Come for the Mysteries. Stay for the Characters.
My last prompt of April combines my two themes, National Humor Month and National Poetry Month, into a funny haiku. I love haiku but working in the humor was difficult. If you want to read how it’s done, visit Lori Z. Scott’s poems. The weird thing is I wrote this poem almost a week before we got three inches of snow dumped on us.
Snowstorms in April?
Winter, such rude behavior
Only hurts your rep.
For more haiku prompts, click here.
What funny haiku are you inspired to write?
To celebrate National Humor Month, I have an author interview with Philip Rivera. We met through an Instagram loop and I’ve read early drafts of some of his hilarious humor stories about life in the suburbs. Raising my kids in the country, I’ve found his stories eye-opening to a world that is both very different and exactly the same as mine. No matter the setting, but parenting is parenting. Welcome, Philip!
Lots of idle time pushing my lawnmower back and forth across my lawn like a mindless, suburban drone. This combined with other quotidian activities like taking out the trash, taxiing the kids in my minivan, and co-managing a household of four kids. I was kinda like Belle, from Beauty and the Beast, fluttering from one domestic duty to the other, wondering if there was more to this suburban life. Instead of bursting out into song about this existential search (which would have alarmed my neighbors), however, I wrote about the ‘more’ that exists in suburban life, or at least the ‘more’ I imagined.
Most real-life events have a story nugget buried deep within them. As authors, our job is to mine it out and polish it off with a little creative license and over-the-top imagination. For example, one of my stories was inspired by the everyday act of bathing my two kids in the bathtub. My daughter was one year old and my son was three. She was in the process of potty training. He enjoyed imagining his rhino-man action figure was a deep-sea diver who defused missiles. Add some fatherly creativity and the story almost wrote itself.
The previously mentioned story, Rhino vs La Caca, had so much built-in humor and gag-worthy potty mishaps, it just needed a story flow added to it.
I’m currently working on the sequel to my first book, and I’m trying to expand my creative abilities. One story I’m writing is not based on a specific life situation, but more on the universal parenting experience of keeping a stirring baby asleep before it erupts into screams. I’m portraying the scenario as if I was a SWAT team bomb defuser entering a booby-trapped apartment. It’s a fun setup, but getting the details and tension just right has been challenging.
Jack Handy, Dave Barry, and Jenny Lawson (although I could do without the profanity).
One of my favorite humorous stories was written by Dave Barry about how he, his wife, and infant daughter were pulled out of the line by security at an airport for a more intensive inspection. As he said, what terrorists brings their baby with all her gear to the site of a planned attack?
Humor is everywhere! It’s the sudden twist that our brain wasn’t expecting. Start practicing by looking for it in your everyday life. Keep a notepad with you (just don’t write it down in front of your spouse if they are the subject. Not that I’ve ever done that.) Identify the main character in your scene and what his/her conflict is. Then identify the unexpected twist. Take the real-life ingredients and stretch them out into a humorous or awkward scenario. For example, a man at the self-checkout line keeps getting the “unidentified item in bagging area” alert. A clerk comes up to reset the protesting machine multiple times. Stretched out: the automated register accuses him of passing off a bag of dog food as a box of tic tacs and calls in the SWAT team, who bursts through the ceiling and apprehends the unwitting criminal. Just another day at the grocery store.
What a great way to look at a situation that would probably have me grinding my teeth at the check-out computer.
For another interview with an author who knows how to write humor, check out this post with Jen Turano.
*****
Meet the average Joe who’s a father to three, a husband to one… a hero to all. When he’s not fighting crime in his fighter-jet-cloaked-as-a-minivan, he teaches high school and patrols the ‘hood for story material.
In Suburban Luchador: The Cul-de-sac Chronicles, an ordinary guy conjures up extraordinary tales about his family, marriage, and teacher job. He’s the man who’s making mortgages, meatloaf, and the middle-class sexy again.
This is the anthem of those who envision mowing and mopping as legendary movie scenes. These comically self-deprecating short stories will inspire you to take a fresh look at the wondrous, valiant and touching moments in everyday life.
Dive into Suburban Luchador: The Cul-de-sac Chronicles and ride shotgun on a domestic road trip of epic proportions.
*****
Award-winning author and family man, Philip Rivera, is out to dominate suburbia, one lawn at a time. Besides moonlighting as a humor author, he doubles as a high school teacher, diaper changer, princess ballerina ballet judge, and ninja fighter. His stories prove that minivans, child-rearing, husbandly duties, and teaching high school can be the subjects of epic adventures. His book, Suburban Luchador: The Cul-de-sac Chronicles, is a collection of humorous slice-of-life stories loosely based on his average Joe misadventures. Philip’s stories highlight the magic found in mundane life… if only we let our imaginations get carried away.
Follow his relatable and comical suburban struggle on Instagram @philipdrivera. Get free short stories by signing up for his author updates at philipdrivera.com.
My prompt ties to my guest blogger this week, author Phillip Rivera. He writes hilarious stories about life as a dad in the suburbs. This photo inspired me to write a fun, domestic story, but it could also be a humorous superhero story, with this toddler possessing powers like Jack-Jack in The Incredibles movies.
Who wants to play? What so funny about this photo? Here’s my inspiration:
I can’t hold out much longer. When I agreed to babysit theses kids, I didn’t realize they were outlaws. No, more like Vikings–every room they enter, they raze to the ground. Six hours a day, three days a week. They could triple my pay and I still would spin on my flip-flop and march away.
“Emmie?” says a high-pitched voice which would sound cute if I didn’t know who it belongs to.
I press my lips together, holding my breath.
“Emmie, how come you hiding under there?”
Because it’s National Humor Month and Nation Poetry Month, I wanted to combined the celebrations into one prompt and decided on a limerick prompt. Then I discovered I can’t write limericks. Haiku, yes. Acrostic poems, yes. Limericks–I can do the first two lines and get stuck. Here’s the limerick I started that was inspired by the photo:
There once was a lion and girl
Who decided to give friendship a twirl.
And that’s as far as I got. I even tried writing a limerick on my inability to write one:
There once was a writer in Ohio
Whose poetry made her sigh so.
I’m still stuck. I console myself with the fact that even gifted poets, like Lori Z. Scott, who will be guest blogging this week, have trouble with different poetic forms. She writes about her effort to tackle a sonnet.
If you can write limericks, please leave it in the comments below. Or if you get inspiration for finishing either of mine, I’d love to read it!
If limericks stump you like they do me, try last week’s spring acrostic prompt.
No matter what genre, if a few characters in a story display a sense of humor, that hooks me as readily as quirky characters or an intriguing plot. Click here for a previous post on the importance of humor.
Inserting humor into a story, especially one with a serious premise, can be difficult. I’ve discovered how to add humor to any story by knowing my characters extremely well and allowing their natures to dictate their sense of humor.
In my YA mystery A Shadow on the Snow, my main character Rae is quiet, shy person. Most of her funny remarks are in her thoughts. Her uncle Hank is the family joker. He likes to tease relatives to show his affection, especially Rae’s father, his brother-in-law. This kind of humor seems appropriate for a laid-back, extroverted character. Rae’s father, on the other hand, uses sarcastic humor. That fits with his being a cop of fifteen years experience.
Rae jams in a band with two guys. Houston is from Texas. His sense of humor is exaggeration. When Rae asks him how he came to work in Ohio, he answers, “Like any good Texan, I was undone by a woman.” The other guy Chris is very reserve, and Rae finds it difficult to read his facial or body language. He has a very dry sense of humor that Rae only figures out when she sees an ornery glint in his eyes.
As I’m writing a scene, and a joke or humorous observation comes to me, I have to make sure I assign it to the appropriate character. Sometimes, I’ve had to discard something I think is funny because no character in the scene would make that kind of joke or comment. Writers don’t want to break the illusion of reality they create around their fiction. Jamming a joke in the mouth of a character just because I think it’s hilarious will shatter that illusion quicker than just about any other mistake.
My joker, Uncle Hank, can’t suddenly turn sarcastic because I want to dazzle readers with my wit. Or Rae’s father can’t tell a thigh-slapping joke when up until this point in the story he’s only used sarcasm. Readers won’t buy it, or even worse, feel cheated that a character has suddenly swerved from the personality they’ve come to understand.
For more on writing humor and comedy and what’s the difference, check out this very helpful article on “Almost an Author”.
What stories or shows do you think demonstrate how to add humor naturally?
JPC Allen Writes