Shuvom Ghose's Blog - Posts Tagged "c-m-b-r-n-c"
"Use humor!" he said!
So as I'm diligently writing the sequel to Infinity Squad, I'm struck again and again how powerful humor is versus other story elements.
Most "Doctor Who" episodes contain ridiculous plot holes and the most flimsy scenarios, but my wife and I keep watching, as long as the Doctor's antics and quips keep coming. I wasn't going to watch the movie "Lockout", but the first 30 seconds captured the wry humor of the main character so perfectly, I was hooked. And the book "John Dies at the End" is completely full of puzzling horror mash-ups and pacing problems, but the prologue is SO DAMN FUNNY, I had to keep going. (The end was pretty darn funny too. As were parts of the middles.)
My point is, humor lets you get away with a lot. It covers up a lot of defects in writing, like the love child of duct tape and super drywall putty. (Try to unpicture THAT conception now.) It makes ads or movies seem 'cool', it makes people think the author is smart, it almost instantly makes your characters likeable (see: Guy Pearce in "Lockout") and it's a crutch and spice for your story almost second to none.
So why don't more authors use it?
To be sure, humor clashes with the theme of some works. Would have probably been out of place in "Schindler's List". But even a little bit of it would have saved so many doomed sci-fi shows and books. "Revolution", that Fox show about time- travelling back to dinosaur times, "Green Lantern"... any of these things could have been the next "Firefly". They definitely had WAY more budget. Why didn't they use humor like "Firefly" did and make audiences LOVE their characters and into rabid fans?
Because humor is hard.
It's harder than finding sexy actors to play your leading roles, it's harder than making special effects, and when you're writing a book, unless you've got a good, honest, writer's group reviewing your work and giving detailed feedback, it's the absolute hardest thing to write that there is.
There's almost no formula for it, there are damn few public theories on how it works, and it is more of a 'sense' than a skill you can learn. Now I'm going to spend the rest of this article disproving that last sentence.
Someone once said: "Humor is when something bad happens to someone else." I don't know who said that. I'm not your damn Google machine. But this pain+distance formula has been used in every Bugs Bunny cartoon, Three Stooges episode and nut-shot video I can remember. Yes, it's the lowest form of humor, but keep that in mind as we go higher.
Dilbert creator Scott Adams, in his book "The Joy of Work" (of all things) gave me my first scientific blueprint for humor that worked. Scott, if I can call him Scott, said that a joke works if you can combine at least two of the following elements: Cuteness, Meanness, Bizarreness, Recognizability, Naughtiness or Cleverness. (I remember this by saying: C-M-B, R-N-C.)
So a strong guy punching a tied down, captured guy in the mouth is just Mean. Not funny. But if the tied down guy, after the first punch, spits out blood and says "You just slammed me as hard as I slammed your wife in bed last night", that gets a little chuckle. Slamming another guy's wife is a little Naughty. Second element.
If the interrogator punches the captive again, and then the captive spits out a tooth and says, "Wait! Wait! I'll tell you what you want to know about the CIA microfish! Speaking of fish... how's your wife doing-" PUNCH! That's a little Clever. Third element. And by this point, 10 seconds into the movie "Lockout", I was rolling in laughter.
(The fish joke I just made up because I can't be bothered to Netflix the first minute of the movie again, but the actual line was a lot funnier, and delivered perfectly by Guy Pearce in between brutal punches. Seriously, check it out.)
But the C-M-B, R-N-C framework gives us at least SOMEWAY to judge if a written joke will work. Scott Adams says the reason half the mean stuff Dogbert does is funny because Dogbert is a cute little dog with glasses. Cute plus Mean. Two elements. And if the Meanness is some stupid Recognizable ISO process from your work too, that's three elements. Half the jokes on "South Park" work because they're being delivered by 4th graders. Cute. If they're Naughty poop or sex jokes, or Recognizable satire, there you go. All the jokes in "The Onion" work because the articles are written in Recognizable newspaper format and have Bizarre premises. Some use Naughty swear words. But you get the point.
I was going to talk about the other overpowerful element of writing, Dialogue, but I've actually got to go write now, so we'll leave that for later. But for now, pick up a copy of "Joy of Work" just for the humor theory in the middle of it (the only one I've ever seen), and if you're having trouble getting readers to like your main characters, why not try giving them a hot ass then making them a smart ass or a dumb ass and see if your beta-readers don't start laughing their butts off!
Oh shit. I should have said 'ass' instead of 'butts'. Ah well, too late to change it now.
Laterz.
Most "Doctor Who" episodes contain ridiculous plot holes and the most flimsy scenarios, but my wife and I keep watching, as long as the Doctor's antics and quips keep coming. I wasn't going to watch the movie "Lockout", but the first 30 seconds captured the wry humor of the main character so perfectly, I was hooked. And the book "John Dies at the End" is completely full of puzzling horror mash-ups and pacing problems, but the prologue is SO DAMN FUNNY, I had to keep going. (The end was pretty darn funny too. As were parts of the middles.)
My point is, humor lets you get away with a lot. It covers up a lot of defects in writing, like the love child of duct tape and super drywall putty. (Try to unpicture THAT conception now.) It makes ads or movies seem 'cool', it makes people think the author is smart, it almost instantly makes your characters likeable (see: Guy Pearce in "Lockout") and it's a crutch and spice for your story almost second to none.
So why don't more authors use it?
To be sure, humor clashes with the theme of some works. Would have probably been out of place in "Schindler's List". But even a little bit of it would have saved so many doomed sci-fi shows and books. "Revolution", that Fox show about time- travelling back to dinosaur times, "Green Lantern"... any of these things could have been the next "Firefly". They definitely had WAY more budget. Why didn't they use humor like "Firefly" did and make audiences LOVE their characters and into rabid fans?
Because humor is hard.
It's harder than finding sexy actors to play your leading roles, it's harder than making special effects, and when you're writing a book, unless you've got a good, honest, writer's group reviewing your work and giving detailed feedback, it's the absolute hardest thing to write that there is.
There's almost no formula for it, there are damn few public theories on how it works, and it is more of a 'sense' than a skill you can learn. Now I'm going to spend the rest of this article disproving that last sentence.
Someone once said: "Humor is when something bad happens to someone else." I don't know who said that. I'm not your damn Google machine. But this pain+distance formula has been used in every Bugs Bunny cartoon, Three Stooges episode and nut-shot video I can remember. Yes, it's the lowest form of humor, but keep that in mind as we go higher.
Dilbert creator Scott Adams, in his book "The Joy of Work" (of all things) gave me my first scientific blueprint for humor that worked. Scott, if I can call him Scott, said that a joke works if you can combine at least two of the following elements: Cuteness, Meanness, Bizarreness, Recognizability, Naughtiness or Cleverness. (I remember this by saying: C-M-B, R-N-C.)
So a strong guy punching a tied down, captured guy in the mouth is just Mean. Not funny. But if the tied down guy, after the first punch, spits out blood and says "You just slammed me as hard as I slammed your wife in bed last night", that gets a little chuckle. Slamming another guy's wife is a little Naughty. Second element.
If the interrogator punches the captive again, and then the captive spits out a tooth and says, "Wait! Wait! I'll tell you what you want to know about the CIA microfish! Speaking of fish... how's your wife doing-" PUNCH! That's a little Clever. Third element. And by this point, 10 seconds into the movie "Lockout", I was rolling in laughter.
(The fish joke I just made up because I can't be bothered to Netflix the first minute of the movie again, but the actual line was a lot funnier, and delivered perfectly by Guy Pearce in between brutal punches. Seriously, check it out.)
But the C-M-B, R-N-C framework gives us at least SOMEWAY to judge if a written joke will work. Scott Adams says the reason half the mean stuff Dogbert does is funny because Dogbert is a cute little dog with glasses. Cute plus Mean. Two elements. And if the Meanness is some stupid Recognizable ISO process from your work too, that's three elements. Half the jokes on "South Park" work because they're being delivered by 4th graders. Cute. If they're Naughty poop or sex jokes, or Recognizable satire, there you go. All the jokes in "The Onion" work because the articles are written in Recognizable newspaper format and have Bizarre premises. Some use Naughty swear words. But you get the point.
I was going to talk about the other overpowerful element of writing, Dialogue, but I've actually got to go write now, so we'll leave that for later. But for now, pick up a copy of "Joy of Work" just for the humor theory in the middle of it (the only one I've ever seen), and if you're having trouble getting readers to like your main characters, why not try giving them a hot ass then making them a smart ass or a dumb ass and see if your beta-readers don't start laughing their butts off!
Oh shit. I should have said 'ass' instead of 'butts'. Ah well, too late to change it now.
Laterz.
