MONDAY MUSINGS—LAUGHTER AND HARD TIMES

Laughter isn't just the best medicine -- it's life's saving grace.

I Am Not A Natural Writer

It is my pleasure to introduce to you, award winning humorist, John Philipp. John writes for several California newspapers and aside from those columns, he also has a thought provoking series called Thought~Bytes.

I asked him if he’d be willing to share some humor writing tips with us Over Coffee. Humor is something used in many genres and takes quite a bit of skill to pull off effectively.

John has graciously agreed to share a series of articles on writing humor. So for the next month, starting Friday, June 19th I will be featuring his articles here on Over Coffee.

John shares some thoughts on writing humor:

I am not a natural writer. I am a natural talker or so I thought until I transcribed a conversation I'd had with someone.

OK, I'm not a natural talker or a natural writer. (I am a natural eater and, while important to waist management, which has little relevance here.) I do consider myself a natural humorist. Taking that as strength, my choices were: do standup or write a humor column. I chose to learn how to write.

I wrote a few columns on topics I thought were funny and discovered I had some faults and was missing some skills. For example, I was not grounded in grammar. I felt one should write a sentence the way it sounds best. Turns out this is not true for a large percentage of readers, especially those in the newspaper business. If I wanted to write my own way I should have opted to do standup, but then there's the queasy stomach thing.

There are two relatively easy fixes to poor grammar — and neither of them is to study a grammar book. Sitting down, reading, and practicing the proper timing and placement of commas in sentences is, I am convinced, one of the top ten punishments in the Lower Kingdom.

I got better at grammar by lurking and reading writing critique websites where people edit and correct each other's writing. That experience also made me a more observant reader, grammarwise.

The second solution to better grammar is a semi-magical person called a copywriter. It is their job to correct your grammar, double check facts, correct proper name spelling and steward the use of capitals. Everything published needs a copy editor, if only because every publisher has a set of standards they follow (such as the AP Stylebook) and I guarantee you that you could spend your whole life studying and still never know when you should use a numeric character versus write out the word.

Spelling was another fault, one that surprised me. Either I've been leading a myopic life or spelling of some common words has changed since I was in grammar school (irony noted). Perhaps changing the spelling of words occurs at the same time when the government takes or gives us hours on the clock. Fortunately, there's an easy, electronic fix for bad spelling.

I found plenty of other faults that with practice and a damn good checklist I have pruned down to an acceptable level of occurrence.

The topic of missing skills was harder to overcome...

June 19th: How to Write a Humor Column.
June 26th: Writing Humor—Random Association Part I
July 3rd: Writing Humor—The Art of Exaggeration Part II
July 10th: Writing Humor—Part III

July 17th: How To sprinkle Your Articles (Writing) With Humor

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John Philipp is a weekly humor columnist for four Marin County, California newspapers and has won numerous humor and memoir writing awards. His humor columns are posted at http://johnphilipphumor.gather.com/.
His wisdom (with Phil Frank's cartoons) is posted at Thought~Bytes http://thoughtbytes.gather.com/

Writing Laughter for Hard Times

Laughter isn't just the best medicine -- it's life's saving grace.

Laughter is the ultimate stress buster during hard times. When times are rough, people need something to de-stress their life and lighten the load—even if it’s only for a short time. I think this is why during the 1930’s, during the Great Depression and as Europe was gearing up for WWII, some of the greatest comedy teams were born: Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, and Laurel and Hardy. Abbot and Costello were popular on radio. Remember, during this time period, radio shows were the main form of entertainment. The movies of the time featured a variety of comedies, from silly slapstick to romantic comedies.

The styles were different but they achieved their purpose. Making people laugh and forget for a time their troubles. The subject/premise of comedies were either light and fluffy or dealt with darker issues with an overlay of comedy. Parroting life, you could say. What made them work? A reasonable, though many times an improbable, premise. Good dialog, fast paced, proper build up of tension, and comedic timing.

For example, Laurel and Hardy’s Sons of the Desert (actually most of their movies) was a balance of laugh-out-loud dialogue, plus fast-paced slapstick. Every frame of the script and dialog built up to and led into the next, and comedic timing. This was the pattern taken up by Jackie Gleason and Art Carney and later Sienfeld used the same sort of humor. Monk and Psych, seen on TV today, borrow from this general style. It works.

Romantic comedies like Bringing up Baby, with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn were popular. The premise was improbable but it worked. Main characters were well drawn, a straight-laced paleontologist trying to raise money for a museum and an impulsive and beautiful heiress, and their adventures. This was pure madcap comedy. I think an improbable premise works well for comedy. What made the comedy work are good dialog, fast pacing, and impeccable comedic timing.

The Thin Man is a classic and based on a novel by Dashiell Hammet. This was really a dark tale of solving multiple murders. Yet the movie makes you laugh. The dialog is sharp and clever, a combination of dry wit and unexpected silliness. It’s fast paced and never allows your attention to wander. The main characters are well developed; glamorous, stylish, intelligent, and they have tremendous fun as they work together to tracked down the murderer. From this style of light and dark, humor and danger, sprang many movies, TV shows, and books…Magnum, P.I., Remington Steel, and Burn Notice. Even Robert B Parker’s Spencer books are a blue-collar take on the Thin Man.

In the past eight years we’ve seen a lot of tragedy and hard times and they haven’t ended. Like in the 1930’s and 1940’s, people are facing attacks on the American people, subsequent wars, and economic hard times. People are looking for laughter and diversion. For example, just recently, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, starring Kevin James was #1 at the box office. So, its no surprise that updated versions of old styled comedies are again popular. Movies like The Mummy trilogy and the Rush Hour trilogy also balance fast paced dialog, laugh out loud humor, and the physical fight scenes—today’s form of slapstick. The Meet the Parents movie has well placed comic moments, but within the gags and the shock humor is a nice little romance story.

Romantic comedies like What Women Want and Two Weeks Notice are throwbacks to the screwball comedies of the 1930's and 1940's with witty repartee between characters, a rather improbable premise, well-paced comedic timing, and some gags/physical humor.

Many of these comedies were scripts; a few were based on novels. Setting up a premise, crafting your scenes, and writing dialog for a thriller or suspense are different than writing dialog for comedy. The same holds true if you write Romance—romantic suspense as opposed to romantic comedy. A different mind-set is required.

There is a market for laughter and well-developed comedy in today's hard times. Romantic comedies are popular and authors like Janet Evanovich and Toni Blake have successfully filled that need.

To be successful in writing comedy one must first have a solid premise. As we've seen, it doesn't have to be particularly realistic, in fact being slightly improbable works well. Well developed characters and from the examples we've looked at here, having a straight man and the comic, are necessary elements in writing a good comedy. Tightly written scenes that build one on the other pull your reader forward. Sharp, fast paced dialog. Use of gags or physical slapstick and this can be fight scenes or situations. One of the most important aspects of writing good comedy is having impeccable comedic timing.

What do you think is the secret to writing comedy? How do you set up your scenes? Do you feel a story can have a blend of both serious aspects and comedy, and be successful? What authors have you read that seem to do comedy well? And why?