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Anything for a Laugh

by Frank Almond

This is really hard for me, because I’m one of those writers who hates analysing their stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading other people analysing their stuff, I just don’t think it should be compulsory. Well, anyway, here goes.

I’m just going to list all the types of humour I can think of and try to remember if I employed any of them in Tempus Fugit or Future Tense, or even Time Share- the one I'm currently struggling with.

Wordplay

Obviously, when you’re writing a comedy you have to mess around with the meanings and use of words. There’s the good old staple double entendre, which, of course, is when you say one thing but everybody, well, nearly everybody, knows you mean something else. I can’t think of one example of this in my work, but I expect there’re dozens. I also used a lot of the following: ambiguity, contradiction, irrelevant statements, irreverent statements, exaggeration, incorrect use of words, mispronunciation, twisting cliches, veiled insults, misspellings, foreign accents (see Travis De Quipp in Future Tense), lists with inappropriate items in, repartee…The idea when you’re writing comedy is to never miss an opportunity to play around. But don’t overdo it. The reader will get annoyed if you don’t get the balance right- you are supposed to be telling a story and creating lifelike characters.

Anarchy

Comedy has to be anarchic and it must subvert the norms of behaviour. This means there should be a lot of indecency and flouting of authority going on. In Tempus Fugit, the Duck is constantly being undermined by Sloane and both characters are up against the authority of Corrective Measures. Comedy deflates pomposity and ridicules authority. Characters will not always conform or make the usual responses in a given situation.

Here, then, is my laundry list of devices you could use when you’re writing comedy:

Inappropriateness- when characters deliver inappropriate lines or perform inappropriate actions.

Deviance- characters step over the line of common decency time and again in my books, especially Duckworth. Sloane has some decency, but is not adverse to a little bad behaviour to get what he wants.

Irony- I read somewhere that someone said irony is dead. What a brilliant mind he/she must have. When the last light on the last inhabited planet in the universe goes out, even that will be ironic.

Misinformation- this ties in with the lashings of dishonesty your characters need to have to muddle through their adventure and come out the other end insane.

Ambiguity- deliberate, of course.

Rule of Three- every comic knows that when you repeat something three times and have the punchline on the end of the third one, you get a laugh. Works every time. Well, most times. But not this time, because there has to be a gag.

Misinterpretation- again, this is always deliberate. Only idiots misinterpret things. My characters are supposed to be smart. I usually only like smart comedy characters, like Woody Allen or the Marx Brothers, but I did enjoy Dumb and Dumber.

Double Entendre- already dealt with.

Pathos- if it was good enough for Chaplin...these are those tear-jerking moments in the comic narrative, which serve as dramatic contrast to the humour and, of course, build up sympathy for your characters. Not to be confused with bathos, which is dealt with below, or Athos, who was a musketeer.

Bathos- saying something sublime quickly followed by something ridiculous, to deflate the former.

Self-contradiction- I love this one. I think it’s so postmodern. I think of the gobbledegook of spin doctors and official government sources, which, of course, are masterpieces of comedy.

Illogical reasoning- Sloane indulges in a fair bit of this when he’s trying to work out what the hell’s going on.

Truth twisting- all part of the necessary subversion of accepted norms. Phrases like, Ministry of Truth, the first casualty of war and everything is true spring to my mind. Is there a definitive truth? I don't know and neither does anyone else.

Exaggeration- see in my short story, Princess in a Coma, where Milkwort is explaining to Groundsel how dead serious he is.

Understatement- this is when you’re frightened and you find a statement and hide under it.

Irrelevance- "What is the capital of Hungary?" "No, don't tell me, I know this!" said Sloane. Er, only relevant if you've read Future Tense.

Cliches- you should really twist them round a bit. Like: up the creek without a leg to stand on. Or, she was the apple of my eye, or was it that her eyes reminded me of two pips?

Misspellings- I do this sometimes, but, of course, you have to have a funny reason or people think you can’t spell.

Mispronunciations- a character would only be doing this for a laugh.

Foreign Dialects- as mentioned in the introduction, I used this with my De Quipp character for two good reasons- the first was essential to the plot and the second was to exploit the comic possibilities. I would not have used it merely to make jokes. I had to have a better reason than that. This informs all my writing: I try to only include what is essential to the plot and then I exploit the material I find myself working with. It's never the other way round. This is important- to me anyway- otherwise your narrative becomes joke driven.

Repartee- your characters build this up over the book(s). Clearly, you need to maintain some sort of conflict between them, upon which the witty exchanges can feed.

Veiled Insults- I seem to remember I did this a lot in the bedroom scene in chapter two of Future Tense.

Bizarre descriptions- this is difficult and should be worked on. It’s all too easy to think comedy is just about dialogue, but good descriptive passages are absolutely essential. Mind you, don’t get carried away with overlong descriptions of characters. You know what I mean: stop the story, I’m going to do a description. I hate these artless diversions. But some folk might like ‘em.

Dangerous situations- danger is always funny in comedy, because it gives a great opportunity to show up the more extreme behaviour of your main characters, not to mention how they wriggle out of it.

Trifles magnified- hmm, comedy characters make small things gigantic and big things puny, as a rough rule.

Catastrophes understated- as above.

Pretentiousness- this is an amusing trait and so is easily sent up or bestowed upon one of your heroes. The Duck is very pretentious, with delusions of grandeur thrown in!

Dishonesty- Duckworth!

Cowardliness- Duckworth!

Miserliness- Duckworth!

Self-Mocking and Mocking Others- this ties in with the deflating of pomposity mentioned above. But the self-mocking is, I think, an endearing trait of comedy characters. More people in this world should self-mock- heaven knows, most have little to feel so smug about.

Mimicry- self-explanatory, this is all part of the sending up of others.

Pulling Faces- in a book, this is useful to describe because it can explain so much about the situation you are trying to set up with your characters.

Stupid responses- Sloane makes quite a few of these, but he has to, because so much of what the Duck says is so outrageous and unreasonable.

Incompetence- not always though- sometimes it can be funny if a character is brilliant at something, especially unexpectedly and inappropriately.

Ignoring Orders or Guidance- how else would our comedy heroes get themselves into so much trouble?

Destruction of Property- never underestimate the humorous possibilities of a bit of healthy, mindless vandalism.

Fooling an Authority Figure- the Marx Brothers were the greatest exponents of this, of course.

Ridiculing an Authority Figure- the handmaiden of the one above- can’t do enough of this- and they deserve it!

Playing Practical Jokes- well, yes, of course.

Threatening violence but doing no harm- I don’t like violence, so I try to avoid killing people, but this is just a personal preference. Fictional killing is very easy, otherwise those lovely people out in Hollywood wouldn’t be so good at it, but I prefer my writing to be a little more elavating than dreaming up new ways to kill people. Mind you, I'd do it if they paid me.

Seeing Villains Suffer- this is an obvious one. We all want to see the bad guy pay up, but sometimes it’s refreshing to play around with this one.

Lack of Decency- I’ve already mentioned this one. I'm tempted to say, at least one of your main characters should have a streak of decency, but then I think of the Marx Brothers. I try to keep Sloane fairly decent, but even he has his moments.

Disgusting Behaviour- taking the above a stage farther, taking everything a stage farther is the essence of comedy- going too far. I just draw the line at killing people all over the place. But I’m up for just about everything else!!

Cluelessness- your characters should be this at times and then your reader won’t know what’s going on either. I can’t think of anything worse than reading a comedy story and knowing what’s going to happen next. That, for me, would not be a story at all- and a million miles away from being a comedy!! Comedy relies on the unexpected. I know there's such a thing as an anticipatory joke, when you know a character so well that you know how that character's going to react in a given situation, I'm just saying we shouldn't always be able to see the situation coming, or the joke. Every New Year's Eve, for the past forty years, the Germans have been showing an old English comedy sketch called Dinner for One on their televisions. Apparently, all Germans love it and never tire of it. Classic comedy like this is exempt, but most comedy palls if we read, hear or see it too often.

I hope you’re not clueless after reading this. Comedy is tricky but it’s fun to write. And even if no one else thinks what you’ve written is funny, well, at least you’ve had a good laugh writing it. So, go on, give it a whirl!

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