Humor is integral to my writer’s voice. I am a plotter and a
pantser, meaning I outline the story to a certain degree before I begin to
write. Humor is something that ‘just happens’ as I write, even when the subject
matter and situations are dark. Writing instructor Alicia Raisley once told me
I write “dark comedy.” At the time, I thought I was writing Romantic Suspense
with paranormal elements, but I understand what she meant.
(Caveat: I was going to share some excerpts from my
published stories to illustrate the following points, but due to a series of
unfortunate events, my books and digital copies on thumb drives are in storage
while we’re having the wood floors refinished. Guess I’ll paraphrase or make
things up as I go along instead.)
A good illustration of the “dark comedy” humor is from BLINDSIGHT,
Book 1 in my Psychic Agents Series. The hero, Hector, is tie-wrapped to a chair
in a drug lord’s torture chamber when he regains consciousness. When one of the
drug lord’s minions who never liked Hector comes in to taunt him and threaten
him, Hector belittles the guy with wisecracks until the man pistol whips him. Hector
used the opportunity to invite a very bloody but not too serious wound as a
ploy to feign unconsciousness and buy time. The reader learns this information when
the guy leaves. Hector thinks, Nothing like a scalp wound to impress an
audience. He uses humor to distance himself (and the reader) emotionally
from a terrible situation.
Later in the story, Hector, Meli (blind heroine) and Fred
(guide dog) hear the awful roars and screams as a bear attacks the bad guys and
tracking dogs who are hunting them through the wilderness. The heroine has a
phobia of bears. She throws upher meager breakfast while Hector holds back her
hair. Fred, who is not ‘in harness’ (working), tries to sneak a taste. Anyone
who has lived with a dog knows this is a realistic canine bad habit, making the
situation relatable. The fact that Fred (a dog genius, according to Meli) does
it is funny. That Fred does this at a point in the story where some really horrific
stuff is happening lightens the mood and helps balance the story tone.
In a lighter short story in the anthology Love and Magick, a medieval
prince cursed by an evil gnome into the form of a wolf finds himself falling
for the peasant maiden he protected, who is nursing his wounds. He has impure
thoughts about said maiden as he drifts off to sleep, but struggles to control
them because the maiden’s seven-year-old sister can read his mind. The little
girl knows he is human because she can read his mind. But her sister
doesn’t believe her, and his thoughts are no longer private. The mind reading
is a good news/bad news situation—always good for a laugh.
In an unpublished Steampunk story, I wrote a heroine who is on the autism
spectrum. She is smart and beautiful but socially somewhat clueless. Her
interactions with other characters are often funny in a fish-out-of-water way,
but they also help make her relatable to the reader. Fish-out-of-water
characters and plots offer lots of opportunities for humor.
The longer I’ve studied the craft of writing, the more I’ve
come to understand when and why humor works.
Do you use humor often in your stories? Do you like stories
with humor? Please share an example in a comment. ~Sarah Raplee
3 comments:
I don't use humor on purpose because I don't write that way --- however, there are times something humorous shows up on the computer screen. I figure that if I laugh at the quip or scene, my readers most likely will also. And if I could think of an example to share, I would. However, it's too early for all of my brain to be working.
Like me, when humor happens in your stories, it's intuitive - a part of your voice. I know I've laughed while reading your books. Thanks for commenting, Judith.
Enjoyed your post, Sarah. I've read your book "Blindsight" and did enjoy the moments of humor. Like Judith, I can't think of any funny moments in my stories.
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