The humor of it all

Hey all, what’s up? It’s J here. I was just thinking about certain things that make stories compelling. You know: story, conflict, dialogue, that sort of thing. One of my favorites is humor. For me, humor is a big impact on whether or not I’ll like the book or not. I’m not saying your book has to be a comedy, I just mean that if your characters are funny, legitimately funny, they’ll be likable, guaranteed.

Now that’s kind of tricky, isn't it? There’s a big difference between movie humor and book humor. Things that could be hilarious in a movie often fall flat when read, whereas some humor that is comical in written form can just be plain lame when put on the big screen.

I try to tinker with it, see what works, what doesn't. In my experience, physical humor is not something that works. It takes too long to explain and by the time you do explain, the joke has gone on too long with little actual comedy involved. My solution? There are a couple of ways to do it. One is witty one-liners. Sarcasm is another one, especially in the case of a story written in first-person. My personal favorite, however, is arrogance. You take this and sprinkle a healthy dosage of that sarcasm on there, and you’re ordinarily un-remarkable character becomes your favorite. (Tony Stark, anybody?)

I may come up with a few finer points to say on humor in the future. No reason wasting your arsenal on the first go of it, am I right?

Take it easy, or…whatever it is you like to do.