyone is spitting their drinks out, when you make fun of that one character.
so he tried it.
six months later? headliner at clubs
within a year? on TV like evening at the improv.
within 18 mos, he had his own HBO comedy stand up hour long show.
led to at least two movies, too.
that *character* can be the whole joke. the whole act.
smart-ass random snark, took over in the 90s, and its still big.
insult comedy never goes away, either. Don Rickles? The master.
or maybe INT was my dump stat, who even knows these things.
I've seen clips of Steven Wright, is i *think* it was his name. Comedian, used to be big.
he had this boring, deep, deadpan humor.
"There's a 7-11 down the street."
"Been open now like 9 years."
"Seven days every week."
"Every holiday, open, every day, all day. all night, too. 24, 7. 365."
(pause)
"They have 1500 dollar Krieg, top of the line, commercial door locks, too."
(big pause)
"Why?"
that was his whole act, and he was big for a time
comedians, some of them, *notice* things, every day, all day
they make zero sense, at all, once you think about it,
we see it all day, every day, for years.
we never questions any of it, not once.
they do.
they show you, the silly and the insane we all take for granted.
it makes us laugh our asses off.
properly classified, character driven humor, to the science of comedy, is this...
the comedian plays a character. They do their whole act, in character.
the audience does not know the real them, they only see... this character.
the 80s had a long list of infamous zany comedians. Most were character driven comedians.
roseanne barr, did not, in fact... live in a trailer park. That was a character that worked, and it took over her whole act.
saw her through at least two sitcoms, one was huge.
Andrew "Dice" Clay, the Diceman himself.
after his big arc was over, he said it in an interview.
the "diceman" was just this one character, impersonation I did.
"dat dere, dat Brooklynn guy, we all know dat dude, ya know? *snort*"
he said his manager came to him. will you try just doing a whoel show, just that one character?
the jokes aren;t even that funny, but everyone is spitting their drinks out, when you make fun of that one character.
so he tried it.
six months later? headliner at clubs
within a year? on TV like evening at the improv.
within 18 mos, he had his own HBO comedy stand up hour long show.
led to at least two movies, too.
that *character* can be the whole joke. the whole act.
smart-ass random snark, took over in the 90s, and its still big.
insult comedy never goes away, either. Don Rickles? The master.
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