Be Yourself
No one else can play you like you can; but if you try to be someone you’re not, they may be tempted to fill the void.
For some reason, humor in writing is quite apt to be misconstrued as something else entirely. It’s one thing to fall short of funny; it’s quite another to try to be funny and unintentionally start a flamewar, instead. If I omit the emoticons, I have to rely entirely on my skills as a writer. A stand-up comedian can cue his audience with a gesture, a facial expression, a change in body language, or a well-timed pause. The only advantage the writer has is that the audience can’t usually lob a rotten tomato that far, and with produce and postage rates what they are, these days, most readers are just too cheap to mail one.
But seriously, if we have to be especially careful in choosing our words when writing a serious email, how much more careful do we have to be when writing comedy? Too much caution, too much worrying about those rotten tomatoes, is apt to kill a joke before it’s committed to paper or pixels, anyway. But a completely off-the-wall sense of humor is likely to get us put on some crackpot watch list, somewhere.* Ellis Parker Butler does make an excellent point (and note that none of the underlying principles of effective writing have changed--the man could not possibly have foreseen “email” or the Internet when he wrote this in December, 1932):
A writer whose general humor product has been delicate and refined should not plunge into a tale of a fat man laid out on a kitchen table to have his appendix carved out. Those who expect the delicate and refined from him are apt to be shocked out of all ability to see fun in the tale. On the other hand, a writer whose work has always shown a jovial whole-souled freedom from restraint can write such a story and it is welcomed with loud laughs. (from http://www.ellisparkerbutler.info/epb/biblio.asp?id=5340)
In other words, be yourself and let the chips fall where they may. If the UPS man starts playing Ding-Dong Ditch and leaving boxes of rotten produce on your doorstep, or you start hearing strange clicking noises on your phone, consider switching genres. Consistency and giving your readers what they’ve come to expect from you in terms of style will likely garner the most loyal readers. Varying your style and the type of comedy you write in order to discover what works best for you and what appeals most to your readers can also be effective, so long as you realize that as you gain new readers, you risk losing some along the way. It’s okay, though – particularly at the start of your writing career – to experiment. Throw a few darts at the board and see if they stick, but remember: Throwing comedic darts all over the wall around the dartboard just makes you look like an unpredictable fool, and your readers may begin to suspect that you tipple.
Mel Gilden, in “It Was Funny When it Left Here,” writes:
The story goes that a writer for [the TV show] MY FAVORITE MARTIAN once got a script back for revisions and one piece of dialog received this scribbled note, "A Martian wouldn't say that." The point is not whether a Martian would or would not say the line in question, but that there was a difference of opinion. And few opinions vary more widely-outside the field of economics-than on what is funny. (from http://www.melgilden.com/Sampletext/EssaKids.html)
* Beware of asking questions like, “Can you buy an odorless, colorless form of strychnine and how long can it be detected in a corpse?” or “Can arsenic be detected once the body has been cremated?” on any of those online “question and answer” services. Ordinary folks already think writers are a bit odd, and if we didn’t already justify a close watch by the authorities, questions like those will end in an illegal wiretap, certainly. If you are a crime or murder novelist, just stay here on Writing.com, where you are among friends.
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Comedy: April 25, 2007 Issue [#1680]
