Is it worth coding a story with humor since humor is so subjective?
I have a story with an improbable plot. My feelings are some will just find it silly and might get laughs and don't use the code.
Is it worth coding a story with humor since humor is so subjective?
I have a story with an improbable plot. My feelings are some will just find it silly and might get laughs and don't use the code.
humor
"Imbalances between these humours were thought to be responsible for different moods and character traits – sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholic are all terms still in use today. Good health was felt to reflect a state in which the four humours were in balance; diseases arose when they were not."
Putting a u in Humor may mean you are unbalanced. Or British.
There should always be a 'u' in 'Humor'. Whether there should be two u's, however, is potentially a regional dispute.
In no case should there be a double-u, however.
A number of codes are subjective. How funny must something be to code it as humor. If it causes a chuckle, is that sufficient humor or must it generate a full all-out laugh.
Use the codes as you feel is appropriate. If you find it humorous, then code it that way.
I too find 'humor' to be subjective - I think I've used it on a couple of stories. I left 'humor' off another story that I didn't consider humorous, and a couple of readers e-mailed to say they found a scene (not the same) side-splittingly funny.
Statistics on how many readers search on the 'humor' tag might be illuminating.
AJ
Is it worth coding a story with humor since humor is so subjective?
I've always taken the tag as subjective. It would not dissuade nor encourage me to read a story.
I think I have noticed a few examples where it's likely (mis-)used just as a possible safeguard against criticism of completely ungrounded fantasy, a practice I wouldn't encourage as it renders the code even less meaningful as it might be. Things like intentional parody should have it, but even that's subjective.
I realize when I would use the humor code.
In the freezer section of the grocery story are ice creams on a stick call Good Humor. If I write a story about a girls' club that masturbate using Good Humor ice cream and then they orally clean each other up then I can code the story "humor".
Yes.
The exception, of course, is if you're British. Because normal readers would wonder when the humor was supposed to show up.
Nah. Most brit humor is either too subtle or too obscure for most in murica. Although britcoms are usually the only tolerable comedies.
Some of it would be a bit obscure for merkins. They'd get some of the jokes, but miss other parts.
I reject the hypothesis that merkins get every joke from Monty Python.
Considering they watched Seinfeld, they really only needed to get a quarter of the jokes from Python to find it unbearably funny...
unbearably funny.
Is it unbearable because it doesn't have bears? Or is it because none of the characters are bare? That might be barely funny. There are bears with poles, polar bears. Grizzly bears might be grisly. There are bears with colors but it might not be politically correct to mention black or brown bears.