Pushing Humor Too Far

 The mystery series was a cozy with a light tone and humorous moments, but the third book in the series started with the murder of the heroine’s closest friend and moved through the next days with sleuthing as well as the process of grieving for and burying someone you love.

I imagine most would agree that this situation is not a comedy waiting to happen.  Unfortunately, the writer was so desperate to bring the light tone in that she proceeded to add slapstick.  

At the family visitation, one of the heroine’s friends pretends to knee the heroine’s boyfriend, her heel breaks, and she really kicks him in the jewels.

The heroine receives a threatening phone call, then her bedroom door knob jiggles.  She slips as she reaches for a Taser and bangs her head, then, before she realizes it’s a cop friend, she shoots him as he enters her room and he slips banging his head.  They end up concussed together on the bed where her friend discovers them the next morning and has a fun time wondering what went on between the not-a-couple.

I could only shake my head during these scenes that so desperately tried to add humor to a situation that wasn’t funny.  Not only was the over-the-top-to-the-point-of-ridiculous humor displaced, it tried so hard that the book fell apart.  

Moments like this are what trusted critique partners, beta readers, and good editors are all about.  They should have told the writer that sometimes a light tone just doesn’t fit the situation, and that poor taste and slapstick have no place in certain situations.  

How can you judge this with your own writing?  Think of your novel as a movie.  If you are writing a mystery movie full of dark atmosphere and duplicitous suspects, a scene from DUMB AND DUMBER just won’t  fit, will it?  A light moment of character revelation or a funny story about a victim would.  

Stay true to the tone that’s needed and listen to your early readers.  That’s more important than trying to maintain the tone of the series.  If not staying true bothers you, then find another plot that will fit that tone. 

The Misunderstanding as Humor

 I have never written strictly comic stories, my writing tends toward darker or more serious stories, but I like to add comic elements.  These elements are situational, not in the sense of a situation comedy filled with punch lines, but the humor lies in the situation.  

Humor changes the pace of the story, can reflect on what is happening, or gives the reader another side of a character.

One type of humorous scene has one character totally misunderstanding or not having the right information in a situation.  

This example is from an unpublished category romance of mine called COURTING DISASTER.  The hero and heroine work at the same sporting goods store during the Christmas rush, and they’ve finished a full day of work.  They chat in the parking lot at their cars.  Cody is very interested in Maggie, but she’s not interested in any man because she wants to remain true to her late husband.  For the first time, she’s beginning to see that maybe this isn’t quite as easy a life decision as she thought.  

The punchline for this misunderstanding is that Molly is Cody’s golden retriever puppy, but Maggie doesn’t know this.  The reader is in on this joke because Molly was in an earlier scene with Cody. 

Cody sighed loudly.  "On a night like tonight, I'm glad I don't have to go home to an empty house.  Nothing’s worse than an empty house and a dinner for one.”

Maggie’s heart twitched more painfully than her feet.  That was exactly what was waiting for her.  An empty house.  “You have a housemate?”

"No.  I was talking about Molly."  They stopped by Maggie's car, and Cody grinned inanely.  "I must admit Molly turns me into a pile of mush when I'm around her.  I never expected to be as crazy over her as I am.”

Cold settled in Maggie's heart.  "That's nice." 

"I really miss her when I'm working.  I promised her I'd spend tomorrow morning with her.  I can already guess what will happen.  She'll curl up against me in bed early tomorrow morning, rest her head on my chest, and stare at me with those big brown eyes until I wake up.”

Vivid images flashed through Maggie's head.  A beautiful woman naked against Cody, her head resting on his magnificent bare chest--he probably had curly auburn hair on it--and he'd..., and she'd...  Maggie fumbled for her keys in her purse, her head down to hide embarrassment and envy.

"Later, we'll go for a run in the woods and find some fallen leaves to play in.  She loves fallen leaves.  We'll play in the leaves, then I'll scratch her tummy, and her tail will really wiggle.  Then we'll snuggle."

Considerably more than her tail would wiggle if he scratched her tummy.  But she didn't want her tummy scratched!  Not by him, not by anybody.  She was an adult, she was Jeff's widow, she was....  She was jealous of Molly.  

Flustered by that knowledge, Maggie unlocked her car door.  "Well, have a nice day off."

"I intend to." 

I didn’t want the reader to think Cody was deliberately fooling Maggie about Molly’s identity so I had him tell her about his puppy earlier although he failed to mention her name which was an honest omission on his part, not a mean joke.

I also didn’t want Maggie to be an idiot about this mistake so I let her realize her error a few paragraphs later when Cody shows her the new collar he got for Molly.  This also allows her to question her own feelings about Cody and her determined decision to remain a widow.  

To make this light moment more than a throw-away joke, I made Molly an integral part of the plot through the novel.  

For a light moment to work in a novel, it should never be a throw-away joke.

What A Christmas Carol Can Teach A Writer

 "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."  The only character more interesting than a villain is a villain who is redeemed.

"Oh, Holy Night.”  A powerful story is often best told simply.

"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”  Sometimes, something innocent can become creepy.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas.”  A one-sided romantic relationship is boring.

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”  The underdog with a reviled talent makes a great hero.  

"Frosty the Snowman.”  A great character often deserves a sequel.  ("I'll be back again, some day." ) 

"Carol of the Bells.”  Driving rhythm can pull the reader forward.  

"Do You Hear What I Hear?"  You can tell a story through dialogue.

"Silent Night.”  A few simple images can create powerful emotions.

“Let It Snow, Let It Snow.”  The quiet, homey moments are often filled with the greatest emotions and memory.

"The Christmas Song.”  ("Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…." )  Setting alone can show strong emotion and story.

“Last Christmas.”  A bad romance character can’t tell the difference between love and sex.  

“Blue Christmas” sung by Elvis.  Some songs are meant for only one singer, and so are some stories.  

“I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.”  A fantasy plot makes much more sense with lots of details.  (“There's lots of room for him in our two-car garage.  I'd feed him there and wash him there and give him his massage.”)  NOTE: Best Christmas novelty song ever!

"Good King Wenceslas.”  Sometimes, a character is remembered more for kindness than power or glory.

"I'll Be Home For Christmas.”  Home and family are two of the most powerful goals within the human heart.  

"Baby, It's Cold Outside."  "This is for your good, not mine" is a great seduction.

“Is that You, Santa Claus?”  Every good thing may disguise a bad thing.

"Jingle Bells" and "Jingle Bell Rock.”  The times and tempo may change, but the story remains the same.  

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”  Sometimes, the character's emotions and the message aren't the same.  

"Santa Baby.”  With the right voice, even Santa and a chimney can be made into a double entendre.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You.”  Love is the greatest gift.  

The Off-Track Novel

 QUESTION:  I’m writing a novel, but I’ve already hit my word count.  The thing is I can’t finish the novel.  My characters are acting crazy, and I can’t control them.  What should I do?

Ask yourself these two questions. 

Who is my main character? 

What is her/his goal in the story?

Now, start reading your book from the beginning. In each scene or chapter ask these questions. Is the main character driving the plot forward? Is he/she doing something or learning something in each scene to reach the goal? If this isn’t happening in that scene/chapter, highlight that scene/chapter and change the font color so you can look at it later. Keep doing this until you reach the point where you stopped.

Make another copy of your manuscript and give it another name then go through this copy. Remove all the colored sections where nothing is happening. Now reread the whole thing. Does it make sense? Are there reasonable steps the main character has done to achieve their goals? If you are happy with this and see where you are going, you can move forward to finish the main story line.

You can now go back to the original manuscript and reread all those colored font areas to see if they add or subtract from the main story. Characters who are just around can be deleted, and subplots can be kept if they improve the main story, or they can be deleted. Information can be moved to the scenes that remain.

Misbehaving secondary characters may be asking for their own book so tell them to behave in this book, and they may be the main character in their own book. (Yes, this is weird, but authors are weird.)

You should now understand your book well enough to finish it. Good luck.

The Cast of Thousands Syndrome

Have you ever been at a party or professional event where you have met a small group of the attendees some time back so you barely remember them, and there are dozens of other people attending as well?

You stood there with a glazed look in your eyes as you struggled to remember the names and relationships of the people you've already met while even more people are introduced to you, and you have to figure out how these people fit in with the first group.

A nightmare, wasn't it?

Yet many writers forget how hard it is to keep up with characters in a novel.  They insist on starting the novel with a group scene in which all the heroine's coworkers are introduced.  Each character enters the scene, does a little song and dance so you have some idea of who they are, then the next one enters and does the same thing.  By the fourth or fifth character, the reader is in shell shock if she's still reading.  

Then, the novel opens up, and even more characters are introduced.  

Other writers of series, particularly paranormal romance series, have an ongoing group of characters--usually the happily married heroes and heroines of past novels who have to have a cameo or minor role--as well as the new hero and heroine to include with their short term bad guys and minor characters, but, wait, the author really wants you to meet the half a dozen new hunks waiting for their own novels, heroines, and happily-ever-after as well as the bad guys waiting in the wings for their comeuppance.   

Some readers can keep up with all these people, but most of us can't.  We reach a point where there's so much character clutter that we can't connect with the major characters and the main plot so we close the book and vow never to read another of them.  

How do you escape this cast of thousands syndrome?

First, you must realize that while you spend many months with these characters and know them very well, the reader won't.  

Keep the introductions to a very few at a time.  Secondary characters should only be introduced when they are needed in the plot.  Those officemates of the heroine may play big parts in later books, but only the wacky receptionist who will introduce the heroine to her new love interest and play clumsy matchmaker will be needed in this book so only she should be introduced.

As great as the other characters are and no matter how eager you are to introduce them, don't.  

If you have characters from other books, don't bring them back unless they serve a specific plot purpose.

If you have new characters for the next book in the series, don't put them in unless they serve a very specific plot purpose.

If you are lucky enough to have readers wanting to know how Lance and Patty from your first book are doing and whether their baby has been born, you can write a short story or novella about them as a freebie on your website.  Fans love that.  

Many of us don't love the author tossing these former characters into the current novel with no other reason than to please a few fans.

The Emo Dump of Horror

The heroine is grumpy.  Her cab driver is paying too much attention to the weird birthmark on her wrist although anyone who has seen it does the same thing so she should be used to it.  She is grumpy about this for several pages.  She gets out of the cab and spends several more pages thinking about how miserable the hot weather is, and how stinky her arm pits are now becoming.  

After finally paying attention to her location, an office building, she acknowledges to herself how stressed she is with little specifics for several more pages, then how she dreads seeing Mark for several more pages.  

She really misses her dead mom for about five pages.  Then she walks into the building.  Then another eight pages of minor info dump backstory about how her mom worked here, and how she really, really misses her mom.  Mark, Mom’s boss, shows up and apologizes that she must deal with being at her mom’s place of business.  She weeps on his chest for another bunch of pages.  We are now a long chapter into the book and nothing of real importance has happened.

But we know that the heroine who is supposed to be a kick-ass heroine in this urban fantasy is an emotional mess about bloody everything from the weather to her mom’s death. We also know that the writer doesn’t know spit about pacing and how to intersperse emotion with action.  

Readers, at this point, are stuck in the emo dump of horror where everything is too, too much to deal with.   

At this realization, most readers will decide that they don’t care to spend hours of their lives with this mopey, poorly written mess, and they won’t go forward with the book.

Sadly, this opening is from a book I just tossed after the first chapter, and it’s the third one with an opening emo dump in the last few weeks.  

And, yes, I know losing your mom is hard.  I’ve been through it, and I sympathize, but dumping loss across many opening pages like so much emotional sludge is poor writing.  It’s the equivalent for the reader of being forced to read a hormonal teen’s diary about how horrible and dramatic her life is.  A mother’s death and stinky armpits have the same level of drama.

Emotion, like information, needs to be given in little bits and pieces, particularly at the beginning of the story.  It also should be inferred by what the character does.  That heroine could have felt a tightness in her chest as she entered the building, straightened her spine, and forced herself forward.  The mother’s boss could have mentioned the mother’s death, and the heroine could have lost it for a few minutes.  All this is shown in action, not by a long inner monologue about being really, really sad.  It also makes the heroine appear strong despite her pain, and the reader would have sympathized instead of wishing that the drama queen heroine get a grip and move the story forward.

We want our readers to connect with our main character, sympathize with her, and admire her a little in that opening scene.  We don’t want them to take one look at a weeping drama queen and run far, far away.  

No Prologue Needed, Beginnings

 You want to start a novel at an exciting moment that involves the main character which will draw the reader into the story to see what will happen next, but you can't give too much information too soon.

Instead, you give the reader just enough information to understand what's going on.

For example, the main character faces an angry goblin in a dark alley of some big city.

She can hear a police siren which, unfortunately, is moving away from where she is. Mentally or aloud, she cusses her luck for choosing a job like this.

The goblin knocks her gun out of her hand, and it lands in the sewer drain so she lifts her hands, whispers a spell, and flames shoot of her hands, but the goblin doesn't go down. The injury makes him even angrier. 

We now know she's a magic user of some sort, the modern world is ours or isn't ours by little details, that magical creatures can enter here, and it's her job to stop them.  She is also in seriously deep poo because she is now defenseless against a furious goblin.

Later, you'll tell the reader about her role as a guardian of normal Earth and, later still, about her home on a parallel magic world, but you'll do it in bits and pieces like clues to a puzzle the reader is trying to understand.

Having these clues of the world and trying to understand it is as important a puzzle for the reader as the plot, and it's as enjoyable. Don't cheat the reader by giving away too much.   

A Rewrite Checklist

It’s always good to have a checklist at hand when you are ready to rewrite your story.  Below are a number of questions you can ask yourself as you work.  

As you learn your weaknesses as a writer, this list can be changed to include questions that focus on your problem areas.

This list is also a good start for critique partners.

THE FIRST CHAPTER

Do I have a hook in the first few, or better yet, the first page?

Have I shown the main character’s goal, short-term, or better yet, for the whole novel?

EACH CHAPTER

Does this chapter advance the story?  

Tell more about the characters?

Give plot information?  

Does it work with the chapter before it?

PLOT  

Do the characters and plot work well together, or is the plot 

just pasted on?

Does it make sense?

Does one thing lead to another?

Has the story started at the right place?

Does the action escalate?

Are more plot questions asked before a plot question is resolved?

Does the plot fit genre boundaries?

CHARACTERS

Does each character sound different?  Do they have a voice of their own?

Are the characters doing what they as characters and personalities should be doing, or are they being moved around for my convenience?  

Will the reader understand why they are doing certain things?

Does each major character have a strength and a weakness which will be affected by the plot?

In the romantic relationship, is their emotional conflict strong enough 

for the length of the work?  Will it take more than one long talk to resolve their conflict?  Does their romantic relationship work with the action plot?

In the action plot, is the conflict between the hero and his opponent strong enough?  Is the opponent strong enough to really push the hero to his limits? 

POINT OF VIEW

Is the proper point of view maintained in each scene?

Would a scene work better from another character's viewpoint?

Is there only one viewpoint character in each scene?

INTERIOR MONOLOGUES

Does this interior monologue slow the scene too much?

Could this information or emotion be expressed in dialogue or action?

Am I telling too much? 

SENTENCE STRUCTURE

Do the sentences vary in length?  

Does the language fit the actions? Long sentences for leisurely, more introspective moments?  

Short, terse sentences and words for action scenes?

LANGUAGE

Am I intruding, or am I invisible so the story can tell itself?  

Does cause and effect happen correctly?  

Am I showing rather than telling?  

WORLD BUILDING

Is the world building well thought out?

Is it logical?

Did I break my own rules?

If a myth or fantasy element is changed from common knowledge, is it a logical or understandable change?  Is it explained? (a vampire who can survive daylight, for example)