Humor+-+Uses,+Techniques

=**Humor - Uses, Techniques**= =** (These are the notes I use for my talks on humor in writing) **=

**About Humor: **
====**The Laughter of Angels and Devils (Kundera) __The book of Laughter and Forgetting__ **==== The laughter of solidarity (authentic or faux) vs the laughter of chaos and shattered expectations.
 * ====**These are the sorts of things people find funny: ** Death, injury and mutilation, injustice, pain, stupidity, despair, racism, sexism, ethic chauvinism, hate, arrogance,human folly (especially religion, medicine and politics). Belly laugh: savage release of almost unbearable tension. ====
 * ====**Humor is by nature discontinuous** - a long work of humor is a series of funny stories, vignettes and scenes knitted together with a unified plot and a consistent, often contrived, literary style. ====

**Trajectorys of Humor **

 * Classic Comedy and literary/genre romance (the touching and idiotic. Struggles of people who love or will love one another).
 * Education (dumb person learns)
 * ====Picaresque quest (dimwit or roque on a journey of self-discovery). ====
 * ====Formal satire (let’s make fun of opera, the romance novel, or art rock) ====

**Uses for humor in writing - **

 * ====building Characters (what do they do that is funny, what do they laugh at) ====
 * ====humanizing Heros/Villains ====
 * ====making the reader feel comfortable and safe ====
 * ====tension release ====

**Techniques for creating humo**r: (I use examples that occur to me at the time of the talk)

 * ====Create situations where characters are ignorant or mistaken about facts known to the reader. ====
 * ====Unexpected and inappropriate behavior (especially in the respected and authoritative, the august and important. ====
 * ====Purposeful misinterpretation (generally by over-literal interpretation) ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Earnest or technical description of base act. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Portraying a ludicrous situation as though it were evocative or poignant ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Purposeful distortion of a "sacred" myth, story or tradition -- often through being very literal. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Portrayal of foolishness that the foolish person does not recognize as foolish ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Exaggeration. ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Improper attribution of purpose - characterizing a random, accidental or unanticipated situation as intended, planned, or purposeful ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Irony, reversed meaning ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Understatement and/or stating the obvious (often as a revelation) ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Manipulation of dialects and colorful figures of speech ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Paradoxical effect: creating a situation in which a character reacts in exactly the opposite way that other characters and, perhaps the reader, expects. ====
 * ==== Predictable vignettes, moral tales, proverbs or cliches that charters interpret in unexpected ways ====


 * ====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">Celebration of character flaws ====
 * Note: In a longer work, the writer needs to be aware of the rhythm, the Overall roller coaster effect. The writer should build then release tension through humor in sequence with the laughs getting bigger


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF THE ABOVE LISTED "TECHNIQUES FOR CREATING HUMOR" I HAVE DRAWN THESE FROM MY NOVEL __OSTRICH__ **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">1. Situations in which characters are ignorant of or mistaken about facts known to the reader. example: The colonel as author of the infamous note. Rosa thinks that Ev, has written the note <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">pp. 165, 175. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">2. Unexpected and inappropriate behavior - especially in characters with positions of authority. example: The colonel’s demand for a gun pp.25-26 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">3. Purposeful misinterpertation by over literal interpertation, misplaced concreteness. example, Fanny reacting to the claim that a parrot’s jaw is strong enough to lift a Cadillac. p.252 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">4. Earnest description of base acts. example: The Samson the Ostrich moves his bowels, p. 113. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">5. Portraying a ludicrous situation as though it were poignant. example: p25 It is always annoying to have quiet times with injured pets interrupted by retired drunken Colonels demanding guns. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">6. Purposeful distortion of a myth, story, tradition or pop culture artifact. example, Magda’s song for Champy p.24. Downward sloping demand p 116 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">7. Portrayal of unrecognized foolishness. Example: The Colonel worrying over King Richard pp. 232-233 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">8. Exaggeration/overstatement. example: The first sight of an ostrich p. 144, Rosa doing something in the kitchen that apparently involved a jackhammer and a set of cymbals <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">9. Improper attribution of purpose/intent. example Horses like to cover ground...etc:p229 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">10. Irony, reversed meanings. example: pp. 141-142. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">11. Understatement and/or stating the obvious. example: p. 204 “No one would ever characterize sheep as creative creatures.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">12. Manipulation of dialects, slang, and colorful figures of speech. example: Bert’s advise about Ev’s hurt feet. pp.119-120 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">13. Paradoxical effect. example: darting in front of Pink Cadillacs does work up an appetite <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;"> pp 204-205 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">14. Unexpected juxtapositions. example: Zebulon Pike, Pike’s Peak and the sight of the ostrich.p114.. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">15. Predictable vignettes that turn out to have an unexpected meaning. Fanny’s rap on parrots and fighting. pp. 146-147 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">16. Celebrations of character flaws, pettiness p. 236 Sabine enjoys watching disrespectful children sass their domineering mothers. Sabine is glad that Courtney gets her face rubbed in the dirt. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">17. Awkward situations - Ev and Rosa at breakfast. p219 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">18. Arguments Sabine and Rosa, Ev and VJp p40-42, 10-11, 48,49 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">19. People talking at cross purposes Fanny, Sabine, and VJ pp 146- 147 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">20. Conversations lacking listening - Sabine and the prison guard. pp44-47 <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">21. People attempting to manipulate one another or follow an agenda. Sabine and Rosa, then Celia, then Felice pp168 - 174

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 110%;">The Overall roller coaster effect build, release in sequence with the laughs getting bigger - Marijuana bonfire in CROSSWINDS, Sabine’s Party in OSTRICH.