Humor in a fantasy story

[Greybeard]

Do you have any advice as to how to integrate humor into a fantasy story without it destroying the tone? I'm writing an epic fantasy, but I would like to season it with humor in specific scenes.

I've been trying to accomplish this without success. It always feels forced. Effectively using humor is much harder than it appears.

 

[Ophiucha]

A comic relief character is the standard method. One character who always makes light of things. Dark/morbid humor tends to work well, too, if a scene is more dramatic. A favorite example of that, for me, comes from the last Harry Potter book. One character loses an ear, and when asked how he feels, he says "holy", as in he has a hole. Ohoho. Discworld is probably the quintessential fantasy-comedy series, though that is very much a straight up festival of humor, as opposed to a story with bits of humor in it.

 

[Philip Overby]

Shakespeare was the master of injecting humor into something that is otherwise serious in tone. Not sure how he always did it without ruining the rest of the story, but he did.

Almost everything I write now is humorous in some way because I don't take myself as seriously as I used to. Read Terry Pratchett. He is the master of fantasy/humor. Have a character who is "comic relief" that can provide moments of dissecting tense scenes. Seems like Merry and Pippin sort of had that role in "Lord of the Rings" although they had their serious moments too.

The key is that people are not funny all the time. Neither are they serious all the time. Try to think of someone you know who is funny but also has moments where they "shut down" and become more serious. A character like that would help provide some humorous moments without seeming so forced.

 

[Mdnight Falling]

Very well put Phil and Ophiucha. I'm not good with the whole comedy thing myself LOL I wish I could make stories that make people laugh like Phil does. Maybe you read the stuff Phil's written it may inspire you But generally if you use the comic relief method, that works wonderfully. and yeah Merry and Pip were the comic relief, but sam had his moments of ha too LOL. I think that's the key. Like Phil said think of someone you know who is funny. Base the comic relief on them. If that doesn't work, try to do an exercise without it being a written one.. try to put yourself in the role you want the comic relief in.. Have a pen and paper or a recorder handy and run through that char yourself and see what comes out. You'd be surprised how much dialogue I've come up with this when I couldn't think of what to have a char say or do >.< It really does work >^.^<

 

[Ravana]

Unintentionally is always good.…

Seriously (does that make this off-topic?), though, you're right that humor needs to be handled carefully. Or perhaps I should say delicately. It requires a soft touch. You can't just try to tell your audience a joke–at least, not unless your characters are telling jokes: see Spider Robinson for that one–or it will come off sounding either forced or heavy-handed… and in either case, less funny than you want it to be.

There's the literary equivalent of pratfalls: situations that are funny to witness, whether the participants find them amusing or not. They're about as "high literature" as the Three Stooges, too: having the Dread Master of Dark Unpleasantness slip on the blood of his last eighteen victims just as he lunges for the hero may be hysterical… once. Having someone slip on something every combat you write… not so much.

There's the old standby: puns. I find these almost impossible to resist, but a little goes a long way, especially if the puns are obvious. If they're subtle, they can be a positive delight. And if they're so subtle no one else gets them, you get to sit back and laugh all by yourself, though that may not be the effect you're after. (Go ahead: find the one in my FlashFic Challenge 1 story.) I've seen Roger Zelazny use half a chapter in Lord of Light, and the entire book in Night in the Lonesome October, to set up a pun. And both are real groaners, too… and in hindsight you know you should have seen them coming, but.…

A variation on this is wordplay: not puns, but double meanings. My FlashFic Challenge 3 response includes one in the first two sentences, as does the first fragment in my Challenge 2 response. More on how (and why) this works in a minute.

Old standby number two is the external reference. In one of Steven Brust's books, one character is warned that if he offends a particular mage, she'll turn him into a newt… to which he responds, of course, "I'll get better." Six of the nine fragments in my Challenge 2 response use these: two quotes that become funny when recontextualized (well, one: the other doesn't "become" funny directly, so much as becoming funny by being included with the rest), four uses of characters in ways they weren't used before. One of the remaining two is a reference to a particular stereotyped storytelling style which would be annoying if you had to read an entire story in it (and which also includes a wordplay, itself on a word that sees stereotyped usage).

There's flat-out absurdity–as with the last of my FlashFic 3 fragments: anything that starts out with a character called "Timmy the Tapeworm" is something you better not expect your readers to take seriously.

All of the above are used extensively in Lewis Carroll's two Alice books–pratfalls least of all, as he too realized a little goes a long way; the others utterly pervade the books. Piers Anthony's Xanth series can strike one as being nothing but an endless series of puns (and they can get old, depending on how much you enjoy puns), though in fact the other devices are used as well; Terry Pratchet is another who is noted for puns and wordplay, and I'd assume most of the other devices (I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I haven't actually read any of his books, though I have a couple in my reading stacks).

What makes humor "work," though? Most of the above, along with the things I'm going to mention below, rely on the same underlying mechanism… as does most other verbal humor: setting up an expectation, then breaking it, or at least giving it a sharp twist. (Rita Rudner, on why she stopped dancing: "I had to stop when I injured a groin muscle." Pause. "It wasn't mine.…") Alternately, juxtapositions relying on already-existing expectations have the same effect. (Stephen Wright: "I bought a decaffeinated coffee table. You can't tell the difference." Gallagher: "Why do you drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?")

Irony is always a good device, though it's hard to "teach" how to use it (and don't look to Alanis Morissette for help: most of the examples in "Ironic" aren't ironies… ironically); ultimately, it relies on the reader's expectations again. You're aiming for a "Yeah, that figures…" response here. Sarcasm is good–though it often tends to go over people's heads: ergo, the addition of "Not!" following a statement that is meant to be taken sarcastically (which is a lot older than most people realize, by the way: SNL didn't invent it). For a masterpiece of sarcastic humor, see Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Self-deprecating humor as part of the protagonist's inner dialogue ("How long are you gonna make this post, Ravana?") is generally, though perhaps not always, a subcategory of sarcasm. Hyperbole–blatant exaggeration for comic effect–is also generally sarcastic (again, see the Swift essay).

The best piece of advice I can give for how to use humor (as opposed to why it works) is to make it subtle: don't go for the big setup, just toss it in in passing. Make it so that the reader is halfway through the next paragraph before he goes "Wait… what?" and has to back up to realize what you just did. Most of the above examples are not that subtle: they hit you with their humor up-front. Which is fine if you want your piece to be taken as comedic. If you want to include humor as a tension-breaker, or simply because you prefer a lighter tone, then you need go with a lighter touch.

 

[Mdnight Falling]

I swear Ravana you're like a walking fountain of knowledge >.< Though I do agree with you. most of the stories I write.. the short ones lord knows I can punch them out like nothing >.< If there's comedy in them I never actually intend to put it there. but it always makes me laugh when I come across it in the proof read LOL. I suppose that would fall under my own category of let your characters do as they will. If you find yourself in a hole or a void, stop. clear your mind. Stop controlling the story, let the characters control it themselves. you'll find though they are your creations once you've given them life in your brain, they take up residence there and will write their own story if you let them, jokes, puns, and satire included

 

[Donny Bruso]

One person I haven't seen anyone mention yet is Neil Gaiman. The specific work I'm thinking of is Neverwhere, probably my favorite book of his. In there he just offhandedly weaves absurdities into the prose. In one scene he is comparing weights of different characters by how many suitcases full of lard the skinny ones have to carry to weigh as much as the fat ones. Ok, so it's not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, but it breaks up the monotony of the text, and again, causes the reader to stop and go: What?

 

[Mdnight Falling]

It's funny enough Donny LOL. that's another one to add to my list of things to find and read >.>

 

[Telcontar]

I don't see how it is hard to integrate humor. You cannot have a 'tone' that last throughout your entire story. Tone must change from time to time as a function of the plot - high tension, low tension, etc. Obviously the moments when characters are more relaxed, they will joke around. Appreciation for humor is a part of the human condition (and by extension, the sapient condition).

Even in the high-tension times of a story, characters can joke. Gallows humor is great to show a character's inner state.

 

[Kelise]

Scott Lynch and Patrick Rothfuss are excellent in sliding humour into a fantasy story, if you want some authors to try

 

[Mdnight Falling]

I dunno.. see you said joking around was part of HUMAN nature Tel.. I don't think my story has a single human in it LMAO! But who knows like I said I merely write it.. I usually don't catch any humor in my works until I read it through x.x!