HOW TO WRITE SHIT: “Using Humor in Different Ways: Part One”

This post is a bit of a change-up to my usual material, but I thought I’d write something useful for once and not just blindly promote my own material (*cough* buy my books *cough*). So, I’m going to start writing these little segments here, giving my two cents on the whole “writing process”. This one will cover, as you may have guessed, the use of humor in your writing. Part one.

Now, I’m not claiming to be the leading authority on humor (or anything, for that matter), but my entire writing career at the moment is based around the notion that my books are funny. That’s my thing. Honestly, without humor, everything I’ve written thus far falls flat on its face. Thankfully, I’ve managed to make my readers laugh enough to look past how shitty some of my writing really is. Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit. My writing isn’t shitty, or at least, I don’t think it is. But it can’t be denied that without the humor, my stories are far less engaging. Think of what “The Hangover” might be, without the humor. On second thought, watch “The Hangover Part III”.

So how do I use it?

Most writers looking to play with humor typically won’t consider themselves “comedy” writers. Usually (from what I’ve read), they are writers from literally any other genre, looking to use comedy alongside building tension or relief from whatever else they’ve got going on. Take horror for example. I’d go as far as to say a good eighty to ninety percent of horror that’s out there in either literature or film has at least a couple of one-liners or small humorous situations sprinkled in to the narrative. Now, why in the hell would anyone invested in a horror novel want to laugh? It’s simple. It changes the pacing of the story, and it drops the reader’s guard, leaving them open to emotional distress. You know this as “comic relief”. As in, relief from the distress of horror. You’re scared. The protagonist and her boyfriend are crouching through the haunted house. The protagonist relates the feeling to Scooby-Doo. Her boyfriend falls over with a knife in his back. You were too busy thinking of Scooby-Doo to see it coming, and shit just got real. A small comedic line can make an impact hit that much harder.

There’s also an anti-comedic relief. I don’t want to call it “horrific relief”, but screw it. It’s called horrific relief. And it’s exactly what you’d think it is. Horrific relief is the strategic placing of horrific and disturbing imagery in a comedic story to bring the reader “out” of the comedy and into a vulnerable state. The idea is basically to get the reader laughing, show them a dead body, and then make a joke about the dead body. What this accomplishes is killing the reader’s good mood for just a moment (maybe even scaring them, if possible), in order for the reader to appreciate the next joke that much more. The psychology pretty much mirrors that of the “comedic relief”. If you buy a horror novel, you probably want to get scared. So when the characters make a joke, you might enjoy the joke, but your subconscious wants to be scared that much more, so when the next big fright comes, you react in a stronger way. Same thing with “horrific relief”. You buy a comedy novel to laugh. So when the cat is possessed by Satan, your subconscious starts looking for the humor in that fucked up situation, even if it irks you a bit more than you would have hoped. That’s when I strike with the next joke, and you’re back to your happy place.

Hopefully what I’m saying is making some kind of sense.

You’ve got to be careful, though. Sometimes your scariest scenes can be ruined with a misplaced one-liner. The same can be said about the misuse of a scare in a situation which is better suited as a purely comedic moment. In other words, know your story, and know your rhythm. Your jokes need to make sense within the context of your story. Conversely, so do your scares.

Using this foundation of psychology, you can also use “dramatic relief” or something similar, but it’s best to keep your “relief” on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum of whatever mood you’re hoping to convey.

And that’s how to write shit. Part one.