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Okay, so I’m putting this in the novel ideas forum because I have a novel idea that happens to be a comedy. 😉
Up until now, I’ve only written very serious, intense, realistic stuff, but I want to try something different.
So I was wondering if anyone here has any tips on writing comedy.I’m generally a pretty comedic person, but when it comes to writing a novel I can’t seem to write anything just laugh-out-loud hilarious, which is what I’m going for with this newest idea.
Especially I’m looking for thoughts on how to balance between comedy and emotion, humor and intensity.So… tips, anyone? Anything goes.
Great topic. I’m surprised we haven’t got to it yet.
Do you write one novel a month or something?
I must confess, I’ve only written one comedic piece in my life, but that one piece taught me a lot about writing comedy. Writing comedy is much different from being funny personally. What I discovered is that writing comedy is mostly about the characters and what situations they are in. It has very little to do with how funny you are personally. Shoving great jokes into a story with the wrong characters and setting will have no effect at all.
Here are some good examples of how to write comedy:
.If you take an oblivious cook who is obsessed with his profession and shove him into a room where terrorists are plotting some huge attack, things are going to get funny without you even trying.
.If you take a highly emotional teenage girl and shove her into a story with her aunt who is highly obsessed with weird and extraordinary facts and then add in a quirky young astrophysicist with terrible social skills and make them visit a chocolate factory run by a puffed up business owner who has forty seven and a half rules for everything (and you may as well add in a thumb-sized monkey who loves chocolate for good measure) things are going to go crazy and be hysterical.So basically you create highly eccentric people who will react abnormally to normal situations and normally to extraordinary situations and then just see what happens.
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Ooooh, great topic. I think Daeus is really onto something–situation is probably the funniest of all.
I have a friend who is really good at humor. I dug up a few of his posts on the topic from his blog. Here you go:
How to Break Things with Humor: http://liamwood.org/2013/12/17/how-to-break-things-with-humor/
Multilevel Humor: http://liamwood.org/2014/06/06/multilevel-humor/
A Couple of Tools for Humor: http://liamwood.org/2014/09/07/a-couple-tools-for-humor/
Hang a Flag (talking about turning around cliches): http://liamwood.org/2015/04/15/hang-a-flag/
Character-Based Humor (kind of like Daeus was talking about): http://liamwood.org/2014/11/01/character-based-humor/
Anatomy of a Comeback: http://liamwood.org/2014/12/17/anatomy-of-a-comeback/And, for examples of humor, a couple of his short stories.
Klepto-mobile: http://liamwood.org/2015/12/12/short-story-klepto-mobile/
A Good Word: http://liamwood.org/writing-samples/short-stories/a-good-word/Hope some of these help, as he knows what he’s talking about much more than I do. (The rest of the blog is amazing as well, by the way.)
Thanks guys! I haven’t glanced over those links yet, Amanda, but I will when I find time. I’m a little short of that… 😛
Those are some great tips, Daeus! I’d not thought of it like that before… situation mattering as much as character… hm…
What about exaggerating characters? How far can you (should you) go? Are there rules, or does anything go so long as you remain consistent?
Let’s take your puffed up business owner who has forty seven and a half rules for everything for an example— whenever someone talks to him, do we exaggerate him so he answers every single question with another rule? I’m thinking that would work— really I am.
So the characters are really caricatures of different personalities? You don’t go very deep on the emotions or the ‘realisticness’ of their personality, but instead develop them in the stereotype you have for their personality? Their most defining personality trait, if you will? I’m thinking that would really work— am I mistaken?
Eh… more like one novel every twelve months. 😛
Kate,
You pretty much just said everything I would have said if I actually said everything I wanted to say. Caricatures. That is exactly what I was going to say. Caricatures are the essence of comedy.
There is absolutely no limit to how much you can exaggerate people and situations. One of my favorite comedies is the movie “The Hudsucker Proxy”. Little kids won’t get it at all, but for me, it is beyond hysterical. It’s not an entirely appropriate movie, but if you can skip a scene or two, and if laughter is good medicine, you will live forever. The whole movie is based on very serious and often business related themes that they exaggerate beyond comprehension. The caricature is killer.
I don’t know if you have seen any of the old “Hogan’s Heroes” shows (I love those shows!), but if you have, just think about this. What would be so funny about Hogan or the others without Shultz or Klink? With the cast of characters they had, they could create a never ending line of comedies right up until they had as many shows as there were days in the war.
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Caricature’s the word then, hm? Caricature and exaggeration. 😉
So in the case of comedy (correct me if I’m wrong) every rule of serious, emotional writing is completely irrelevant.
Let me give an example.
Let’s say we have a male protagonist who’s afraid of the dark. If he gets shut in a dark cellar in a serious, realistic novel, he’ll be breathing heavily and his heart will be pounding, and he’ll be swallowing nervously, but he won’t panic.
But in a comedy…
…it would not be at all incongruous or unrealistic if he just stopped right where he was and shrieked his head off. (Figuratively speaking 😛 ).
A caricature of fear.Right?
Giving characters contrasting qualities can be humorous. A bad guy who corrects everyone’s grammar. Or a hero who is terrified of mice. Or a judge who likes puns but can’t laugh at them in public because he needs to keep a dignified picture of himself.
INTJ - Inhumane. No-feelings. Terrible. Judgment and doom on everyone.
I don’t think every rule of serious, emotional writing is completely irrelevant, but most of them are. Actually, to take my comedic piece for an example, it is totally possible to write a comedy that is serious and emotional and still have the focus be on comedy. Comedy generally results when people are serious or emotional about the wrong things in a situation. (i.e. how their hair looks when they are being kidnaped)
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Building off of your idea, @Hope… an evil baron with an allergy to broccoli.
A brilliant leader obsessed with spaghetti.
An evil scientist who has a soft spot for frogs and macaroni.
A weak, timid protagonist who has an uncontrollable affinity for any and every reptile in existence.
Something along those lines? You’re right— that would be great.
@Daeus— so include the emotion, but misapply it to make it funny. *nods* Makes sense.Thanks so much guys! All the tips so far have been extremely helpful. Don’t stop. 🙂 😛
Macaroni that has a soft spot for evil scientists.
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AAAAAACK! Help! Attack of the killer elbow noodles!
It’s like cloudy with a chance of meatballs only without the clouds and meatballs and a lot more sinister.
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Exactly.
Cool! Back just in time for my favorite sort of topic. 🙂
Seeing on the point of exaggeration here, I must humbly object.
Exaggeration can be great and funny, but I’d say the place for it is prose or commentary within the writing itself (dialog is a bit tricky, but it depends on the character). An excess of it can really kill the humor and is more likely to border on the offensive if you aren’t careful with your topic. Use it sparingly.
A favorite tool of mine is the understatement. Especially in dialog. You know, the limping, bloodied guy walking up to his friends and upon being asked if he’s okay responds with something along the lines of “Oh, great. Why?”
Again, it depends, but situational humor is a great starting place for a story. Both the stories I have up on the site started with a great idea for a funny situation. A skinny, tall guy who isn’t good with kids suddenly being forced to become department-store santa for a day. An old, cranky general making his brilliant escape from a nursing home.
Sorry. I’m ranting. Any more specific questions? I do better with those generally. 😛
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