On July 13, 2014, Writer At Heart wrote, I’m having problems with my MC. I feel as though she isn’t very developed. How do I get around to do this? Maybe it’s because I don’t think that she has a great sense of humor.<\/i><\/p>\n
carpelibris responded with these questions: Why doesn’t she have a sense of humor? Is she overly serious? Socially awkward? Too literal-minded? The reason might give you clues to her personality<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Is she in a situation where humor’s important? Why? How does she respond? What problems does this cause for her?<\/i><\/p>\n
And Writer At Heart answered, No, she’s not overly serious or any of that other stuff you said. Like, she can be awkward at times or serious, it\u2019s really just me. I can say a joke pretty well, but I just can’t write it down on paper or on the computer. She’s actually very outgoing. It’s not only my MC who I want to be funny, but my MC’s ‘boyfriend.’ I want him to be very funny, someone who can make a girl laugh. <\/i><\/p>\n
The school teacherish side of me has to say that if we\u2019re not good at writing a particular kind of thing and we want to be, the remedy is practice. We can write down the joke that we told out loud, which had our friend clutching his sides and weeping with laughter. We can tweak it until we think it\u2019s pretty good. Then we can show it to another friend and see what happens.<\/p>\n
Not even a smile? Revise and repeat.<\/p>\n
We may never cause the uproarious laughter that accompanied the spoken joke, because our timing, our inflection, our own suppressed hilarity will be missing, but we should be able to get a smile.<\/p>\n
If this aspect of writing is as important to us as it is to Writer at Heart, we can read joke books and see which ones make us laugh and figure out how the effect was achieved.<\/p>\n
So now I\u2019m tempted. I recently heard a joke on the radio that I loved and want to share. (It\u2019s not mean.) It\u2019s also not funny to everybody. The radio person who told it said that the smartest person she knows didn\u2019t get it. Here\u2019s the joke:<\/p>\n
I\u2019m walking down the street and see my old friend, but, surprisingly, he now has a big orange head. I ask him what happened. He says he was in an antique store and bought an old lamp, which he cleaned when he got home and a genie appeared and offered him three wishes. His first wish, he says, was for a beautiful house. He points at an enormous, gorgeous mansion and says that\u2019s it. His second wish was for a beautiful wife. He points at a stunning woman who\u2019s pruning the roses along the fence and says she\u2019s his wife. He goes on. \u201cThen I made my mistake. For my third wish I asked for a big orange head.\u201d<\/p>\n
I’m laughing right now. My telling is nothing special. I just wrote it down more or less as I heard it. The surprise and the absurdity tickle me.<\/p>\n
I want to assure you all that I\u2019m not violating anybody\u2019s copyright by telling this joke. When it was told on the radio, the person who heard it already knew it, so it\u2019s out there. But we do need to be careful with jokes that come from joke books, which probably are copy protected. We can repeat them to friends, but we shouldn\u2019t include them in anything we hope to publish.<\/p>\n
I adore funny books, plays, movies, but not everybody is into humor or is interested in writing it. Most writers, as far as I can tell, are, sadly (so to speak!), not funny. We can write a career’s worth of serious stories, and that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s like some artists aren\u2019t good at drawing hands but they\u2019re great at other aspects of visual art.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s work on making our MC funny, and let\u2019s call her Marie, and let\u2019s call her boyfriend Jonas. They can both be funny in the way that Writer at Heart would like, that is, they can be witty. In a social situation, people can wait for one or the other of them to make the remark that surprises and brings the smiles. Also, for them to be likable to the reader, they can\u2019t be mean. Their jokes shouldn\u2019t be at someone else\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n
Suppose they go together to a Valentine\u2019s Day party. They make their entrance a little late, and everyone is delighted to see them, because they\u2019re the life of every party. On the way in, Jonas picks up a big heart lollipop from a bowl. With everyone watching, he lunges like a fencer at Marie. She steps back smiling, instantly getting the joke. The two of them bow to everyone and say in unison, \u201cHeart attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not sure how funny a heart attack is, but Marie and Jonas are clever. They\u2019re witty, and no one\u2019s feelings have been hurt.<\/p>\n
How did I come up with the heart-attack joke?<\/p>\n
It happened to come right away, but if it hadn\u2019t I would have written some notes, which might have gone like this: They\u2019re at a party. A theme party provides more opportunities and more interesting props, could be Halloween, a birthday, Valentine\u2019s Day. Valentine\u2019s Day. Which of them will make the joke?<\/p>\n
\u2022 Marie holds a heart doily to her ear. Jonas gets it and says loudly, \u201cHeart of hearing!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Heart is also hart. Can I do anything with a joke about the deer? No. Nobody will get it.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Something with endearments: sweetie, love, dear, darling, sugar, honey.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Stick with heart. I got it! Heart attack. How do I write it so it isn\u2019t making fun of a terrible illness?<\/p>\n
Or you may prefer heart of hearing. Or the endearments may have gotten you thinking.<\/p>\n
In a story, a series of jokes will quickly grow tiresome. If Marie\u2019s and Jonas\u2019s repartee continue at length, the reader may stop reading and switch to something that has story momentum. So suppose we leave it at one joke in this moment, and suppose the reader knows that half an hour ago the lovebirds were arguing and even on the point of parting. They\u2019ve made up, and the relieved reader sees that they\u2019re back in sync. The joke isn\u2019t just funny now, it also makes the reader feel good until the next crisis.<\/p>\n
Or, suppose either Marie or Jonas is really not a nice person, and the reader is alarmed that they\u2019re happily together again. The joke is still clever, but the tone is ominous.<\/p>\n
Or, the reader knows somehow that they\u2019re about to be separated forever, but the two of them are blissfully unaware. Now the humor is tinged with tragedy. The reader smiles through his tears.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s consider other ways Marie and Jonas can be funny, and let\u2019s reprise carpelibris\u2019s questions: Is she overly serious? Socially awkward? Too literal-minded?<\/i><\/p>\n
Writer at Heart said no, but a character\u2019s foibles can help with the humor. Marie can be overly serious and too literal-minded. People are being witty all around her, and she doesn\u2019t get it. The reader hears the soundtrack of her thoughts. She\u2019s trying to figure out what\u2019s funny, and she has a fake smile pasted on her face. Finally, she thinks she understands. She says, \u201cI get it!\u201d And she comes out with a wild interpretation that nobody meant. They laugh, and she\u2019s mildly puzzled. The reader sympathizes and smiles. But if she\u2019s really hurt it stops being funny.<\/p>\n
Jonas can be socially awkward. He always says the thing everybody else is tiptoeing around. He means no harm, but he misses a lot of cues. There can be comic relief when he blurts out the obvious.<\/p>\n
In both of these, unlike the witticisms, we\u2019ve made our MCs vulnerable, which probably makes them more likable and certainly makes them funnier. If we think about stand-up comics, many present themselves as vulnerable, and there usually is a dark side to their humor. For example, I heard a comedian named Mike Birbiglia perform a piece on the radio about his sleepwalking. Part of the story involved him walking through the plate-glass window of his hotel room. It was very funny, since he\u2019d lived to tell about it.<\/p>\n
There are, of course, many ways to write humor. I suggest you also look back at my other two posts labeled “writing humor,” and you can also check out the chapter \u201cWriting Funny, Writing Punny\u201d in Writing Magic<\/i>.<\/p>\n
These prompts are based on the post:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jonas and Marie are going to be separated forever as soon as the party ends. Write the party scene with both at their wittiest, most charming, and most obviously in love. End with the tragedy that separates them.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rewrite the scene, but make the romance ridiculously over the top. Their pet names for each other are embarrassing. Jason feeds Marie a heart-shaped cookie, and they\u2019re both dusted with powdered sugar, which they don\u2019t see. Marie is wearing a long scarf, which gets tangled in something while they dance. They\u2019re not nearly as charming as they think they are, but they may be twice as funny. Then have the separation occur.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Let\u2019s imagine that the story is going to turn sinister when two heavily armed men and one heavily armed woman crash the party, hoping for a place to evade the police. Make Jason and Marie laughable as they were in the last prompt, or make one socially awkward and the other overly serious and too literal-minded. Before the situation turns deadly they are vulnerable objects of fun. When these desperadoes come in, Marie and Jason accidentally notice the danger. They can\u2019t tell anyone or the baddies will realize. (The phone lines have been cut, and cell phone reception is terrible here.) It\u2019s up to our doofus duo to save the day. Write the scene, and use detail to make it funny. I\u2019m rooting for a happy ending, but it\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n
Have fun and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On July 13, 2014, Writer At Heart wrote, I’m having problems with my MC. I feel as though she isn’t very developed. How do I get around to do this? Maybe it’s because I don’t think that she has a great sense of humor. carpelibris responded with these questions: Why doesn’t she have a sense […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}