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 one of the heroine’s closest friends 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 moments.  

At the family visitation, the heroine’s best friend 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 best 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 will fit that tone.  

MARILYNN’S MOVIE RULE:  If a movie trailer has some guy hit in the groin for comic effect, it’s probably not a movie I’d enjoy.  If the same guy or more guys get hit in the groin more than once, it’s a movie no one wants to see because the material and humor are so thin.  

Links of Interest

LEVELS OF CONFLICT IN A NOVEL:

http://writerunboxed.com/2013/07/25/levels-of-conflict

GETTING YOUR RIGHTS BACK FROM A PUBLISHER:

http://www.booksandsuch.biz/blog/getting-your-rights-back-from-the-publisher/

HOW TO ADD A TWITTER WIDGET TO A SIDEBAR:

http://www.authormedia.com/how-to-add-a-twitter-widget-to-your-sidebar/

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SELF-PUBLISHING:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/07/what-you-really-want-to-know-about-self.html

CREATING A GREAT BOOK COVER:

http://www.publishingtalk.eu/self-publishing/four-steps-to-create-a-great-book-cover/

EDITING TO MAKE YOUR BOOK SHINE:

http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com/2013/07/simple-tricks-for-editing-your.html

SIX TIPS TO CREATING CHARACTERS:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2010/08/shes-such-character.html

HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF A SCENE:

http://marcykennedy.com/2013/07/how-to-make-the-most-of-a-scene

CHARACTER BACKSTORY IN MYSTERY:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2013/07/character-and-series-backstory-and.html

HOW MUCH BACKSTORY:

http://plotwhisperer.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-much-backstory-in-beginning-is-too.html

ADDING MOMENTUM TO A SLOWING PLOT:

http://jodyhedlund.blogspot.com/2013/07/an-important-technique-for-adding.html

NOTE: My website is back up!  Yeah!

Cue the Sunlight and the Golden Retrievers

One of my guilty pleasures is reality ghost shows like GHOST HUNTERS and MY GHOST STORY.  Saturday night, A&E had a marathon of a show I’ve never seen called AMERICAN HAUNTING.  

In each episode, some poor family has the show’s cameras put all over their house to record ghostly happenings, various experts like mediums and researchers are brought in, the violence ratchets up to the point that they realize something a lot meaner than an annoyed and dead former owner is around, then an exorcist, priest, or psychic exorcist comes in and kicks out the evil thing.  

Most of these shows are filmed in the darkness and even the filming in daylight tends to be in dark tones, but after the evil whatever has been removed and the miasma on dark nastiness is lifted, the outside and inside of the house are shown in much brighter light.  

At the end of one show, the family is sent away while the psychic exorcist is at work, then they return.  As expected, the sun is bright, and the house is filled with light, but very unexpected was the presence of two golden retrievers waiting for their family to come home.

Since there had been no golden retrievers present during the filming, I was flummoxed.  Other episodes had cats wandering around and an occasional small dog as well as dogs in outside pens.  Why hadn’t they shown the golden retrievers?

I thought about it for a while and realized that it’s hard to think of evil in the presence of golden retrievers, the dog equivalent of dolphins or friendly angels, so the producers of this show had them removed from the house during the filming.  

This got me thinking about writing and how most writers fail to use images and metaphors that offer such a visceral reaction.  Even when a writer thinks about creating dark images during the unhappy times in the story, she may fail to offer light images when the unhappiness has been banished.  

Sure, some images like sunlight and golden retrievers are a bit cliched, but that’s because they are honest images that convey emotion.  

Consider this the next time you are rewriting those scenes after things change for the better or worse.

For more information on how to use images, I suggest my article on archetypes.  

NOTE:  My website is still down.  Curse you, Dotster!

Links of Interest

NOTICE:  Dotster screwed up my website big time so it's totally offline.  Sorry about that.  Now to today's topic.

SELLING RIGHTS AND LICENSING OF YOUR BOOK:

http://publishingperspectives.com/2013/04/5-tips-for-self-published-authors-to-maximize-rights-and-licensing-deals/

NEWSLETTER BASICS:

http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com/2013/07/newsletter-basics.html

AUTHOR PORTRAITS FOR WEBSITES:

http://www.authormedia.com/how-to-take-portraits-for-an-author-website/

CREATING BETTER CHARACTER ARCS:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/07/guest-author-jordan-mccollum-5-steps-to.html

13 WAYS TO GET A LITERARY AGENT:

http://thewritelife.com/13-ways-to-convince-a-literary-agent-to-represent-you/

FINDING YOUR VOICE:

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2013/07/finding-your-writers-voice.html

HOW TO SET UP A GOOGLE + ACCOUNT:

http://www.authormedia.com/how-to-set-up-your-google-account

7 KEYS TO PLANNING YOUR CAREER PATH:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2013/07/7-keys-to-planning-your-career-path/

CHAPTER LENGTHS:

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com/2013/07/chapter-length.html

BUILDING TENSION:

http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2013/05/building-tension.html

HOW TO FORMAT AN EBOOK FOR KINDLE:

http://freelanceswitch.com/freelance-writing/format-an-ebook-for-kindle

MANAGING YOUR FACEBOOK PRIVACY:

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/the-ultimate-guide-managing-your-facebook-privacy.html

THE TOM CLANCY ACTION ROMANCE FORMULA:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-12-tom.html

FIGURING OUT YOUR STORY’S TURNING POINTS:

http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2013/07/24/figuring-out-your-storys-turning-points/

The Story Plot Twist

The story plot twist is a turning point or new bit of information that changes the reader's perception of the story.

The twist can be at the end like in THE SIXTH SENSE where we realize that Bruce Willis' character is not only helping the little boy deal with his ability to see ghosts, Willis is a ghost himself, so we have to rethink the movie to see that this truth has been there the whole time, but we've not noticed it.

A twist can also be within the story. For example, the reader discovers halfway through the novel that the hero's sidekick is really the bad guy, and everything the hero thinks he's learned or gained is now suspect.

One of my favorite types of twist is the expectation reversal. Sometimes, this involves the writer using a popular story trope like the marriage of convenience.

When the reader realizes this trope is being used, she will expect it to follow the standard pattern of the pretend marriage-- the characters will avoid sexual and emotional entanglement, they will gradually become emotionally and sexually closer, then their sham marriage will become a real marriage.

With the expectation reversal, the trope is set up, but the characters will do the exact opposite of what is expected. For example, the sexual relationship they've agreed not to have may happen almost immediately when they get drunk on their wedding night.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK has another excellent example. Indiana Jones is chasing after the men who have kidnapped his girl, and a huge bad guy with an enormous sword steps in front of him. The expectation is that Indie will pull out his sword, and they will fight.

Instead, pragmatic Indie pulls out his gun and shoots the man so he can continue after the girl. The big fight trope is not only skewered, but also the viewer realizes that Indie doesn't buy into the heroic yet stupid belief that a fight must be between equals with equal weapons no matter what the cost. For Indie, the girl's life is more important than the heroic ideal of an equal fight.

One of the most important things to remember about using a story twist is that the story itself must hold together and have depth of character and plot without the plot twist. The twist is the cherry on top of the sundae, not the sundae itself.

The other thing to remember is that you have to play fair with the reader and give them bits of information that will give them little clues to the big twist. It shouldn't appear arbitrary or come from thin air.

If Bruce Willis' ghost character interacted with live people as well as with the little boy, the viewer would have felt cheated. Instead, they think back to him talking to a wife who is ignoring him, not because their marriage is in trouble, but because he is dead, and she can't see him, and the viewer will give a gasp of surprise and a bit of a wince at missing all those clues to what was really happening.

If you can make the reader gasp with surprise and rethink what she's read, your twist has worked.

Links of Interest

PRODUCTION COSTS FOR THE SELF-PUBBED AUTHOR:

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2013/07/key-book-production-costs-for-self.html

BODY LANGUAGE AS SUBTEXT:

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/07/using-the-subtext-of-body-language-in-storytelling-2/

INCLUDING THE FIVE SENSES:

http://blog.janicehardy.com/2013/07/guest-author-marcy-kennedy-how-to.html

WHAT TO DO WHEN A BLOG ENTRY STIRS UP CONTROVERSY:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2013/07/12/how-to-deal-with-a-firestorm-of-controversy-on-your-blog-before-it-suffocates-you/

MARKETING, BOOK GIVEAWAYS:

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2013/07/marketing-101-book-giveaways/

DO YOU NEED A LITERARY EXECUTOR?

http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/do-you-need-a-literary-executor/

THOUGHTS ON AGENT-ASSISTED SELF-PUBLISHING:

http://publishingperspectives.com/2013/07/agent-assisted-publishing-an-interrupted-debate/

MARKETS, SHORT STORY:

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2013/07/short-story-sub-op.html

HOW TO GET YOUR AVATAR TO APPEAR EVERYWHERE

http://www.authormedia.com/how-to-get-your-avatar-to-show-up-everywhere

BUILDING A GREAT CRITIQUE GROUP:

http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/10-power-tips-for-building-a-great-critique-group/

CREATING EMOTIONAL RESONANCE AT THE END OF YOUR BOOK:

http://thewritersalleys.blogspot.com/2013/07/before-you-type-end-creating-emotional.html

Avengers, Assemble

Think of the beginning of a scene as an establishing shot in a movie.  You must give the reader visual clues about where the scene is and who is in it.  You must also tell them when the scene is if time has changes much from the scene before it.  

If you have four characters in a car, you must tell the reader within the first paragraph or two that Tom, Dick, Jane, and Harriet are in that car.  You can’t have Jane and Harriet chatting in the front seat for five pages then have Dick chime in on the subject in the back.  That will jerk the reader right out of the scene as she tries to figure out where Dick came from.

In a scene with a lot of people, it’s not necessary to mention everyone who will be important, but you should show a character who hasn’t been mentioned as there come forward to join the conversation or whatever, and the viewpoint character should react to their presence.  The new character may need to say why they are there if their appearance is totally unexpected.  

Remember that you are building a visual and emotional scene for the reader, and you must offer enough information and clues to allow them to see the scene themselves, or you lose them as readers.