![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Funny ha-ha, or funny peculiar?
Feb. 21st, 2016 01:04 pmI'm trying to write humour at the moment: finishing off a little 800 word story based on a mediocre pun, which I had lurking on my hard drive, because this year is the year of Finishing Things and Getting Them Out The Door. So far I'm well on track for my goal which was to finish and post something new every month. January's Glass Darkly ripped out hearts, February's Red Tulips melted them, and I'm quietly hoping that March's Conservation will be just as brilliant, but with a smile.
Finishing is the part I've always found hardest on stories - not so much editing, but filling in the last few gaps in the narrative, smoothing out the boring bits of how they get from one crucial scene to another and working through how to write scenes where the characters are uncooperative because they wouldn't quite do that. My writing is densely packed with meaning, I don't write filler. Transitions and lets-just-close-our-eyes-and-pretend-they'd-actualy-do-this bits are horrifyingly awful for me to write. But I noticed something about the way I write while I was working on Living Conditions, and the writing I've done this year has allowed me to grasp hold of it and understand something fundamental about my process, making it a lot easier.
So here's the thing: everything I write is crap, at first. And short. My technique is a bit similar to the Snowflake Method (only actually way different): the first words down on the page are a very rough sketch that is an intrinsically awful reflection of the concept I'm holding in my mind, and then I work and work and work on those words until they're filled out into something beautiful and meaningful. When I'm inspired and the words are flowing, this all happens so automatically I don't even notice how wrong those first words were. But when I'm not inspired by the transitions I need to make the rest of the story work, those first few sketchy lines are incredibly hard to draw because it feels abhorrent to put something so awful next to the jewels that make up the rest of the story. And I despair of ever being able to successfully polish it to match. I know what has to happen happen, I just don't know how to write it. But I don't need to know how to write it, because for me the how comes a long time after the writing itself. 'What' is enough for the sketching lines. 'How' does have its own difficulties, but will essentially look after itself.
Conservation has finally reached what I call the 'complete framework' stage--where it flips over from being agonising work sewing together scenes into being all there apart from my consuming obsession with fixing and elaborating the insufficiently awesome bits. And of course, it's grown from 800 to over 7000 words long, and is dipping dangerously close to angst in places. Because I am me. And I'm starting to feel like, no matter how different humour is to the things I usually write, I actually can do it.
And as far as polishing goes, humour is very different to anything I usually write.
In the end, to work, humour needs to look effortless, and I think I've been falling for the myth that it is. But in the end, it's like writing anything else: 2% inspiration, 98% hard work brainstorming and inspecting every phrase and every word with a magnifying glass to maximise the impact. No wonder I haven't written much humour before if I've been relying solely on inspiration. I've been finding Scott Adam's Humor Formula very helpful in working out what I can do to make something a little more giggle-worthy. Unfortunately by the time I get through that process with a joke, it's sometimes beginning to lose the shine so I lose confidence in it. Humour is so dependant on a freshness that isn't as necessary for other genres. It's hard to get that instinctive feeling that it has clicked into a place where it's just right, when actually to me the joke's not all that funny anymore.
I think it's clear that I'm not going to be the next Terry Pratchett. But I'll be me, and maybe the me I am will have another tool that I understand how to use for whatever it is that 'me' wants to write.
And I think I'm managing to balance it and pull it back from the brink of becoming too angsty or too farcical, weaving the threads of both together to make something that's even better. I hope. I've made a number of people laugh out loud by cherry-picking snippets for them, although one of those was reading aloud to Hubby so the inclusion of expression means it possibly doesn't count.
I think Conservation is working. It's certainly working well enough to get it out the door even if it's not perfect. Everything is learning, and if I don't try to write humour because it's frustrating to be so awkward at it, I'll never understand it and I'll never get close to the point where I can tickle a funny bone with the same sadistic glee that I can tug on a heartstring. And I'll never get to practice what I need to practice most of all: finishing the damn things, and letting them go. Because this story doesn't need to be perfect; there's always another story coming along, and that one will be better for my having the courage to face the imperfections, turn the handle, and get this one done.
Finishing is the part I've always found hardest on stories - not so much editing, but filling in the last few gaps in the narrative, smoothing out the boring bits of how they get from one crucial scene to another and working through how to write scenes where the characters are uncooperative because they wouldn't quite do that. My writing is densely packed with meaning, I don't write filler. Transitions and lets-just-close-our-eyes-and-pretend-they'd-actualy-do-this bits are horrifyingly awful for me to write. But I noticed something about the way I write while I was working on Living Conditions, and the writing I've done this year has allowed me to grasp hold of it and understand something fundamental about my process, making it a lot easier.
So here's the thing: everything I write is crap, at first. And short. My technique is a bit similar to the Snowflake Method (only actually way different): the first words down on the page are a very rough sketch that is an intrinsically awful reflection of the concept I'm holding in my mind, and then I work and work and work on those words until they're filled out into something beautiful and meaningful. When I'm inspired and the words are flowing, this all happens so automatically I don't even notice how wrong those first words were. But when I'm not inspired by the transitions I need to make the rest of the story work, those first few sketchy lines are incredibly hard to draw because it feels abhorrent to put something so awful next to the jewels that make up the rest of the story. And I despair of ever being able to successfully polish it to match. I know what has to happen happen, I just don't know how to write it. But I don't need to know how to write it, because for me the how comes a long time after the writing itself. 'What' is enough for the sketching lines. 'How' does have its own difficulties, but will essentially look after itself.
Conservation has finally reached what I call the 'complete framework' stage--where it flips over from being agonising work sewing together scenes into being all there apart from my consuming obsession with fixing and elaborating the insufficiently awesome bits. And of course, it's grown from 800 to over 7000 words long, and is dipping dangerously close to angst in places. Because I am me. And I'm starting to feel like, no matter how different humour is to the things I usually write, I actually can do it.
And as far as polishing goes, humour is very different to anything I usually write.
In the end, to work, humour needs to look effortless, and I think I've been falling for the myth that it is. But in the end, it's like writing anything else: 2% inspiration, 98% hard work brainstorming and inspecting every phrase and every word with a magnifying glass to maximise the impact. No wonder I haven't written much humour before if I've been relying solely on inspiration. I've been finding Scott Adam's Humor Formula very helpful in working out what I can do to make something a little more giggle-worthy. Unfortunately by the time I get through that process with a joke, it's sometimes beginning to lose the shine so I lose confidence in it. Humour is so dependant on a freshness that isn't as necessary for other genres. It's hard to get that instinctive feeling that it has clicked into a place where it's just right, when actually to me the joke's not all that funny anymore.
I think it's clear that I'm not going to be the next Terry Pratchett. But I'll be me, and maybe the me I am will have another tool that I understand how to use for whatever it is that 'me' wants to write.
And I think I'm managing to balance it and pull it back from the brink of becoming too angsty or too farcical, weaving the threads of both together to make something that's even better. I hope. I've made a number of people laugh out loud by cherry-picking snippets for them, although one of those was reading aloud to Hubby so the inclusion of expression means it possibly doesn't count.
I think Conservation is working. It's certainly working well enough to get it out the door even if it's not perfect. Everything is learning, and if I don't try to write humour because it's frustrating to be so awkward at it, I'll never understand it and I'll never get close to the point where I can tickle a funny bone with the same sadistic glee that I can tug on a heartstring. And I'll never get to practice what I need to practice most of all: finishing the damn things, and letting them go. Because this story doesn't need to be perfect; there's always another story coming along, and that one will be better for my having the courage to face the imperfections, turn the handle, and get this one done.
