Time to Write

The secret of writing humor

I'm sure not everyone will agree, but I think the secret of writing humor is:

Don't try to be funny.

The best humor comes from observing people who don't think they're being funny. The classic sitcom, Fawlty Towers, is a great example. Basil doesn't see himself as a clown or a fool. In his mind Fawlty Towers is a wonderful establishment and he is a masterful hotelier. It's the rest of the world that laughs at him.

When you are writing about a character and putting yourself into his or her shoes, that's when not to try to be funny. If you have given the character a strong attitude, usually one at odds with the rest of the world in one way or another, the funny will come out. Then the dialogue isn't jokes, it's words that are funny only when they come out of the mouth of that character.

In my early sitcom days it was a gift to write for shows like "Benson" and "Family Ties," in which the characters were so strongly defined.

I was interested to read in an interview with Quentin Blake in the Sunday Financial Times that he has a similar attitude toward his drawings: 

“The humour is a by-product [of the story]. You draw the scene, what people are doing, their reaction to it, and if it’s funny, it comes out. There are certain books where you play it for laughs but it’s always more interesting in a dramatic situation.”

I saw this in action years ago in a black comedy play I wrote that was produced in Los Angeles. The first week the actors played their roles straight and got lots of laughs. Then they began to anticipate the laughs and ham it up a bit. The director was new and unassertive and let it go. The reviews perfectly reflected this development: the ones from opening night were positive, the ones that were written later less so.

(For friendly guidance for your writing, get a copy of Your Writing Coach, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller. Consider ordering it from your local bookseller--we need to keep them in business!)

Your Genes May Help Make You A Good Writer

A new study shows that about 20% of the population is genetically pre-disposed to empathy.

The signs: crying easily at movies, often being the first to offer help, getting excited easily by new experiences.

The study, conducted at Stony Brook University, used fMRI scans to observe brain activity when subjects were shown various pictures. 

Dr. Arthur Aron, a Research Professor in Psychology, said, "We found that areas of the brain involved with awareness and emotion, particularly those areas connected with empathetic feelings, in the highly sensitive people showed substantially greater blood flow to relevant brain areas than was seen in individuals with low sensitivity during the twelve second period when they viewed the photos. This is physical evidence within the brain that highly sensitive individuals respond especially strongly to social situations that trigger emotions, in this case of faces being happy or sad."

It would be interesting to find out whether writers tend to come from this 20% of the population. It seems logical that you need to be empathetic in order to portray a variety of emotions; on the other hand, the biographies of famous writers suggests that quite a few of them treated their spouses and others rather shabbily...maybe they used up all their empathy on their characters.I hope I'm not one of those but that guy sitting behind you in the cinema, sobbing? Yep, that's me. 

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A great source of story ideas is hiding in your emails

Did you know that a third of Americans have been implanted with RFID chips during dental treatment and most are not aware of it? 

Did you know that Facebook has a new feature on its smartphone app that will allow them to record all your conversations?

No? That's because these stories are bogus. However, they are making the rounds of the internet, two of many hoaxes, scams, and myths that a lot of people pass along to everybody on their email list, believing them to be true.

I used to consider these kinds of stories junk littering the internet but they could have another use: as the basis of a novel or screenplay.

The notion that people are unwittingly getting RFID implants during dental work at clinics set up for welfare recipients, or at a high-end clinic used by members of Congress or Parliament, for instance, could be the basis of a good conspiracy thriller. So could the idea of a social site recording all the conversations of government decision-makers (or the daughters of the President, perhaps?) in order to blackmail politicians into supporting legislation that gives the company a monopoly.

The fact that these stories have already gained an audience, albeit among people who think they are non-fiction, suggests that they might work well as fiction as well.

PS: A good source of such stories is the Hoax-Slayer newsletter, from which I took the two examples above. The site is http://www.hoax-slayer.com.

(Once you have a good idea you need to translate it into a good book. That's where Your Writing Coach comes in. It's published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing and available from your favorite bookseller.)

 

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Do you remember browsing? (Newsstands are dying)

I'm not sure how old you have to be to remember fondly the habit of visiting a newsstand and leafing through the magazines under the gaze of the cranky owner until he reminded you, "This is not a library!" I used to read as many comic books as possible before I felt his hot breath on my neck.

Later I'd enjoy looking art magazines too expensive to buy. They were printed on thick shiny paper that felt like silk and smelled of fresh ink. 

Now I do most of my browsing online and have switched to digital subscriptions for all but a handful of magazines--i still love looking at Creative Review, Print, and a couple of others in their (expensive) physical form.

The news that prompted these thoughts: Source Interlink, a magazine distribution company, has ceased operation, with a loss of 6000 jobs. There are two other major players left, but the demise of Source Interlnk is expected to disrupt deliveries to newsstands for three months--during which time even more people may turn to digital. 

Maybe somebody will come up with an app that notices when you browse digital magazines for too long and remind you "This isn't a library!" Of course that assumes by then anybody will remember what libraries were.

Can you tell satire from reality? Take this little test.

The newest site from satirists at The Onion is Clickhole.com. It sets out to make fun of the kind of click-bait featured on Huffington Post and many other sites. The problem is that it's hard to come up with any headlines that are implausible enough.

Here's a little test. Half of the headlines below are from Clickhole, half from a genuine sites (I use the word "genuine" loosely). Guess which are real. The answers are at the bottom of the post.

1. The Top 12 "Game of Thrones"-inspired Baby Names

2. Just a Photo of Kanye West Sleeping

3. Islamist Fighters in Iraq and Syria Keep Tweeting Pictures of Cats With Guns

4. 10 Kicks You Should Know About Before You Watch the Wold Cup

5. 50 of the Most Important Dog GIFs of All Time

6. 70 Years Later, We Still May Never Know What D-Day Was

7. You Guys, Ryan Gosling Did Not Adopt A Baby

8. This 43-Year-Old Man Won't Let Himself Be Defined By Barbie's Beauty Standards

9. As If Belonging to MENSA Wasn't Enough, This Student Had A Nose Job To Improve HIs Job Chances

10. LeBron James Should Not Have to Go To Jail For Losing the NBA Finals

_________________________________________________________________________________

Ready?

The Answers:

1. Clickhole

2. BuzzFeed

3. BuzzFeed

4. Clickhole

5. BuzzFeed

6. Clickhole

7. Huffington Post

8. Clickhole

9. Huffington Post

10. Clickhole

See what I mean?

Rejection: If Melville had taken this publisher's advice...

Previously I've run across the rejection letter for The Diary of Anne Frank that said, "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling that would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level" and the one that said John Le Carre had no future, but this one was new to me (courtesy of The Daily Telegraph website):

"First, we must ask, does it have to be a whale?

"While this is a rather delightful, if somewhat esoteric, plot device, we recommend an antagonist with a more popular visage among the younger readers. For instance, could not the Captain be struggling with a depravity towards young, perhaps voluptuous, maidens?"

--Publisher Peter J Bentley, rejecting Moby Dick.

Anybody who has had dealings with Hollywood producers will find these comments have a familiar ring.

Hmm, how might it have ended up if Melville had taken Bentley's advice...

MOBY-DORIS; or, The Voluptuous Maiden

"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering voluptuous maiden; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.” "

I guess some of it could stay the same: "“Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me..."

No, just as well he didn't listen.

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Do you know the difference: awhile vs. a while (vs. protracted)

A month ago I wrote about a USA Today article that incorrectly used "awhile" in place of "a while" (link in related posts below). Just to review, Oxford dictionaries.com says: 

The single word awhile is an adverb meaning ‘for a short time’, and should not be confused with the noun use of a while, ‘a period of time’: stand here awhile, but we stood there for a while.

Today USA Today had a headline that read, "Amazon-Hachette dispute may last awhile."

"Awhile" is the right choice because it modifies the verb "last."

However, a different word entirely would have been better. The first paragraph of the story reads:

"...Amazon has launched a defense against a rising chorus of criticism about its decision to limit the supply of books from publisher Hachette Book Group and warned that the tussle could be protracted."

Protracted is the opposite of for a short time. 

Proofreaders and copy editors, send your resumes to USA Today.

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite in-print bloopers

Here are a few of my favorite bloopers from various things I've read lately.

“The lesson here is that there is not necessarily some magic bullet that is going to stop these mass shootings, though I wish there were,” Mr. Winkler said.

How about blanks?

The dead on outstanding Mountain views will leave you breathless.

Maybe you should bury them before the Open House.

There's room for you to add your own personal flare to the decor.

I'll have to bring matches.

Publisher “Five Simple Steps” seized to exist. 

Sounds like it was sudden.