A Funny Thing Happened in the Middle of a Suspense Novel

By Robin Weaver

Happy New Year Everyone!

First, many thanks to Judith for asking me to be a guest author this month.  I was indeed flattered she considered me a humor writer.

You see, I didn't plan to write humor.

I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, and John D.MacDonald. While, laughter is as important as air (for me, anyway), I wanted to write hard-core, gritty mysteries that kept you guessing until the very last page.

I still want that.

Only that isn't me. While writing Artifact of Death in collaboration with my good friend, and retired FBI agent, Bob Drdak, I discovered just far out-of-character my dark-n'-stormy dreams were. Bob wanted our main character, Private Detective Cole Deacon, to place the Yellow Pages over the suspect’s head and then hit him with a sledgehammer.

Eh, say what?

No way could I write that. Misunderstanding my objection, Bob proceeded to come up with more methods of torture, each more horrific than the last—many involving private parts and electricity. After a bit, the sledgehammer just didn’t seem that bad and perhaps I could... No.  Just No.

In this age of Google and Duck, Duck, Go, I don’t believe any writer needs to be limited by what s/he knows—research can resolve a lack of knowledge. My belief is you cannot write something you don’t truly feel is right.  And I don’t mean “right” in the moral sense, I mean it as what’s right-for-the character. The Cole Deacon that had come to life in my pages simply would not resort to steel-against-skull just to get a street address.

In the end, Bob and I compromised.  Cole Deacon—you guessed it--paid an associate to hack into world-wide web.  Wait, did you think I was going to say he Googled?  And our heroine got bigger boobs. Hmm, maybe I should have gone for the sledgehammer.

Adding the tuxedo-wearing computer nerd did more than get Cole a GPS entry and alleviate my fear of writing violent, he added another dimension to the book.  The computer geek got to made fun of the tall, ruggedly handsome detective, and provided a backdrop for the Cole to make fun of himself.  I had stumbled onto something advise-givers suggest when writing humor: turn the expected upside-down. 

If you Duck Duck Go writing humor, you’ll find a plethora of advice on adding jokes and making your story funnier.  My suggestion, “Don’t.” I don’t mean, don’t include humor, we need all the laughter we can get. Just don’t intentionally attempt to add humor or knock-knock jokes during editing pass #3 after you’ve looked for plot flaws and bad transitions.

All those suggestions for funny writing--same sound sequence, twisted clichés, k-sounding words—work great for speech writers. That audience is expecting the one-two-knock-kneed experience.  If you try to hard in a manuscript though, your story may sound a bit contrived. And writing jokes is hard work!

Instead, let your humor come out from the characters point of view. Everyday life is filled with humor. If you think about it, the best comedy skits are always about ordinary events--falling in love, naughty kids, inept parents, nagging moms.  As a writer, you don’t have to be funny.  Your heroine can observe and do it for you.

But I confess, I don’t really know it that’s good advice. As with all things writing, there are no rules. Maybe Aristotle had it right when he said, “The secret to humor is surprise.” But isn’t that the secret to a good story, period?

I still don't plan to write humor. But I hope it keeps happening.

More important. I hope you keep laughing.


Is Fanta funny?
What if it's flat?