 Drama: November 08, 2023 Issue [#12235] |
This week: Comedy in Drama Edited by: Joy  
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Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.
Will Rogers
I think 'Breaking Bad' is brilliant. Good drama in the U.S. is also so funny and blurs the line between light and dark.
Arthur Darvill
“When you see Charlie Chaplin, he stays funny.
He doesn't become drama, and so what really seems to endure is comedy.
Leslie Nielsen”
“The next thing I knew, I was falling. I dreamed I was being thrown into an open grave, but jerked awake and landed on a bed.”
Eric Jerome Dickey, Finding Gideon
“Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Jace shoot her a look of white rage - but when she glanced at him, he looked as he always did: easy, confident, slightly bored."
Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about finding the comical in a dramatic story.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
In my last NL, I addressed the use of poetry in drama. In this one, I want to take it a step further and talk about humor in dramatic writing. As Gaby  says in her newsletter "Horror/Scary Newsletter (September 20, 2023)" "Not everyone is capable of adding good comedy to a horror story."
This is also true of drama, and those who can do it properly, can even come up with what's called tragicomedy or dramedy. For this, we can use a few techniques to lighten up the heaviness or sadness in a dramatic, sad, or tragic story. These techniques are:
 Puns and Wordplay: You can add humor to any story by exploiting the multiple meanings in works or by creating a play on words, such as those used in jokes, one-liners, and funny dialogues. For example, a character may write to cancel a subscription as, "Please cancel my subscription to your issues."
Absurd humor: Your text would thrive on situations or events that defy logic or reason, and also, it would benefit from overstatement, hyperbole, and exaggeration. Absurd humor is a form of humor that revels in the nonsensical, creating laughter through sheer absurdity, such as Monty Python's sketches.
Satire: Satire is a technique that uses humor to criticize and mock people, institutions, or societal issues. Think of George Orwell's Animal Farm or Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
Irony: This can be the unexpected and the unrelated situations, scenes, and dialogue. When two seemingly unrelated ideas or elements are juxtaposed, it can create a humorous effect. Irony in itself can be situational, verbal, or dramatic.
Situational irony is when the opposite of what is expected to happen occurs. For example, a clumsy character trying to impress someone might accidentally perform a series of impressive stunts instead.
Verbal irony is when the character says the opposite of what he means. For example, a character caught in the rain or a storm might say, "Oh, wonderful weather we're having!"
Dramatic irony is when the audience or reader knows what is ironic in the situation but the character does not, such as when a victim innocently eats something that the reader knows is poisoned.
Good Timing: A well-timed punchline, pause, or reaction can make an otherwise mundane situation hilarious.
Character Oddities: Unique and quirky characters often contribute to the humor of a story. When characters have distinct personalities, flaws, or idiosyncrasies, their interactions can lead to funny situations.
Misdirection: Creating expectations and then subverting them is a classic comedic technique. That is, leading the audience to anticipate one outcome and then delivering something entirely different.
Clever Observations: Humor can also be found in clever insights and observations about everyday life or human behavior. Writers who keenly observe and comment on the idiosyncrasies of life can create humor that their readers will easily relate to.
Self-Deprecation: Characters who poke fun at themselves or their own flaws can be endearing and humorous. This is often used in stand-up comedy and personal stories.
Some of the ways to use these techniques are developing characters with a sense of humor and giving them witty dialogue, quirky habits, or a light-hearted perspective on life, and then using humor strategically at moments of high tension or drama; for example, a funny one-liner during a heated argument. You can also introduce secondary characters who exist only for comic relief. These characters can provide a humorous counterpoint to the main characters and their dramatic struggles.
In addition, you can create running gags or recurring humorous elements that weave through the story. Physical humor and slapstick can also be used, however sparingly, as these can break the tension in a dramatic scene quite well.
I can't close without mentioning the humor I find in some dramatic stories by famous authors. For that, I always go to Shakespeare and how he uses dark humor in the middle of a serious situation. For example when Hamlet comes across the gravedigger and asks him how long had he been digging graves, the gravedigger replies, "Cannot you tell that? every fool can tell that: it was the very day that young Hamlet was born; he that is mad, and sent into England." Do you see the verbal irony in the situation?
Then, in War and Peace, Tolstoy's Pierre's humorous attempts at finding meaning in life are juxtaposed with the seriousness of war and societal change. His philosophical musings and comical misadventures offer a light-hearted contrast to the novel's weightier themes.
Next, we have Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, which is known for its dark satirical humor, despite dealing with the horrors of war and the bombing of Dresden. In it, The phrase "So it goes" is repeated throughout the book, often after mentioning death, emphasizing the absurdity of life and mortality.
I should also mention, at least, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, George Orwell's 1984 and Joseph Heller's Catch-22 as good works of drama with humor deftly inserted into them.
To wrap it up, dramatic story should not only turn into a tear-jerker and a frightful tragedy, but it also should add depth to characters, provide social commentary, and make our fiction memorable.
Until next time! 
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| *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* This Issue's Tip: "Modern tragicomedy is sometimes used synonymously with Absurdist drama, which suggest that laughter is the only response left to man when he is faced with the tragic emptiness and meaninglessness of existence. Examples of this modern type of tragicomedy are Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (1958) and Harold Pinter’s The Dumb-Waiter (1960)."
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Feedback for "Poetry in Drama"
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Thank you very much for including my short story, Memory Calls, in your Editor's Picks section.
You're very welcome, and you wrote a good story.
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