Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--X is for eXtreme Writing (the ONLY way to write)

Improv says you have to “commit 100%.”

One of my rules of comedy is that you should, “take it as far as it will go. All the way up to the edge . . . and then push.”

And as I’ve told members of my critique group (please excuse the PG language), “Don’t do anything half-assed. It should be full-assed or nothing!”

I honestly mean that.  

What I’m talking about is extreme writing—and it’s the only way you should write.

I think if you look at any successful book, you’ll see the author didn’t hold back, didn’t do things by half. Whatever the author was doing, the author did it all the way. You might like it. You might hate it. But either way, you have to respect that whatever the writer’s vision was, that writer went for it.

Take Harry Potter as an example. That book isn’t just about a boy with magical powers who waves a wand and recites spells. There’s a whole magical world around him that’s rich with detail. Hogwarts has a history. Letters are delivered by owls. Food comes alive. Trees can attack you. Staircases move. Paintings talk. Ghosts roam the halls. J.K. Rowling didn’t do things by half. She took it all the way up to the edge and then pushed.

Or Gilbert Garfinkle from Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer,book one). I didn’t set out to write a series about just any geek; I set out to write a book the ultimate geek. Gilbert isn’t just a hacker; he’s the ultimate hacker. He’s not just a nerd fighter; he’s the ultimate nerd fighter. He’s not just a fan of Star Trek; he’s a fan of pretty much every form of geek or nerd culture. And I wasn’t going to give him a little problem. I gave him the ultimate teenage geek’s ultimate nightmare: getting stuck with a gorgeous vampire girl who wants to be his platonic BFF, literally forever!

Now that’s extreme writing.

You don’t have to write fantasy, science fiction or comedy for your writing to be extreme. You can commit 100% to writing a quiet book, too. Just don’t set out to make a quiet book with a few exciting scenes, or an exciting book with a few quiet scenes. Whatever choice you make, stick with it! Commit to it! Don’t waffle. Unless, of course, you’re all about waffling, in which case, I want to see you waffle like an IHOP! I want to see you waffle like no one has ever waffled before! I want you to be the King or Queen of Waffles!

Like many people, The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies. I love it because the hero, Andy Dufresne, isn’t just ordinary—he is extremely ordinary. He isn’t just boring—he is extremely boring. He’s an accountant, for goodness sakes! His hobbies include playing chess and reading. How boring (in the eyes of most people, not a book addict like me) can you get? His favorite music is opera. Opera! Andy is as ordinary as a piece of coal, but here’s the thing about coal: under a great deal of pressure, a piece of coal can turn into a diamond. And that for me is the beauty of this movie. Andy Dufresne succeeds—not despite being extremely ordinary and boring—but because of it.  

And that, I think, is a metaphor for extreme writing. Take something that could be boring and ordinary, put it under the pressure of making it extreme, and watch it shine. 

It honestly doesn’t matter what you’re writing about. As long as you make it extreme, your story will be more compelling for it. 

Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge--H is for Humor (and how to create it)

If you want to write or create anything funny, this just might be the most important blog post you’ll read this year.

I have a universal formula for creating humor, and I’m going to try to relate it to you in a single post that you should be able to read in under five minutes, ten if you're a slow reader.

So pay attention, and take notes if you have to. There WILL be a test, and I’m not the one who will be grading it. That privilege belongs to your audience.  You will either pass or fail. As Yoda says, “Do, or do not. There is no try.” You’re going to want a laugh, or, at the very least, a smile or a smirk.

Are you ready? Here it is.

The Quest

When I was a teenager, I used to sit with a spiral notebook and a pen in front of the TV while I watched shows like Soap and Taxi. (Yes, I am that old. Shut up.) I took apart and analyzed these shows, trying to figure out their formula. Why were they funny? I had to know.

In college, I studied English Literature and Theater. One of my Theater professors taught a class on Comedy, while another taught a class on clowning. Both turned out to be cases of “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” The Comedy class taught the classic formula, which is pain+distance=comedy.

Now give that a little bit of thought. First take something painful and add distance to it to see if that makes it funny. Then take everything you know that’s funny and see if you can find the pain and the distance in it. You’ll discover, as I did, that this formula DOESN’T WORK.  It only explains SOME comedy, but not all comedy. You can’t take something painful, add some distance to it, and then expect it to be funny. Is the Lincoln assassination funny just because it happened about 150 years ago? No. And what about the other way around? Is there any pain and distance in “Why did the chicken cross the road?” No.

So I knew I had to keep looking.

The Discovery

About a year and a half after I graduated from college and earned a teacher’s certificate, I started to work as an editorial cartoonist, a job I held for seven years. During that time, I came up with about a thousand cartoons. That’s when I discovered my universal humor formula. I reduced it to just three S-words, and for reasons that will soon be apparent, I called it the House of Funny formula.

Here it is, everything you need to know about creating any kind of comedy:

Setup+Surprise+Sense=Laughter!

This formula works for all kinds of comedy and humor. All kinds. I have yet to find any joke or comedy or funny cartoon or comic strip that didn’t utilize this formula. A humorist, cartoonist, comedian, or comedy writer might say, “Well, I don’t,” but when pressed, he probably wouldn’t be able to tell you how he comes up with funny stuff. Most funny people use it‑‑they just aren’t aware that they do.

So how does this formula break down?

Setup

The Setup part is easy. That’s whatever your funny thing is about. If you’re a comedian, your setup is probably either your life or a character or characters you’ve created. Then again, maybe your comedy is more like an editorial cartoonist, and your setup is the news. If you’re writing a comedy or humorous fiction, your setup is the plot and your characters. Your setup can be anything, really. That’s one of the beautiful things about humor. It can be about anything.

Surprise!

Surprise, and in a way Sense, are the parts that make this the House of Funny formula.

Like a House of Fun, the House of Funny is made up of mirrors and lenses that show you something in surprising ways.

To turn your setup into something funny, just look at it through a House of Funny mirror or lens.

In a House of Fun, there’s a wavy mirror that makes you look like something you’re not. It can stretch your neck to make you look like a giraffe, or it can shorten your neck and legs to make you look like a penguin. In the House of Funny, there are also microscope lenses that take something small and make it big, and there are lenses that take something big and make it small. There’s a rosy lens that makes things that shouldn’t be happy happy, and a blue lens that makes things that shouldn’t be sad sad. There are all kinds of character lenses that simply take things and show them to the audience through the filter that is the character. There are regular mirrors that flip things from left to right and concave mirrors that turn things on their head. There’s that strange mirror that puts something in a surprising place or puts together two things that don’t go together, like that mirror in Disney’s Haunted House that puts a ghost in the seat next to you. And finally, there are those cool mirrors that show you things exactly as they are, which is surprising since standard mirrors always flip things from left to right. In some ways, this is the ultimate House of Funny mirror. There’s nothing more impressive that showing people a truth that’s always been there but that they’ve never really seen. This is the mirror of wit.

Sense

Many of these mirrors come with their own sense. For example, if I take something and exaggerate it, it’s still the thing, so it makes sense. Or if I take something and show it through a character lens, both the character and the thing are still the same, so they make sense. Or if I’m showing you a similarity between disparate things, like how you look in a House of Fun wavy mirror and a giraffe or a penguin, you can see that makes sense with your own eyes. It’s mostly when you use the mirror that puts together two things that don’t belong together or something in a surprising place that sense is something you need to create. It doesn’t have to be something that makes sense in the real world. It can, but it doesn’t have to. It just has to make sense in some kind of context. For example, the sense of a pun is a linguistic one. Puns make sense because this word or these words are like that word or those words that make sense in another context. For example, “Why do cows wear bells? Because their horns don’t work!” Cows have bells and horns, and so do bicycles. By taking something that make sense in the context of bicycle bells and horns and applying them to cowbells and cow horns, you have a pun. Pain, however, generally doesn’t make sense to the person feeling the pain, no matter the distance. Causing your audience pain is something you want to avoid if you want your joke to make sense.

It’s all about the Audience

Each part of the House of Funny formula only works if it applies to the Audience.

The Setup has to be known to the audience. Sometimes you need to explain it in advance, and sometimes you don’t. For example, if I did a joke today in America about Donald Trump, I can assume the audience already knows the setup: that Donald Trump was on a show called The Apprentice, that he likes to put his name on buildings and water and pretty much anything else, and that he’s currently running for president. If I were doing the same joke in, oh, France, I might have to explain the setup. I might also have to explain it in America in ten years. But in America today, I don’t.

The Surprise only works if it’s surprising to the audience. For example, if you’ve heard the joke before, it won’t be surprising, so you won’t laugh.

And, finally, the joke has to make sense to the audience. There has to be a moment of “oh, I get it!” in the audience’s mind. If the audience doesn’t get it, it won’t be funny. Duh!

So that’s the House of Funny in a nutshell. Now all you have to do is take whatever setup you’re using, look at it through a House of Funny mirror or lens, and find the sense in it. As long as you do all these things within the context of your intended audience, you’ll be able to pass the test.

Two other things to keep in mind:

 Brevity really is the soul of wit. In general, keep is as short as you can to keep it funny. I can’t tell you how many times something that should have been funny lost me because it took just enough time for me to figure out the punch line seconds before it came. If your audience can figure out where you’re going before you got there, you’ve lost that all important element of surprise.  

Take it as far as it can go, all the way to the edge of the cliff . . . and then push.  If you’re using a microscope to make something small big, make it as big as you possibly can. As I’ve told members of my critique group, “Don’t do anything half-assed. It’s full-assed or nothing.”

If all of this seems too overwhelming, I suggest you start by taking something you find funny and breaking it down to its parts. What’s the Setup? What’s the Surprise? What mirror or lens was used? What’s the sense? Be teenage me sitting in front of a TV set with a notebook and a pen, and analyze everything that makes you laugh. It’s a great place to start.   

Good luck! I hope this will help you bring more laughter into this world. We certainly need it. 

My Notes from the "Social Media for Creators" Panel from New York Comic Con 2015

One of the most useful panels I attended at NYCC this year was the one on Social Media for Creators.

Buddy Scalera from ComicBookSchool.com moderated, and Jimmy Palmiotti, Matt Hawkins, Tim Washer, and Dennis Calero spoke and answered questions.

Here are my notes:

In the "Kickstarter Generation," you can be successful by excelling in these areas: you can be good, you can be fast, or you can be cheap. Just pick two!

 Of course, there’s a bit more than that.

You also have to be likeable.

 Jimmy suggested starting with your family/friends/coworkers. He also suggested that you be inquisitive about people. Talk to them. “What do you do?” is a good place to start. Find like-minded people on Twitter and engage. Build relationships using connections, contextualizing them, and letting them know what you want to happen.

Self-branding. Using humor. The evolution of journalism.

Tim Washer on the importance of humor. He showed us a pie chart of the percentage of people who like to laugh. It’s everyone!

 So how do you make that work for you? Have can you be funny with your social media? 

Brevity is the soul of wit, so be brief. And funny. Don’t worry about being too ludicrous and absurd. The ludicrous and absurd GETS ATTENTION! Play around, have fun, and just trust that something will happen. 

He mentioned a woman with 23,000 followers on Twitter who got a free trip to Japan because she made short videos using lots and lots of photos (with music) about the stuff she loves. She said she wanted to go to Japan, and she got it! Follow her lead. Be passionate, have fun, be brief and say what you want.

LAUGH! Relax. The big ideas will come to you.

 One way to come up with funny ideas is with Comic Juxtaposition. (I know about this from my political cartooning days. One thing makes you think of another and so on. Suddenly you find two things that are so different and yet weirdly fit together—and that’s funny! That’s the “Oh, I get it” moment in comedy. For example, there are many similarities between school and prison life. They both have cafeterias where people get served food on trays and have to take those trays to a table where they have to eat with others who are in the same position. Taking things that are exclusive to one of those situations and putting it in the other could be funny. For example, you could draw a comic strip with two tough looking school girls sitting at a table in a cafeteria. One asks that others, “So what are you in for?”)

 Tim Washer had us give example of two things that don’t go together. We went with “banana” and “toy store.” We then had to give attributes for each of those. One of the attributes for banana is that people slip on them. Two of the attributes for toy stores are that they sell toys to parents.

Suggestion #1: BANANA
Attributes: Slipping

Suggestions # 2: TOY STORE
Attributes: Toys, Parents
                 
Tim put those two together and came up with the idea of a Slip ‘N Slide at an office. It’s funny, because it’s absurd.

 This association process is also called “webbing.”

Matt gave ThinkTank on Facebook as an example of a good strategy. ThinkTank is about science, and the guy who does it writes observations, personal stuff, and some promotion. (I don’t know if this is the same ThinkTank I found, but these people post a video a day.)

You have to discover your VOICE. In Improv, there’s a game called “The Rant.” The point of the rant is to let you see who you truly are. It helps you discover your honest Voice.

On dealing with trolls: Jimmy and Matt will delete comments and block attacking commentators (on their blogs and/or Facebook pages?). You can argue, but keep it civil. Jimmy will sometimes DM people to get them to stop their angry comments. Usually when they realize there’s a human being on the other side, they stop. Jimmy says that when you’re dealing with an angry person, you should smile, wave, and say, “Have a nice day!” You can delete the thread that’s gotten out of control and post a picture of a sunset. It diffuses the situation. Comedy diffuses bad situations.

Dennis says that people want to get to know you, warts and all. If you have problems, people will support you.

 Someone recommended a book called On Intelligence, which is about the brain and pattern recognition. Humor is about seeing patterns in disparate things (what I call the third “S” of comedy: “Sense.” The other two are “Setup” and “Surprise”).

 Matt says, “Be about something.” You can’t be mysterious if you aren’t famous.

Dennis says you should be a Voice with a distinctive personality. People tend to forget there’s a real person on the other side. Remind them.

 Someone asked which platforms they prefer.

Tim likes Instagram and Facebook, but you have to find the platform that works for you.

Jimmy also likes Instagram. Twitter is great, because you can ask for retweets—AND you can retweet others.

Dennis draws every day and posts on Instagram. (This is probably a habit I should get into, posting something visual or a video EVERY DAY.)

Matt gives freebies and writes a week of promotional tweets and Facebook posts one day a week and then schedules them. (This is probably a habit I should get into, too.) He loves Facebook advertising and spends $50 a day, money he considers well spent.

Dennis says build a following and put out a pure vision.

THE TAKEAWAY FOR ME: Post something funny, short, and visual that helps show who you are at least daily. You can create this content once a week and schedule it to release through the week. Use Facebook and Twitter--and start using Instagram.  Post your observations and personal stuff, and just a little promotional stuff. Use the ludicrous and the absurd to get attention. Laugh, relax, be passionate, have fun, and be brief. Be inquisitive about others, find connections to contextualize your relationships online, and let them know what you want to happen.

What's wrong with this screen grab shot?

Here's a screen grab from my Verizon account. Notice something a little...odd? 

The answer to "Where does your humor come from?"

A friend and fellow writer, LM Preston, recently asked me where my humor comes from. 

Well, I'll tell you, and I hope it helps you see the humor in the world the way that I do, because if there’s one thing the world needs more of, it’s laughter.

Like Gilbert Garfinkle--the hero of Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one), I like to take things apart and fix them. I always have. Unlike Gilbert, though, the things I most like to take apart are stories, particularly funny stories.

I was born into a big family. I was the second child of six, which means I was a middle child in a sea of middle children. Like most middle children, I wanted attention. After all, that’s easy for the eldest and youngest to get attention. Middle children, not so much, particularly when there’s four.

My dad loved jokes, and I did too. So I would collect them. I know it seems odd, but I would watch sitcoms and take notes. I had a little spiral notebook where I’d write down different elements of my favorite shows, like Taxi and M.A.S.H., including the best lines. Once a week, I’d repeat the jokes I had collected to my family and make my dad laugh.

I also used to write funny essays for school. My class and my teachers loved them. I wasn't the class clown; I was the class wit. I was funny on paper, and I still am. 

Brevity, they say, is the soul of wit, and I know that’s true when it comes to my humor. The more I edit something funny, the funnier it gets. Comedy, I believe, is tragedy dancing the quickstep.

I continued to take apart and try to figure out comedy as I grew up, and I even took a couple of courses on the topic in college, where I majored in English Literature and Theater Studies. I was taught that pain plus distance equals comedy, which is the standard theory. I didn't agree with it. I think that sometimes comedy comes from painful things viewed at a distance; but so many funny things have no element of pain in them, and so many things that include pain and distance aren't funny at all. So I continued to work on my own theory.

A few years later, I got a job as an editorial cartoonist, and that's when I developed my own formula for comedy.

It’s summed up with three S’s. They are Setup, Surprise, and Sense.

Setup is pretty much what your humor is about. It could be the news, your life, or the characters and plot of your novel.

Surprise is the most important element of comedy, because without it, the audience just isn't going to laugh. Think of a joke you've already heard. If you hear it again, you won't find it as funny as you did the first time, and that’s because the element of surprise is gone.

And all jokes have to make some sort of Sense, because if they didn't, they'd just be confusing, not funny. Puns, for example, make phonetic sense.  And when it comes to stories, each character has to act in a way that makes sense in some way for that character.

As for pain, I think it's important that a joke not be too painful for the intended audience. That's when you cross the line from being funny to just being mean and hurtful. Of course, what one audience finds painful, another won't. Sometimes it's a matter of tailoring your humor for a particular audience; and other times it's a matter of finding an audience that fits a particular brand of humor.

Okay, so now you have my formula. The question still remains: where does humor come from? Finding or creating a setup is easy. Finding the sense in it is easy too. But how do you create the surprise--the most important element of comedy?

It’s all about looking at things from a fresh and surprising perspective.

Blow it up under a magnifying glass. Make it big, bigger, biggest. Put it in a surprising context, but in a way that makes sense. If it’s rosy, make it blue. If it’s blue, make it rosy. And take it as far as it will go. I like to say that when it comes to comedy take it all the way, to the edge of that cliff. Then push.

Edit, edit, and edit some more. Can you make that happen faster? Then do. Can you say that more briefly and still make sense? Then do.

Take my latest novel, Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one) as an example.

I wrote the first draft for NaNoWriMo in under a month...and then I spent the next year editing it. 

Taking a page from Improv, I wrote several versions of many of the scenes so I could choose the funniest one. And any time I saw a chance to make things bigger, I took it. I didn't want Gilbert to be just a regular geek: I wanted him to be the ultimate geek. And I didn't want to give him just any old conflict: I wanted to give him the ultimate geek's ultimate conflict. Gilbert has a compulsive need to take apart, figure out, and fix things, so I had to give him something he would never be able to take apart, figure out, and fix. I had to give him a gorgeous vampire girl who wants to turn him into her platonic BFF, literally forever. How is the ultimate geek supposed to make sense of that?  

If you're thinking, “But that doesn't make sense, and you said comedy has to make sense,” you're right, it doesn't. It defies Gilbert's obsessively logic mind. At least it does at first. There is a logic to that gorgeous vampire girl's seeming insane choice, a logic that takes Gilbert most of the book to figure out.

I’d tell you what it is, but then I'd spoil the surprise, and you know comedy won't work without it. You'll just have to read it to find that out for yourself.    

What actors would you cast for Why My Love Life Sucks?

Some people have fantasy football teams. Others like to imagine a dream cast for the movie or TV versions of their favorite novels. Someone asks me for my dream cast for Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one), so here it is: .

Jared Gilman as Gilbert Garfinkle

The star of Moonrise Kingdom has the geeky good looks, the right voice (he’s not from New York City, but South Orange is pretty close), and is almost the right age. I can picture him spouting Gilbert’s sarcastic lines, but is he capable of being super intense, like Gilbert? So far, all his roles seem to have had him acting chill. And at 14, I think he might already be too tall. But when I saw him again in a recent commercial for Verizon, I knew he has the look I want for Gilbert. He just needs his hair curled.

Dakota Fanning as Amber

I've long loved Dakota Fanning’s acting, particularly in Charlotte’s Web and Dreamer, although she might already be too old to play the 17-year-old who will forever look like she’s 15. Or maybe not? Of course, she'd have to change her hair color and put on some weight for the role of the voluptuous Amber. It would be nice to see her in a role that lets her smile a lot, because I've seen her on late-night talk shows, and she has a beautiful smile. And she does deserve a chance to play a vampire in a series that doesn't, you know, suck.  

Anneliese van der Pol as Delilah Jones

I don’t know what it is about her, but I have the feeling that Anneliese van der Pol from Vampires Sucks and That’s So Raven could play the beautiful, bullying queen bee who will use every trick in the book to get exactly what she wants. It’s a fun and crazy role, and I think she would have a great time with it.

Ryan Lee as Dylan Barry

Ryan Lee, from Super 8, has almost exactly the right look and mannerisms I wanted for Dylan, and he’s also the right age. The one problem is that Dylan--Gilbert’s best friend--is meant to be much, much taller than Gilbert, and Ryan Lee isn't exactly tall. Not a good match for the guy who calls Gilbert “Little Dude.” Aside from that, he would be the perfect choice.

Victor Garber as Ian MacIntyre

Gilbert’s Uncle Ian is a tall, suave, sophisticated, silver-haired lawyer with incredible charm, who has always been kind to Gilbert but not so kind to those who cross him. Unlike Gilbert and Amber, I’ve only ever pictured Uncle Ian as being played by one actor. Victor Garber is exactly how I picture him, and he’s a great actor who brings so much to any role he plays.

Yvonne Strahovski as Candy Garfinkle

I loved her as Sarah Walker, the gorgeous secret agent who falls for a super geek,  in the TV series Chuck, one of the most geeking awesome action-comedy shows ever! Candy Garfinkle is pretty much the opposite of Sarah Walker, but I still think that Strahovski has the talent--and beauty--to play Gilbert’s self-absorbed, gold-digging mother without making it campy.  

Nikki SooHoo as Jenny Chen

At 24, she’s much older than Jenny, but she has exactly the look I've always pictured for the love of Gilbert’s life. Nikki SooHoo has had many small roles on TV and in the movies, including playing the main character's best friend in heaven in The Lovely Bones. She also has a gymnastics background, which could come in useful considering that Gilbert and Jenny bond over rock-climbing, aikido, and ballroom dancing.

Seth Rogen as Dungeon Master Dave

The truth? I've always pictured Kevin Smith as Dungeon Master Dave, but Dave is supposed to be about 25, and Smith is too old to play him. Seth Rogen, though, would be a perfect second choice. Yes, he’s still a little older than Dave, but Rogen captures the geeky vibe of incredible humor, intelligence and calm that is Dave.

Top 10 Reasons to Date a Geek (like Gilbert)

Geeks (or nerds) are our most undervalued resource. The meek might inherit the earth someday, but the geeks will definitely inherit the stars! 

Here are ten reasons why geeks make the best boyfriends or girlfriends:

1. Passionate

As Gilbert Garfinkle tells Amber in Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one) , all geeks are passionate about something: “The very definition of being a geek is that you love something just because you love it, not because someone is telling you you should, but in spite of them telling you you shouldn't. There's no greater love than geek love. If you're lucky, maybe someday you'll find it too.”

2. Intelligent

It takes a certain genius to be a true geek.

3. Fun

Who better to watch Doctor Who with than a fellow Whovian? What do you mean, you've never seen an episode of Doctor Who? Well then, you are in for a treat! Just try to get to the episodes with Amy and Rory quickly. They're the most romantic couple on TV ever. And you can watch The Princess Bride together, and he can tell you, “As you wish,” and... 

You are just going to have so much fun together.  

4. Likely to get rich someday

That’s true in Gilbert’s case, anyway. He’s a computer genius who invents things. True, he’s not really interested in money, but the potential is definitely there.

5. Happy and often funny

Geeks are happy because they've found something they love. And while not all geeks are funny, many have a great sense of humor. Gilbert does.

6. Inventive

Whether your geek is into designing software, writing science fiction, or drawing comic books, he or she is sure to come up with creative ways to express his or her love for you.

7. Appreciative

Geeks generally don't expect to be loved, so when they are, they appreciate the one who loves them.

8. Doesn't judge

You know those people who only want to hang out with the popular crowd and who dress and look a certain way and wouldn't dare deviate from what's currently considered cool? Those people aren't geeks, and they have no idea what they're missing.

9. Loves you for who you are

A geek cares most about what's in your heart and would never ask you to change for him or her.

10. Encourages you to express your own geeky side

Stop caring about what people might think. Is there something you love so much you want the world to know? Then tell the world! You'll soon find you aren't alone. There's someone out there who is as geeky about that thing as you are, and you can share that limitless passion together.

Why I Write Humor

Joss Whedon--the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, and writer and director of The Avengers--says,“Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.”

Joss Whedon and the cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I agree.

Humor adds so much to any kind of writing.

Humor can prevent a dramatic scene from getting melodramatic and sappy.

Sometimes it can be a preemptive strike, because you know that if you don’t poke fun at your own story, there are those who will be more than happy to do it for you. It’s enough to have a character say, “You’ve gotta be kidding” before the reader does to “for the love of God, tell a joke.”

Humor can also prevent readers from getting bored.

Stephen King--the author of numerous bestselling novels, including Carrie, It and The Stand, and the undisputed king of the horror genre--says, “You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.”

It stays as long as it wants, because readers want laughter to stick around.

Humor keeps us on our toes and stops us from getting bored, because comedy is about surprise. 

Don’t believe that? Then ask yourself if you laugh harder the first time you hear a joke or the second? If it’s the first, ask yourself why. You’ll soon realize it’s because the element of surprise is gone. Humor can turn any kind of ordinary novel, movie, or TV show into one you just can't put down, walk away from, or turn off. Once it plops down in your favorite chair, you want to plop down in your favorite chair and stay there as long as it does.

Humor can change a cliche into something new.

For example, you've probably encountered many lovesick vampires in books, movies, and on TV, but how many have you encountered who are too shy to tell the girl they love how they feel? That's one of the reasons why Gilbert Garfinkle from Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one) is who he is--that amazing geek full of self-confidence who is afraid of only one thing: girls. He breaks all the vampire cliches, and that makes his story funny, surprising, and new.

And last but not least, humor makes us feel good. That’s been scientifically proven.

I don’t always write comedies. In fact, I cried buckets when I wrote my romantic, YA ghost-story, Ride of Your Life, and readers have told me that it has the same effect on them. But I do try to put some humor in everything I write. When I see a cliche, I feel a compulsive need to break it, or, at the very least, point it out. One of the scenes that is a turning point in Ride of Your Life isn't when Josh wows Tracy with some huge romantic gesture; it's when she laughs at his mistake and he's not too proud to laugh along with her. In fact, it makes him happy just to know he's put a smile on her face.

I like reading books--and watching TV show and movies--that make me laugh, even when they're making me fall in love, terrified, excited, or anything else. Who doesn’t? And knowing that makes me want to be the kind of writer whose stories I would enjoy reading, the kinds of stories that--at least here and there--make me laugh.  

I hope they make you laugh too.

Top 10 Reasons Why Gilbert Garfinkle's Love Life Sucks

Here's one of several requested guest posts I wrote specifically for a recent blog tour that, due to technical problems, were never posted. I'll post the others over the coming days.

Top 10 Reasons Why Gilbert Garfinkle's Love Life Sucks

SPOILER ALERT: Why does Gilbert Garfinkle's love life suck? Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one) slowly reveals the answer to that question, so if you'd rather not read any spoilers before reading the book, stop here. Otherwise...

1. The beautiful, mysterious, and seemingly sweet Amber is the first girl he's ever kissed. She's also a vampire who bites him, sucks his blood, leaves him paralyzed and in pain, and later tells him she did it because she wants him to be her platonic BFF--literally forever. She likes him a lot, just not “that way.” Isn't that reason enough?

2. He's had a crush on the absolutely amazing Jenny Chen since the day she let him fix her camera when they were both six, but he’s too afraid to tell her. What if it ruins their friendship, and she never wants to see him again? It would be a pain worse than death.

3. His mother constantly reminds him that the only reason a pretty girl would want to be with someone like him is for money. That's the only reason why she married his brilliant father, and although Gilbert badly wants to be like his father, he's also afraid of falling into a golddigger’s trap.

4. His mother is beautiful, and she loathes him. That makes beautiful girls in general terrifying.  

5. Gilbert needs everything to make sense. Love. Doesn't. Make. Sense.

6. Delilah Jones, the former school bully turned domineering school queen bee, insists he take her out in an expensive car to an expensive restaurant. Considering she only dates guys who can help her move up the social ladder at school and geeks like him are at the bottom of that social ladder, that doesn't make sense.

7. Gilbert has a compulsive need to take apart, figure out, and fix things. He can't do that with a girl. Case in point: Amber. If she's not at all attracted to him like she says, why does she want to spend eternity with him and not her boyfriend?

8. When he’s in the presence of a girl he’s attracted to, he doesn’t think. That’s never a good idea.

9. After Amber bites Gilbert, girls are suddenly attracted to his vampire charm. That terrifies him, which brings out a “bite or flight” response--and he doesn’t want to bite anyone. Ever.

10. He was starting to fall for Amber before she bit him, and his eidetic memory means he'll never forget the pain and terror he felt when she did. How will he ever get past this connection his brain has made between opening his heart and the greatest pain he’s ever known?

~*~*~

Also, it's love. It sucks. The trick is to forget that and fall in love anyway. And maybe, if you're really lucky, for at least a few glimmering moments, life in general won't suck so much.