Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

I feel it works better when understated

Thanks.

I encountered an example of that at the weekend. My writers' group had a meeting which ended with a writing exercise.

In my attempt at a story, I had the Queen's Emissary complain that villagers refused to help him find the McGuffin, despite his showing them the Royal Seal. His underling replied, "These villagers couldn't tell a Royal Seal from a Royal Walrus." That struggled to earn even a couple of polite titters.

After the meeting I heard a couple of attendees chuckling at the name I'd given to the Queen's Emissary. I had rejected Sir Gawain and Sir Lancelot as being too Arthurian then my mind went blank so I chose a random word as a placeholder, intending to go back and replace it with something more suitable at the end. I didn't have time. They name they thought was so funny was Sir Hazelnut.

So understated (unintentional even), rather than sledgehammer in face worked better. But this was in Southern England. Other continents may have different mileages.

AJ

A Bare Ate My Thing by ShannonQ is one I find humorous because it is a very hard style to write in and to my mind it works.

I liked it, and I agree that it's really hard to pull off a story in that style. Thanks.

AJ

Thanks for the recommendation. I read it but it was too over-the-top for my tastes. Blame the Atlantic divide!

AJ

I feel the Humor tag is only relevant to the story where the whole story or a significant part of it (say more then 80%) is humor or comedy. Most of my stories have some jokes or humor in them, somewhere. However, it's only when they're like Some Ultra Short Stories and Grammar etc. where the whole story is intended to make you laugh do I put the humor tag on it.

I agree, I'd only use a humor tag is the entire story isn't intended to be taken seriously. By the way, why don't we also have a "satire", "farce", "utterly humorless" or even "unintentionally humorous" tags (though I suspect the last is covered by the "idiot" tag, describing the author)?

he uses the 'humor' tag in his Magic series.

Lazlo has 66 stories posted on this site. My personal belief is many of those stories merit the humor code, but he chose to not add it. From what I found, his Magic series stories are the only ones that have the humor code.

There is a corollary to your original question of "what makes a story merit the 'humor' tag". That corollary is "Why is the 'humor' tag omitted from stories that merit the tag. I think it is because the author wrote the story for a reason and that reason was not to make their readers laugh.

I like to add humorous quips to my stories. I think they add to the character development for most people like to make humorous remarks. However, I haven't written a story that was intentionally humorous.

Perhaps our readers compare an author's works with other erotic based works and find many stories lacking in any form of humor, and by comparison, some stories are labeled by the reader as humorous.

My personal assessment of Lazlo's stories is that many of them are a satire on our society. They remind me of the writings of Terry Pratchett, who uses humor in his satirical works.

Satire, especially light satire, can be very humorous when done right.

Humor is very important, especially in non-humorous stories, as it lightens the story tensions, allowing the characters and readers to take a deep breath and start again. It's vital for pacing and alleviates the sometimes continually mounting story tensions.

I'm certainly no comedian, but many of my most commented on lines are the quick one-liners which help relieve tense situations.

Thank you, I've added them to my reading list.

AJ