Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.

My nearest book happens to be an e-book: Rough Canvas by Joey W Hill. The story covers an alternate lifestyle not everyone will want to read. But those who pass it up, will miss out on two of the most unforgettable, brilliantly drawn characters I've read in this genre and a moving tale written in a style any author might envy.

Here's Thomas, preparing to help a goat give birth:

Thomas made himself tune out everything, just like he did when he found the flow of what he wanted to create on canvas.

He’d brought a lot of calves and kids into the world when he was younger, when the farm had raised both in greater numbers. His father had him helping with difficult birthings when he was as young as ten because his dad had quickly learned Thomas had an intuitive sense in his fingers, coupled with his lack of fear about going in.

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Root Cause Analysis is a term coined by unfunny, businesslike people that like to use vague, professional sounding words like methodology, implementation, and kittenfarming. And as entirely lacking of humor as it sounds, it's at the heart of being a good writer, humorist, or 5-year old child.

Basically, it goes something like this: Q. Why is the sky blue? A. It's the atmosphere. Q. Why? A. It's sunlight scattering through the air. Q. Why?! A. It's because the wavelength removes the other colors at certain times!! Q. Why? A. Shut up, you snotty nosed brat, or I'll put a whoopin' on ya! Q. Why?

And so on, until the question is answered or the child is removed from custody. As a writer, the only way to be funny is to know much, much, much more about something than your audience does. This does not mean that Stephen Hawking is the funniest person on Earth. And E=McDaddy isn't as funny as I think it is. Any time you attempt to employ humor, make sure you drill down into the subject you're talking about until you find WHAT can make it funny.

This is where Irony comes in. Now, as you probably know, Irony is one of those literature words that English professors use. Dare I say something that falls outside of the written code of the Great Bard, Socrates, and Mr. Bean.

Here's how you can snub Shakespeare and abuse irony in your story! I'm not going to talk about the different types of irony (yawn), or link to examples that are written better than my stuff. Save that for your musty old tomes and 3-hour lectures.

The trick with irony is it's a combination of the unexpected (a great humor device, of course), but generally it includes an intrinsic oxymoron (Like my Uncle Pete!). So, say, a one-legged man who became the World Champion Three-Legged Racer is irony. (Although not necessarily a good hero).

Dramatic Irony can setup humor, but is used more often in horror - where the audience knows more than the character. For example, I make a cheddar cheese and triscut sandwich, set it on the bar, and go outside to bother the ice cream man. While I'm outside, the audience sees my wife, Paisley, make a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich right next to mine. She steps away to wave to her flock of fans gathering in the streets down below, and I come back in. The audience knows that the sandwich I grab is tomato and mayonnaise, not cheese and triscut, but I don't - and when I bite into it, my face turns into a sourpus unseen by generations. Something's wrong with my triscuts!!!

Well, I hate to truncate - as you all well know - but there's more to talk about and this post is turning into a Stephen King novel (because of the content, not the length!) So let's move on to Exaggeration briefly.

What's there to say about exaggeration that isn't already been said by every person that's ever written a single letter to their mom or dad, or lied to their spouse? Not much! But people still don't listen. I still read stories filled with pathetic attempts at exaggeration, lackluster details, and Nascar heroes. Ugh.

So, since even highly intelligent authors (and perhaps, mostly you guys) have trouble with this concept, let's spend a couple paragraphs to talk about it...

Exaggeration is taking what you mean to say, and making it more robust. It's very common with numbers - like, "I must have drank a million Tangs on my way to the moon!," Alice said. But it can also be used in different circumstances... You may describe a character as a caricature - "Bob had a huge forehead that would make a Neanderthal look like Sissy Spasek, and big wide eyes like some fish that's been extinct since the pre-cambian!"

The most important thing is to not underwhelm your attempts at exaggeration. Nothing says unfunny like "I've been writing this novel for a hundred hours!" ... So? That's not a big deal, most people who don't live in palatial mansions like mine work that many hours in a two week period. Go one way or another - "I've been working on this novel longer than the Colorado river's been working on the grand canyon!"

So - a good exercise for exaggeration is to come up with something you think is a good exaggeration, funny, blah blah blah... And then spend a little time trying to make it better. If you have friends, then it may be good to send them three different versions of the exaggeration and ask them which is funniest. If they write back "They're all funny!" Then you sent it to your mom, and - as a writer - you should NEVER trust your mother. If you have no friends, you can send them to me.

When I first started working on this project - the funny vs. unfunny theme for the week, that is, I had planned a whole list of items that will help aspiring writers add some humor to their stories. As I'm posting this exactly an hour before my time here ends (an exciting story I'll be sure to share with you at some point), I'll finish these articles up at my new blog - huntcole.blogspot.com.

Next time for the humor tricks:

• Self deprecation and extreme arrogance.
• Wit and Wry.
• Out of Place, Out of Character
• The Truly Offensive.

-Hunter

Greetings, citizens and dignitaries of Earth!  It's time, once again, for Hunter Week(tm) here at the RWU Community Blog.  No, no, please put away your fluegelhorns and soosaphones.  I don't need the royal fanfare for this post.

First of all, I may not be the proper person to write this article.  I'm a very serious person - almost professorly - and everything I've ever written is 100% fact.

But, maybe you're a genuinely funny person.   Maybe people crowd around you everywhere you go (you're probably hot or have money), maybe people laugh at everything you say (you're probably their boss or relative), and maybe people tell you you should be a comedian (just another way of saying "because whatever you're doing now isn't working").

If that's the case, then please click on this link because this post is not for you.

There's four kinds of funny people:

1. Those that think they're funny, and are.
2. Those that think they're funny, and aren't.
3. Those that don't think they're funny, but make a good audience.
4. Those that think they're ducks.

Notice how I employ rule #1 here - notice also how I haven't listed any rules? - I didn't use the obvious things that funny people will expect.   In this case that would have been listing pirates, robots, zombies, or midgets.   Yes, yes, those are all funny.   But if you want to be truly funny, you can't just be funny to people that fall into categories 2, 3, and possibly 4, above.

Anyone that is funny will automatically expect you to pull from your sleeve of "everyone knows this stuff is funny" and throw it out.   But then, it's only partially funny.  Not fully funny...  Okay, and I really need to break out the thesaurus because "funny" is starting to look like a word that makes no sense to me.

What I'm saying here, is that while good humorists know how to use the unexpected, there's certain things that become expectedly unexpected.  Like robots, and zombies.   And if you just throw in midgets anytime you want something to be funny, you're being short-sighted.  :)

The Most Dangerous Bunny In The Jungle

People that think they're funny, and aren't.

Even the best author out there - me - can't be funny all the time.  When writing for a broad audience, there's going to be certain humor elements you write that aren't going to appeal to everyone.  Some aren't going to appeal to anyone!

But if you find yourself constantly using the same techniques, re-using old jokes (and trying to change them around), putting huntcole@gmail.com on your mailing list for funny Internet pictures and chain mail, it's a sign that you may have unfunnyitis.

As for crit partners, it's a difficult road.  They generally won't tell you that you're about as funny as a half decayed bologna sandwich.  This could be because they know that humor is subjective, or it could be because they like you - and while it's easy to critique someone's grammar or continuity or fashion, it's not as easy to tell them that their hero having Tourette syndrome just doesn't work.

NOTE:  If I ever used my team of researchers to find examples for these posts, rather than just having them find out how many barrel 'o monkeys it would take to reach the moon, there'd be some brilliant materials for me to present here.  But due to budgetary constraints, we'll just hafta pretend there's good examples here.

Pretend examples or not, here's a few things to watch for in your writing to see if you have the classic signs that it may not be funny:

• Stilted Dialog:   If the great joke you've been trying to interject makes your character sound like they're a comedian or changes their voice, it may not be working.
• Use of Props:  If you find yourself placing objects in your story simply to setup a joke, it might be a good time to rethink it.
• Character choice:  If your hero or heroine is a professional comedian, stand-up comic, clown, or mime... uhh.  I don't know what to tell you here. I love mimes.  But they don't work as well for a novel.  The dialog runs a bit one sided.
• Ongoing Gags:  Sometimes, these can work.  But it depends what it is.  Be careful of using ongoing gags, because a joke is generally only funny the first time you use it.  If someone in your story slips on a banana peel, maybe it's funny.  If multiple people in your story slip on a banana peel, it likely isn't.   However, if everyone in your story, including the pope and grandma Jones slips on the banana peel - you might be onto something.
• Multi-Character Setup:  If you use dialog from more than one character to setup a punchline, it probably isn't working well.  There's a huge different between this and witty banter.  But if you have your characters engage in a scene of witty banter with each other - realize that you can't revert to being unwitty at all other times.  They have to genuinely be witty.
• Overused Elements: Irreverence is fun!  It's my middle name, in fact.  But while you need to be up on pop culture and what's trendy, having your characters refer to the Star Wars Kid in your novel all the time isn't funny.   Neither are dancing babies.  Don't be a slave to the trend!  If you are, you're just a follower.
• Stereotypes:  By far, the number one way to be sure that you're so unfunny that funny people reading your stuff will no longer be funny, is to use stereotypes.  Not only is this a number one rule on good writing, it's the one thing that can literally kill you.  Not just your career.  People will actually kill you.  Not because they're offended - offensive makes for great humor.  But because it sucks.  If you have the geeky teenager that's always fumbling with his pocket protector and pushing his glasses up and saying "Did I do that?" then I will send teams of assassins to your door.  They'll ring first, though - it's gotta be a fair fight.

Okay, long post - I know.  I just have so much knowledge and self-importance that I absolutely *must* push all of the other blog posts way down the page!

But all that said, here's the fun part:  You CAN be funny.  No matter who you are or what you do.  Not only that, but you can completely DISREGARD everything I said above - yes, even using stereotypes and clowns in your story!   If you employ some smart techniques that will set your story apart from all the unfunny ones.  I'll even show you how.

In my next few articles, I'll discuss the techniques and tricks you can use to write humorous characters (unless you're English - I'm not going to teach you how to write humourous characters.  Duh.)  With proper technique, you can make anything funny, become rich, and marry a super model.  Just not mine.

-Hunter