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Comic Relief

Nameback

Troubadour
How do you go about writing comic relief characters--or do you even have any?

I'm writing a chapter now with three characters that I planned on as being comic relief. Their story is still important to the world and the plot; they're not irrelevant, so the reader still gets movement through the story while they're on-page. But I did feel that a little levity would be a good break after several chapters of weighty realizations, bloodshed, and internal conflict.

However, comedy is hard. So hard, at least for me, that I am in fact wondering whether or not to abandon the whole enterprise. Perhaps it's better to have no comic relief than comic relief that isn't funny enough. I also feel like straight prose is one of the more difficult ways to communicate humor, since you lack the tools of facial expressions, tone of voice, rhythm, etc. I mean, you can describe those things, but it's not really the same. It's not that prose can't be funny, but that one has to be especially artful to make it funny, and be conscious of how to be funny within the medium.

Before I give up, however, I am going to try rewriting my chapter, and I'm thinking of downloading a few books onto my kindle that I remember being funny, such as Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint, and many of Terry Pratchett's books. Hopefully I can pick up a few tricks from those authors.

Anyway, what are your rules for comedy in your writing? Do you have any? Any tricks or processes that you've learned make writing comedy easier?
 
I tend to look at it as a duality: one character says something relatively dramatic or pompous, and another undermines it. The precise nature of the undermining can vary, and as such, you don't always need to have the same characters fill the same roles. (One character, about to lead an expedition into the jungle, may give an exaggerated speech about the importance of their mission, only to find that the others are betting on how big the sweat stain under his armpit will be by the time he finishes. But when another character whines about what the humidity is doing to her hair, the leader may be the one to undercut her with a biting remark about the Assault and Battery of the Lock.) The most important point is to never let these characters get too shrill, too irritating, or too obviously immune to repercussions for acting like jerks. A close second is to have them stay serious when the situation is too dire to undercut--nothing's more likely to piss the reader off than to have a character callously cracking jokes when another character's closest friend has just died.
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
I'll give you the advice I gave Pen. Never force humor. No reviewer is going to write about your your book "Great story, but it just wasn't funny!" If it's time for funny, it will happen on its own. Promise/

Want to know what happens when you force funny in fantasy? Jar Jar Binx. End story
 

Avara

Dreamer
I agree with Lowan, humor should not be forced. I usually don't worry about making "comic relief" characters. Instead i just let the characters evolve and as they do so i'll find certain characters are more prone to inducing hilarity than others. The primary rules i would recommend though is make sure the surrounding characters have realistic reactions to the comic foil, that the character is actually competent and helpful even if they are exasperating, and make sure that when things get serious the character cuts the antics and does what needs to be done. Also maybe it's just a personal preference but i tend to like it better when the comic foil in question is self-aware.
 

AstralCat

Scribe
Personally, when I hear that you've made a character specifically as the Comic Relief character, a red flag goes up. Granted, there is nothing wrong with Comic Relief characters. Most of my favorite characters in any media I consume tend to be comic relief characters. ...But they're never JUST funny. They're also really well developed and their humor can often mask their surprising depth.

But as far as I know, you might be way ahead of me. Your comic relief characters might already be really well rounded and everything. If so, I'm sorry for presuming. ^^;

...My advice is to work on making good characters, first and foremost. If you develop them enough, they'll start being funny all on their own.
 

Scribble

Archmage
Good advice here.

I think of humor in fiction in three general ways:

1) The characters are being funny. People joke, they insult each other in fun. If we know the idiosyncrasies of one character, if the other starts mocking them, it can be funny. People who are together for a long time tend to have the same kind of sense of humor. Best friends need maybe one word, or a look to start laughing. People who are new to each other or who are not around each other often have different kinds of humor. If everyone in your story has the same sense of humor, that can be strange, yet completely understandable - because it's all your sense of humor!

2) The situation is funny or ridiculous. This is the equivalent of physical comedy. It could be simple and slapstick, like someone pompous falling in the mud. It could be more emotional, like an excruciatingly uncomfortable moment for one character, or it could be more cerebral, where someone is making an ass of themselves, and everyone is in the know except that person.

3) The "world" is funny. This the Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett end of things. The center of the galaxy is a spicy meatball rather than a black hole. The earthquake was a titan with the hiccoughs. This kind of silly only works well in those kind of books.

~Scribble
 
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