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”All you can eat tuna bar, here we come!”
Give Me Funny
For me, laughter eases pain, builds bridges, and softens hurt feelings. When given the choice between blood and gore of horror/scary, the death and pain of tragedy, or the giggle and grins of comedy, I choose funny.
Adding comedy to your writing repertoire takes practice. One good way is through personification. Giving human characteristics to animals, ideas, objects or conditions can generate a huge palette for humor. Here’s part of a blog I wrote when the calendar said Spring, but the outdoors said Winter and I wondered where Spring was.
*flower* *flower* *flower*
What happened? She [Spring] only works twelve measly little weeks out of the entire year. She's barely shown her face since her shift began. I'm lodging a complaint. After all, I've been robbed. Seven days of seventy-five degrees or so. Instead, I've gotten cold winds, low temps, cloudy skies. But then again, maybe she's sick. With the bird flu.
I can see it now. Calling into work...knowing you only have to perform 84 out of 365 days a year- yet you can't even make it in the first week. What's the boss gonna say? Spring reaches over, gropes for her cell phone on the bedside table.
"Um, yeah, Mom? ..." she's stammering. Nobody likes ticking Mother Nature off. "So...yeah, um, here's the thing," she says in the sickest sounding voice possible. "I can't come into work today."
Long dramatic pause.
"My joints ache, my head hurts. I have a fever of 102," she pauses, coughing. "Plus, I barely got any sleep last night." She mumbles a few incoherent symptoms - for good measure.
The wrath of Mother Nature immediately melts. With images of her first born lying in bed, sick, and helpless, how can she express her usual crankiness?
"Can Summer cover for me?" Spring asks, her voice weak and hollow.
"No," Mother Nature says, "She's AWOL. Some concert in Japan or something. Don't worry. You just take care of yourself sweetie. I'll take care of things around here."
"Autumn?"
"She's busy. Off with her boyfriend."
With Spring down, Summer missing, and Autumn out of pocket, that only leaves Winter.
Sheesh! I'm going back to bed.
*flower* *flower* *flower*
The next time you’re looking for a different approach to add humor into your short story, essay, poem, or novel, why not try comedy through personification. Giving animals, ideas, concepts, inanimate objects the power to speak, become ill, attend a concert, can put a smile on the face of your reader.
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Comedy: August 06, 2008 Issue [#2539]
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