My favorite books are the wacko Florida regional crime
adventures for which my lovely State is famous. The characters in Tim
Dorsey’s series, Serge and Coleman, serial killers who only murder
scammers, are knee-slapping hilarious. Carl
Hiaasen’s Skink, an old man who lives in the swamps, fights crime, and used
to be Governor makes me chuckle every few pages. Tim
Baker’s Ike, a former Navy Seal, who works as a strong arm for a bookie
that owns a restaurant on A1A but tracks down outrageous criminals encroaching
on his turf, has me laughing out loud every couple of chapters. And there are
many others that keep me highly entertained.
Murder is easy, humor
is hard.
I have heard humorist say you’ve either got it or you don’t,
but there are techniques to employ in writing humor or gearing up to write
humor. It doesn’t matter if you are writing chick-lit, crime romps, romance, or
fantasy, keeping people entertained is a large part of what writers do. Most
fiction has room for comic relief. But, you say, “I’m not a comedian.” That’s
okay. There are many ways to interject funny into your work; writing words out
of context, using puns, and more. Today I’m going to tell you about four of
these ways to include humor in any work:
·
Banter
·
Slapstick
·
Sarcasm
·
Clever Jokes
At the end of this post, I’ll introduce you to my warm up
method for getting into the right mind to write humor.
Banter is likely the
easiest way to work humor into your work—if you have the right characters. It
works well to slow pace between action scenes. For banter to work best, the
characters have to spend enough time with each other and know each other well
enough to understand how to push each other’s buttons. Opposing personalities
make this an easier trick to pull off.
In Naked Alliances, Richard and Brandi,
co-protagonists, are like oil and vinegar. He’s a private investigator,
reserved, chivalrous, and prefers to work alone. She’s an outrageous exotic
dancer, brassy, and loud. Their opposing personalities make it easy to toss
one-liners back and forth in dialog that also aids in demonstrating or
“showing” their personalities.
“No, nuh-uh,” he said, imitating Brandi when she wasn’t
happy with how things were going. “We’re trying to look inconspicuous here.”
She stretched the back of her luminous dress down to cover
her buttocks. “It’s party time and this is who I am. I’m an exhibitionist, you
know.”
“No, you can’t go to the Ranch, in the middle of a swamp,
lookin’ like some freshly minted Krugerrand!”
Brandi turned away and adjusted her blonde wig. “I resent
that remark. There’s an African American insult in it somewhere…My white father
can trace his lineage all the way back to the American Revolution.”
“Sorry. I’m sure he can. It’s just that we can’t go over
there drawing attention to ourselves. After what happened to your friend, you
should know you can’t go there lookin’ like an advertisement on Times Square.”
Sparring like this can be quick, blunt, and to the point and
can can be used in other genre, like romance or fantasy. While having opposing
personalities can make it easier, it’s not necessary.
Banter usually starts with a casual comment made to be a
joke or mild tease. It can be a simple conversation leading to a joke
too. Here’s another example from Charles
E. Yallowitz’s fantasy series, Legends of Windemere, a book titled: Family of the Tri-rune. In this instance, there are no opposing
personalities, but a window of opportunity for comic relief. Two characters,
Tzefira and Nyx, engage in friendly banter. They are about to face the enemy.
“You’re
hoping that my magic scares them off.”
“It has crossed my mind, so feel free to put on as big a
show as possible.”
“What if they laugh at the display?”
“They won’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve never heard a krypter laugh.”
Short, sweet, and good for a chuckle to break the tension of
the moment.
Slapstick,
you either love it or hate it. Slapstick involves setting up a funny
scene. Think of The Three Stooges. It’s much easier to portray in film than in
written words, but your work might have a place for it.
In Naked Alliances, a whole
chapter is dedicated to rescuing one of Brandi’s friends, Gloria, a female
impersonator. She’s been wrangled like a bull, drugged, trussed like a turkey,
and stuffed into a dark room…freeing her becomes an act of calamity.
Tim Dorsey’s Serge and
Coleman are well known antiheroes,
bad guys who take on the bad guys. Serge is a genius and Coleman is a stoner.
They banter, but they also have very unique ways of murdering scam artists in Tiger
Shrimp Tango..., I mean death by lobster, who woulda thunk it?
Only Serge.
With slapstick you are setting up a scene, giving readers a visual into
an awkward series of events with a hilarious outcome.
Sarcasm doesn’t
need to be explained. It’s not so much how the sarcasm is written as it is how
it is perceived by the reader. Sometimes sarcasm makes a character appear to be
mean or tough...but sometimes that’s just what you need. It’s important to know
your audience. But again, these little tips on humor can be used in any genre.
Wings of
Meyhem, a psychological thriller about a hideous serial killer authored by crime
writer Sue
Coletta, keeps you on the edge of your seat with suspense and tension. However,
Shawnee, a tough girl who is a cat burglar by night and a Police Department
employee by day, has a tendency to respond with sarcasm that works to break the
tension and add a touch of humor, while keeping her tough girl image.
“Good morning, Shawnee,” said Detective Charles North, a
royal kiss ass, and a pain in mine. If Lieutenant Holt stopped short, he’d need
to wear a neck brace for a month. “How’s it going in here?”
Staring at the monitor, I droned, “Chuck.”
“Charles. You know I go by Charles.”
“Right. My bad.”
“Did you find anything yet?”
“Did I call you?”
“No, but…”
“Listen, Chuck. This isn’t the movies. Information doesn’t
magically appear in seconds. It takes time.” He dragged a chair next to my desk
and hovered over my shoulder. Regurgitated peppers and eggs repeated on him
and, by proximity, on me. Waving away the stench, I said, “Do you mind?”
He scooted his chair back literally six inches. “Better?”
As you can see, even tough-girls can be amusing in a
psychothriller. And then you have romance and chick-lit with plenty of room for
sarcasm. Characters simply make snide remarks to other characters. Don’t try to
plan to be funny yourself, allow your characters to take the reins.
Clever Jokes can be dropped into narrative or
injected into dialog. Here you might have to be more of a comedian…or at least
think like one.
You have a
character, a female, complaining to another female about men. What can she
compare men to?
“You know
men. They’re like panty hose. They run, they cling, or they don’t fit right in
the crotch.”
Or a male
character complaining to another male about women. What can he compare women
to?
“You know
women. They’re like shed roofs. If you don’t nail them hard enough, they end up
next door.”
Comparisons and hypothetical questions are good exercises to warm up for writing
humor.
I promised
to share my method for loosening up to write humor. The hypothetical questions
exercise.
I get
anxious about writing humor because different people find different things
funny, and appealing to a large audience is a challenge. I can be funny all
day, but sit down to write something amusing and draw a total blank.
Yes, murder is easy. Funny is hard. The characters and the plot are all
there when I sit down to write. My anxieties stem from the fact that I am a
serious person who worked to save lives. Shaking off that seriousness and
letting go, releasing my inhibitions, and learning that it really doesn’t
matter if I offend somebody cause somebody else is gonna laugh, have been key
to loosening up to write humor.
I was
scolded as a child for constantly asking the question, “What if…?” What if dogs
could fly? What if horses had feathers? What if all the people in the world had
blue hair? What if Leprechauns had club feet? What if dentists paid you to let
them pull your teeth? What if you got scared half to death twice? What if you throw a cat out a
car window, does it become kitty litter?
It was cause
for punishment as a kid, but I still use hypothetical questions as a warm up
exercise to write humor.
I hope
you’ve enjoyed this post and maybe learned a few tricks of the trade.
Title: NAKED ALLIANCES
Genre: Mystery
Author: S.K. Nicholls
Publisher: Brave Blue Heron Books
Purchase on Amazon
About the Book: In Naked Alliances, novelist S.K. Nicholls
takes readers on a witty, wild, wickedly fun romp that exposes a side
of Orlando tourists rarely see. The debut release in The Naked Eye
Private Investigator Series, Naked Alliances introduces lone wolf P.I. Richard Noggin.
When
a young immigrant woman and an exotic dancer are forced to flee men
with guns and have no place to hide, Richard Noggin, P.I., can’t turn
his back—even if helping out makes him a target. Richard plans to
impress an aspiring politician by taking on a big white-collar case that
could take him from the streets to an air-conditioned office. Instead, he's handed a cold case and quickly finds himself sucked into a shadowy world of sex, secrets and…murder. Marked
for a bullet and stretched thin by his investigations, Richard
reluctantly teams up with the unlikely, brassy custodian of the young
woman on the run. With bodies piling up, Richard and his companion are
forced to go undercover in a most unlikely locale: the Leisure Lagoon, a
nudist resort. Going undercover in this instance will mean going uncovered…but
lives are at stake—and this Naked Eye will have to juggle to keep his
balls in the air and connect the dots before anyone else is murdered. As
his pulse-quickening quest for answers leads from the dark corners of
Orlando’s Little Saigon to the sunny exposure of the Leisure Lagoon,
Richard will be put to the test. Just how much will this Naked Eye have
to bear…or bare? The heat is on in this quirky Sunshine State crime
thriller.
About the Author: S.K.
Nicholls’ family owns and operates one of the oldest and largest nudist
resorts in the nation located in Central Florida, Cypress Cove. Her
experience gives her a deep understanding of the lifestyle choice and
how it is extremely different from the sex industry, yet harbors
clandestine elements of intrigue and fascination. Social issues are at
the forefront of her writing. A former sexual assault nurse examiner,
she has a special interest in the subject matter of sex-trafficking. A
native of Georgia, she lives in Orlando, Florida with her husband, Greg.
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