This week: Humor or Wit Has Drama in It Edited by: Joy  
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Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about adding humor to an otherwise serious or tragic scene or story.
Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
Please, note that there are no rules in writing, but there are methods that work for most of us most of the time.
The ideas and suggestions in my articles and editorials have to do with those methods. You are always free to find your own way and alter the methods to your liking.
Note: In the editorial, I refer to the third person singular as he, to also mean the female gender, because I don't like to use they or he/she. |
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Aren’t our flaws, failings, and flailings dramatic? They are dramatic because, usually, we the people spend so much time and effort to hide or to explain them.
Still, there is sincerity in what is funny if we don’t hold back. This is true for real and fictional characters. They are usually very funny if they are not trying to be funny. In addition, humor is a powerful means of communication and builds an emotional connection with readers.
Granted, this was a very, very long time ago, I recall a writing exercise when I was in my earliest twenties. The teacher had us take a serious or tragic story or novel and rewrite it with wit and humor. Although at best, the results were mixed, it was good exercise. I suggest you try it, especially with your own sad stories that you might have written and cast aside.
Humor can be injected to some degree in every situation. There is humor in what the character tries to hold back, even more humor in it when he admits his shortcomings, and he is the funniest when he becomes his own best target.
Here are a few suggestions for taking a dramatic situation, like a serious surgical operation or losing one’s job and inserting humor in it.
 Don’t judge any situation or the character going through something awful but try to appreciate it if you can see a bit of humor in there somewhere.
The Element of Surprise: This works wonders, be it in turning points, conversations, or even in internal dialogue.
Constant observation is a must. Wherever you go, look around you and imagine how a simple situation can be made funny. For example, someone carrying a pizza box. What if he drops the pizza box on another person as he takes a tumble? What other kinds of circumstances can arise from this simple slapstick situation?
Your serious side may be stronger and you may be intensely touched by the situation or the character’s bad luck, but don’t let this get in the way. Just imagine yourself in that situation and try to be receptive to the spontaneity of the moment. A kidnapped victim may survive through her terrible ordeal by imagining her captor in compromising positions or as a wild animal, for example.
For a dramatic story with humor in it, create your characters with strongly opposite traits. After that, inside your mind, become the character who acts as quirky as possible. Do this with each character. Then, try writing the same scene from each character’s viewpoint and pick the one with the strongest voice to tell the story.
Put your characters in action and have them interact often by playing around with situations that intuitively, you find funny.
Just to insert a humorous anecdote into a scene or the plot, don’t weave away from the story arc. On the other hand, you can add in an unrelated incident that is humorous but may not change the course of the expected storyline. For example, someone--who knows his neighbors will be out of town and is planning to commit a crime in his house on a deserted street--may be annoyed or interrupted with a group of teens who are having a noisy party in the empty house next door.
Begin strong, possibly with an amusing-action sentence or paragraph that hooks the reader immediately. Find the humor as you go along in the story, and don’t reveal the ending too soon.
To wrap it up, in a dramatic yet humorous story, observation, originality, imagination, sensing what’s humorous and what’s not, knowledge of the story world and backstories, and energetic action are essential.
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This Issue's Tip: George Saunders says, "Take a human situation and make it come to a boil." I think he means to keep to the narrative logic and make the story as real as we can, then add humor into it.
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Feedback for "Turning out Compelling Plot Twists"
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Mastiff
That was an excellent article, and gave me quite a bit to think about next time I'm writing something (like today) that has a plot twist. I was going to say "good" plot twist, but someone else can judge that! Generally, mine happen in one of two ways. Either I have the idea fairly well thought out, so it's kind of an undercurrent that's there all the time, and can be felt here and again. Or, I'll be already well into a piece and it just hits! It's actually shocked me before. With your facts, I now have several new ways to try. That, I must say, is very useful. Thanks!
Mastiff
Thank you very much for your kind words, Mastiff.
I find that each story has its weird logic and I'm surprised by the twists and turns it takes, even when I am the one writing it. 
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Quick-Quill 
I love a plot twist. I love it when I can say "I didn't see that coming!" BUT it has to fit the story. I hate dream sequences. I didn't like life of pi I loved Twilight Zone One episode was good then the camera panned out and the whole thing happened inside a garbage can. Or another favorite, a family went to the "zoo" and the parents and kids were separated. The parents were led into a room to wait. Then the curtain was pulled and they were in a cage and their children were on the outside looking at them. Then taken away by aliens I think. Adding that surprise factor as long as it fits the scope of the story can be what makes or breaks a book.
Thanks for the input.
I had a bit of difficulty with Life of Pi myself, but I'll read it again much later and see if I can warm up to it, and I don't only mean the twist in it.
A surprise twist is always welcome, though.
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Drama: April 03, 2019 Issue [#9452]
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