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Humorous Satire of cmix-Type Caveman Stories

Franco 🚫

Guy from present is sent back to paleolithic times, but with humorous take on cliches of this kind of story. Examples:

Defeats caveman in battle and is told he inherits his defeated opponent's wives. Turns out the women are very unattractive - short, fat (probably true due to early child bearing), unclean, smell bad, missing teeth, eyes, etc. - but they force him to have sex with them.

At victory feast protagonist is enjoying the meal and asks what the meat is. Is told it's his opponent.

He finds his knowledge and modern weapons, etc. are not as effective as he thought, like in Poul Anderson's story The Man Who Came Early (summary here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Came_Early).

etc., etc., etc.

Vincent Berg 🚫

Your ideas a good for a quick grin, but without a driving conflict, the humor generally won't carry a story far. Adding in to an otherwise excellent story, they make it much more enjoyable.

Moral: humor doesn't sell stories, plot does. Write a good story, and (hopefully) the humor will follow.

docholladay 🚫

Its all in how the story is presented as well. It has to have a beginning and an ending with some type of plot.
You can tell it in a method that highlights the serious side of it or any one of many other emotional factors. Some balance the different emotional factors while comedy for example uses the story and plot to make people laugh.

A good story is like a good song. At times they can reach inside a reader's heart.

Replies:   Vincent Berg
Vincent Berg 🚫

@docholladay

Its all in how the story is presented as well. It has to have a beginning and an ending with some type of plot.

One time, when humor is truly effective, is to relieve the tension in an exciting and overly serious chapter, say when the main character gets seriously injured, or faced a serious setback. In those situations, the comedy seems especially funny, but it also lightens the readers' load.

Thus, most authors see humor as yet another tool in their toolbox, rather than a plot device of its own.

In other words, build your plot first, establish your conflict points, develop your characters, and then interject humor where necessary in the story.

That said, there are plenty of places to gently poke fun at time-travel, do over and post-apocalyptic stories.

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