It occurred to me that a lot of posts lately has had humor involved in some way. For the most part, a lot of goofy humor, but I thought this was an interesting topic. Why? Due to how odd humor can be depicted and received.
There are a quite a few ways of depicting humor. You have the slapstick, sarcasm, puns, satire, camp, irony, not to mention the gross, the goofy, or the just plain weird and disgusting. Some media works better for certain types of humor, like slapstick is best suited for the visual arts rather than just the written word. Not saying you can’t try or succeed, I can think of a few explains of where there was slapstick in a book and I thought it was funny and well done. Generally, however, it doesn’t.
Stand up comedians employ a fair number of different delivery systems, one of my favorite, Dimitri Martin, uses puns, visual gags, and word play to great results. As a writer, we have the same tools available, to greater or lesser degrees, whether you are writing for a play or screen performance, or just with the written word. Yet despite all the different ways we can depict humor, or the level of skill we have in implementing each one, humor has a great risk involved, as in how it is received.
We’ve all been there in a crowd of three or four people, where someone tells a joke and no one laughs. What you might consider funny or “hilarious,” other people might not. Doesn’t matter on your delivery, or set up, they just do not get it. The funny bone remains unsatisfied. Or a stand up comedian who just isn’t funny.
That in and of itself, is kinda funny, but you can never know if a joke works unless you try, like walking through a land mine yet when you step on one, people laugh. I find a lot of different things things funny, and am a sympathetic laughter. Yep, if there are people laughing and I am around them, whether or not I actually found the joke funny, I will still laugh.
But I’ve never tried writing something that is intentionally funny. I have found that when I try to make people laugh, it doesn’t work well. Yet, when I am just being my sarcastic self, I can get more laughter.
The whole concept of humor, what is or isn’t funny, is a lot like popularity. Sometimes we don’t know why it is what it is, but it works.
I am deeply curious, however, what sort of books you readers suggest for a good laugh. Please feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments and let me know. Wocka wocka!
-William Harrison
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