Murder She Writes

It’s amazing to me how I can look back in my life and not remember when things happened, or even that they happened, but I can remember entire seasons of certain TV shows as if I had lived them myself. (Or entire plots of books I’ve only read once, but which had a profound affect on me.) It’s a symptom of this world we live in now–this go go go all of the time, where we only decompress briefly in front of a TV screen or in the pages of a book… rarer to take time out just to sit on the porch or visit with friends.

On the other hand, I had some of the best lessons in life from the TV that I grew up with, and sometimes, I have a hard time remembering that these people aren’t actual crazy relatives that came and camped out on my sofa for a while.

My earliest memories are of the Red Skelton comedy show. (Which I am almost sure was something I saw in re-runs.) I don’t remember a lot about him–but that he was hysterical to me as a kid. I’m almost afraid to go back and watch them now, for fear it’ll ruin the memory. Then there was the Lucille Ball shows–which was also re-runs. Lucy, of course, was incredibly funny, though the one thing about Lucy’s humor that didn’t quite resonate for me was that she was always funny as a victim — of circumstance, of poor choices and cloudy judgment, or of trying to assert what she wanted to do in the face of a male dominated society. I actually more admired the woman behind the comedienne, the real Lucy, who was the brains behind so much of that success.

After Lucy, there was the Carol Burnette show. (I know… with all of this, I’m dating myself.) I liked Carol, and some of the skits. I really mostly enjoyed when they ended up cracking each other up and couldn’t hardly continue with the scene. (The show was live, I believe, at least in the beginning.)

What I didn’t realize was that I was learning a lot about comedy as a kid when I watched these shows. I became the smart ass teenager and learned to out-think the bullies around me. These shows taught me about comedic timing and pacing and it was obvious when a skit (or a scene) went on too long, when they tried for one funny too many. It was one of the best educations regarding scene writing (classic conflict vs. goals).

The 80s were and odd time for me. I went from being a teenager to being a college student to suddenly being a married woman who had a kid. Bang, just like that, I was suddenly supposed to be all grown up and aware of the world, and I was barely aware of my own neighborhood, so suddenly confined to that life of young (broke) stay-at-home mom. There were almost no other young people on my block, and we lived in a house that was sooooooo desperate for remodeling, it looked like Boo Radley’s house. Actually, it was probably worse than Boo Radley’s house. At any rate, there were rare moments when I got to watch TV–pre VCR recorders and DVRs–and one of my favorite shows was Designing Women. For one thing, they were (mostly) smart women, who were funny, who cared about each other and the issues of the world. They talked about things you’d love to sit and talk about with your friends, and they fought and made up and got cranky and fed up and eat up with the stupids and filled with forgiveness and I loved that show.

But the stand-out for me was Julia Sugarbaker, played by Dixie Carter. As written by Linda Bloodworth-Thompson, Julia was one of those iconic characters which was made to be remembered. As played by Dixie Carter, she was etched into our culture with a smile and charm and an absolute steely nerve and delivery of lines that made you want to be her. Dixie’s own class and comedic timing, grace and razor sharp delivery were all impeccable, and she became one of my heroes. She was proof that you could be Southern and smart, classy yet with rapier wit, liberal in some things, conservative in others. She wasn’t a mouthpiece for feminism, and yet, she was one of the strongest feminist on TV at the time.

I became aware, then, of just how much of an impact a fictional character could have in my life. There were conflicts I faced better because of her, arguments I won because of her, choices I made because of her influence, and I felt like she helped me grow up into the womanhood I had been thrust into. I have three aunts, all of whom lived far enough away that I wasn’t close to any one of them, and Julia Sugarbaker sort of stood in for that figure, that wise, funny, smart ass aunt who gave you the answers you didn’t always want to hear, but did it in such a way that you didn’t mind.

She was the forerunner of the kind of characters I would fall in love with, the ones I’d want to write. The Bobbie Fayes and now, in the new one, Avery.

The nice thing was, she seemed to have found happiness, with a loving husband and two daughters. She was thriving in her career, still, and just as sharp as ever at age 70. My only hope is that I one day write a character who has as much an affect on someone as Julia Sugarbaker had on me.

Thank you, Linda Bloodworth-Thompson, for writing her, and to Dixie Carter for bringing her to life. She will be missed.

So how about you — what fictional characters did you grow to love, or fall in love with? Who had an impact on your life?

(p.s. — I will be checking in between flights, as I am on my way to Phoenix, for the Desert Rose Conference. I’ll be teaching two workshops there: (1) Voice — what it is, isn’t, and how to hone your own and (2) Sex Scenes — the when, what, how, where, and why of them. Plus pop quizzes and prizes. I’ll comment here throughout the day as I can!)

My last couple of blog entries, I’ve been breaking down how to write humor. The problem with looking at the nuts and bolts of the craft of humor is that the craft itself isn’t funny. It’s like a magician showing you how the trick is done: cool to see, but ultimately, sort of a let down because it’s no longer magic.

That said, if you want to catch up to where we are today, check how Part One and Part Two and then come back. We’ll wait. Go on, scamper.

(While they’re gone… let’s vote that the new readers buy drinks, okay? And chips.)

I left off in the middle of listing some mechanisms for humor. This is not going to be an exhaustive list (cannot stress that enough). Think of them as handy brainstorming guidelines, but be aware that you can combine them, as well. Okay, lessee…. up next is:

Exaggeration / HYPERBOLE –

This is one of my favorites (go figure) because it can be used subtly (yep, I know, seems like a contradiction in terms: subtle exaggeration), and it can be used balls out.

Subtle: She loved the pie so much, she’d marry it if it were legal. Which it probably was, in the deep south. So long as it was a Christian pie.

Big: She knew she wanted that man. She had always known. The Universe had known. Eleventy billion years ago, some DNA somewhere paired up with some other DNA and they hatched a plan so that right now, at this moment, she would be here in this spot where she’d see him walking across the vast, empty parking lot, and she’d be able, with just the right touch, to stomp on the gas pedal of her little Prius and get up enough speed to mow his lying, cheating, bastard ass down without a single witness in sight. The Universe was smart like that.

Understatement –

Understatement works by utilizing a reversal of expectations and downplaying the obvious with sarcasm (generally). It’s difficult to give an example out of context, so here’s one from Bobbie Faye’s book 3 (WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON). Bobbie Faye, Cam (her ex who is very unhappily helping her find her fiancé, Trevor), and Trevor’s sniper friend, Riles (who hates Bobbie Faye), are all approaching a very large casino boat on Lake Charles. Riles looks over the boat and, knowing of Bobbie Faye’s propensity for disaster:

“I’m stunned they don’t have your picture with a slash through it out here somewhere,” Riles muttered. “That’s a class-action lawsuit begging to happen.”

Misguided proclamations —

A moment later, in the bar inside the casino, Bobbie Faye is assuring the bar’s owner, Suds, that she is not going to cause any harm to his establishment.

“I promise, Suds. That last time was a total accident.”

“Honey, you took a chainsaw to three booths.”

“They beat up Lori Ann after school.”

“I know, Sugar, I’d have held the idiots down for you, but the booths were innocent.”

…and a couple of exchanges later…

“I’ll make this quick and clean and then we’ll be outta here. Give me some time before you call the cops.”

And by this point, anyone who’s read anything about Bobbie Faye knows that place is toast. At that point, it’s just a matter of how it will unfold.

Other misguided proclamations occur when we see, for example, that there is a problem, but the person the scene is focused on tries to imply that there isn’t one by claiming, “Oh, move along, nothing to see, all is well.” The comedy comes in the anticipation of how bad that is going to rubberband back on them.

Shock Value –

Socially inappropriate behavior will either horrify us or make us laugh, and sometimes, both at the same time. Someone naked where they aren’t supposed to be, someone saying the first thing that comes to their mind when they shouldn’t, someone acting completely age inappropriate or status inappropriate. For example, if you saw Queen Elizabeth on a YouTube video humping the leg of her husband, you’d be horrified. If she were drunk and people were trying to stop her, but afraid to touch her, but trying desperately to salvage her dignity, you’d be laughing. If she were humping the leg of a gorilla, you’d probably be in tears.

The problem with shock value is that it can almost immediately backfire on you if the reader / viewer thinks too much about what they’re seeing. It elicits a purely visceral, fast reaction, but we are also almost always embarrassed by the fact that we found something like that funny. To pull this one off requires a lot of perfect timing if it’s going to be the central moment around which the comedy is built. Alternately, shock value can be the premise of an entire piece which does gag after gag after gag. (Monty Python stuff, lots of slapstick comedies, farce and satire utilize shock value frequently.)

Comeuppance –

This is when the bad guy gets his due, done in a funny way. The easiest example is when Daffy Duck has grabbed away the gun from Elmer Fudd (I believe) because he’s being selfish and screams, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” and it goes off, blowing his beak around to the back of his head. Or when Wile E Coyote is determined to trick the poor Road Runner and ends up off the edge of the cliff himself, scrambling for purchase of thin air, knowing he is doomed.

(Obviously, this is used with non-cartoon moments. But you cannot help but love Daffy and Wile E.)

Humiliation / Self-Deprecation –

Entire careers can be made off these two. For humiliation, think Jim Carrey in LIAR LIAR. In that movie, Fletcher, an attorney, cannot lie for 24 hours due to the birthday wish of his young son, and the truth-telling is about to kill him because he has no control over it. Here’s one of many exchanges:

Office Worker: Hey, Fletcher, how’s it hanging?
Fletcher: [groans] Short, shriveled, and always to the left.

For self-deprecation, think about nearly any movie Hugh Grant’s been in. Four Weddings and a Funeral, for example:

Charles: Ehm, look. Sorry, sorry. I just, ehm, well, this is a very stupid question and… , particularly in view of our recent shopping excursion, but I just wondered, by any chance, ehm, eh, I mean obviously not because I guess I’ve only slept with 9 people, but-but I-I just wondered… ehh. I really feel, ehh, in short, to recap it slightly in a clearer version, eh, the words of David Cassidy in fact, eh, while he was still with the Partridge family, eh, “I think I love you,” and eh, I-I just wondered by any chance you wouldn’t like to… Eh… Eh… No, no, no of course not… I’m an idiot, he’s not… Excellent, excellent, fantastic, eh, I was gonna say lovely to see you, sorry to disturb… Better get on…
Carrie: That was very romantic.
Charles: Well, I thought it over a lot, you know, I wanted to get it just right.

and here, this one is his friend, Tom, speaking:

Tom: Oh, I don’t know, Charlie. Unlike you, I never expected “the thunderbolt.” I always just hoped that, that I’d meet some nice friendly girl, like the look of her, hope the look of me didn’t make her physically sick, then pop the question and, um, settle down and be happy. It worked for my parents. Well, apart from the divorce and all that.

and here:

Tom: The great advantage of having a reputation for being stupid: People are less suspicious of you.

And from the third Bobbie Faye book:

She’d sunk a boat. A whole boat. A boat that was bigger than a house. Bobbie Faye had never sunk something bigger than a house before. Where does that go on a résumé? Hobbies?

Sarcasm –

Webster’s defines sarcasm as the “use of irony to mock or convey contempt.” In book 3 (WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON), Bobbie Faye and Riles argue. Often.

“Right, because it feels so much better to think that there might be two homicidal maniacs out there who want me dead.”

“As opposed to all the regular people who want you dead?” Riles asked.

“Shut up.”

In Jennifer Crusie’s FAKING IT, Tilda has just completed a van Goh like mural on a restaurant wall and her client is looking it over.

“You didn’t sign it ‘van Goh,’  did you?” Clarissa bent down. “Wouldn’t that be forgery?”

“Not unless he had a Kentucky period we don’t know about.”

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The other night, my husband and I went out to eat at one of our local favorites, a family oriented sports bar. (We don’t really care that it’s a sports bar–it’s close by and happens to have pretty good food and we can almost always grab a booth, even on a really busy night, because they know us there.) As soon as we sat down, though, the waiter warned us that it was “Trivia Night.” We’d somehow managed to miss this phenomenon last spring semester, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. There was the typical out-going party-hearty Young Guy (backwards baseball cap) who joked with the crowd as they were giving everyone a chance to go sign up for the game, and there was a constant mention of various drinks they had at the bar that was on special for the night. But they handed me comedy gold with the next thing…

It seems they decided to give out a free shot of Jägermeister to a “much deserving” young woman whose birthday was that day. She was finally 21 and after three years of getting kicked out of the bar for drinking underage…

We just have to stop right there for a moment. Three years. Three? She is a college student, who kept going to the same bar, a place which knew her by name, and tried to drink illegally, even after they’d thrown her out before? Three years? At this point, I am expecting someone to walk up with the IQ of a garden hose. I am worried that she drives. Or votes.

…and now that she’s 21, they are going to give her a free shot. Because seriously, that’s what we want to do here, we want to take the person with the least common sense in the room and compromise the two brain cells that are still operating.

So they call her name and as soon as she walks past us, I realize why the cute young stud who was in charge wanted to give her the free shot. I happened to look at her face, which was sweet and demure and she looked as if she could be teaching Sunday School. I’m pretty sure not a single man in the place managed to glance all the way up to her face: this is a girl whose boobs were so large, they had their own gravitational pull, and there is going to come a day when she realizes that gravity is not her friend. I probably should have stopped her and thanked her for choosing “clothing” as one of her options for the evening, though we might need to discuss whether or not something see-through that is tied around things the size of Jupiter qualifies as actual clothing. I was quite impressed, however, with the symmetry of the tattoo around her left nipple. Good steady hand for that. My compliments to the artist.

Seeing her there reminded me of two different motorcyclists, probably a couple of months apart. The first was a super bad ass Harley dude. We were stopped at a red light and he pulled up even with me. Typical tats, worn biker boots, leather jacket, beard that implied that he hadn’t shaved or bathed in months. Truly, a gritty looking guy. And as the cars in front of him inched up a little, he inched up, too, and I saw something pink and red out of the corner of my eye, so I looked back at him…

And he was wearing a backpack made of red fur. RED FUR. With pink tassels. RED FUR, PINK TASSELS, people.

Last week, I was alone about three cars behind a motorcyclist who was stopped at a red light. He was in the left lane, I was in the right or I’d have never seen him. He was a relatively small guy on a big Harley, dressed in typical biker gear, though I have to confess, I didn’t look that closely. What I saw, instead, was that he had glued big plastic spikes to his helmet. Imagine the Statue of Liberty kind of pointy spikes with a wider base, pyramid-style, but arranged like a mohawk. These things were big ass spikes, too–at least ten inches, all the way from the front of the helmet to the back. Ten. Inch. Spikes. The spikes were bigger than he was. I desperately wanted to pull alongside and tell him that it’s called “overcompensation.”

Comedy is everywhere.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked (here) about how to utilize humor in your writing, and to set the stage for the actual methods, we talked a little bit about the goal and purpose of humor: to illuminate character, show the irony of the situation and to set up for something else more humorous down the line.

There are a ton of reasons why you may want to utilize humor, even if what you’re writing is a very dark story. (Unrelenting darkness can overwhelm the reader and cause them to put down the book for a respite; humor, however, can provide that respite and keep the reader reading.)

Comedy writing–the actual words on the page–depend on rhythm, pacing, style of language, imagery. Like music–staccato rhythm = fast song. Comedy has a rhythm. The set up to the joke has to pace just right, and you have to know when to stop.

But first, you need to know where to start.

There are a lot of different methods that can be used for comedy. Very few people are truly without humor–even your darkest protagonists. Even your darkest villains. You have to simply find the right kind of method to illustrate their particular kind of humor. (And when you do, it’ll add a layer to that character, a way for you to show us an element about him or her that will illustrate what matters to them, as well as their world view.)

In Bobbie Faye’s second book (Girls Just Wanna Have Guns), the opening sentence is:

Bobbie Faye Sumrall was full up on crazy, thank you very much, and had a side order of cranky to spare.

That sets the tone for the book — we know this is going to be a whacked out crazy book — and it uses exaggeration as a technique. If there’s any doubt, this paragraph follows soon after:

Bobbie Faye and the Universe were like warring spouses locked in an eternal battle, trying to blow each other up rather than admit that the other was savvier. (The Universe, by the way? A big fat cheater.)

I purposefully chose hyperbole as a voice for Bobbie Faye because I knew when I first started writing the series that there were going to be elements of the fantastical — exaggerated action scenes, huge set pieces, crazy, physics-defying moments. Those things would have floundered if Bobbie Faye herself used normal language and never resorted to exaggeration.

Here’s a short list of mechanisms I use for humor. (This isn’t an exhaustive list.)

Incongruity — if what the character gets is different than what they expect. In MEN IN BLACK, when Jay (Will Smith) is going to get the super-terrific laser from Kay (Tommy Lee Jones), he’s expecting to be handed the biggest baddest alien killing gun in the arsenal. And Kay hands him something the size of a tiny water pistol.

Rule of Three — three examples are generally a great rhythm, but you have to make sure they appear in order of least-to-best, smallest-to-largest. In other words, if you have three examples, you don’t want the best example first because the other two will then suffer by comparison and the schtick won’t be as funny. Rule of three can be seen as something spread out over the course of the story… with the third either being an exaggeration or a reversal from the other two, causing the reader to be caught by surprise. That third example generally illustrates some hidden truth.

Here’s an example of a Rule of Three in action. It’s from GALAXY QUEST (one of my favorite comedies of all time). Sir Alexander Dane is played by Alan Rickman as a classically trained “important” actor who got stuck playing this popular character on a cheesy sci/fi (a la Star Trek) TV show. Fred Kwan was once the “cute precocious kid” who “flew the ship” and is now grown up and Jason Nesmith is played by Tim Allen.

Sir Alexander Dane: I played Richard III.
Fred Kwan: Five curtain calls…
Sir Alexander Dane: There were five curtain calls. I was an actor once, damn it. Now look at me. Look at me! I won’t go out there and say that stupid line one more time.

then a minute or so later…

Jason Nesmith: Am I too late for Alexander’s panic attack?
[Alex hides his face in despair]
Jason Nesmith: Apparently not.

then a beat later, when Sir Alexander Dane won’t go on stage:

Jason Nesmith: You WILL go out there.
Sir Alexander Dane: I won’t and nothing you say will make me.
Jason Nesmith: The show must go on.
Sir Alexander Dane: …Damn you.

Truth — telling the fundamental truth in the moment that most people won’t admit out loud. (An example of this is in PRETTY WOMAN, when Julia Robert’s character is at the polo match, and the two snooty women point out to her that she’s just the girlfriend du jour, that everyone’s after Richard Gere’s character for his money. She says, “Really? Well I’m just here for the sex.”)

Lies — the audience has to be in on the lie and how that lie is a twist in the moment. In MEN IN BLACK, when Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are discussing the “flashy thing” that can erase a person’s memory, they have this exchange:

Jay: Did you ever flashy-thing me?
Kay: No.
Jay: I ain’t playing with you, K. Did you ever flashy-thing me?
Kay: No.

Situation — physical comedy that stems directly from the situation itself, and usually illustrates a truth. Using PRETTY WOMAN again, that moment in the restaurant when Julia is trying to figure out how to eat the escargot, and she has no idea, but she doesn’t want to embarrass Richard by asking. She does her best to follow the lead of the men around her, and still, as soon as she does what they’re doing successfully, the snail shoots across the room and a waiter catches it. “Slippery little sucker,” she says, covering, and they all agree. Situational comedy can run from the slapstick (Jim Carrey in many of his movies… for example, in LIAR LIAR, when he cannot tell a lie for 24 hours due to his son’s birthday wish, one of the scenes demonstrating it is him walking out of an elevator where everyone is making a horrible face, holding their nose and when he’s out, he turns around and brags, “It was meeeeee.”) But situational comedy can run all the way to the sublime, the subtle moments. I loved the humor in the moment in SENSE AND SENSIBILITIES when Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant) shows up in London to visit Miss Dashwood (Emma Thompson) and has already gotten all of the way into the room before he realizes that the woman to whom he is engaged (but has not seen in a very long time), is also present. It is awkward and funny and a little heart-breaking at the same time.

Reversal of Expectations — The name says it all–the character expects one thing but gets something else entirely. In LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (a movie built on reversal of expectations), the entire family has traveled across several states in order to take the daughter to a beauty pageant that none of them really believe in, but they’re doing it to be supportive of her. They have no clue about the beauty pageant culture, and the movie is really about them coming to terms with certain truths about themselves and each other and finding a way to be a family. Once the competition has begun (and this is a SPOILER if you haven’t seen the movie), the daughter has to perform her talent for that portion of the contest. Her grandfather (who has died along the way on the trip) had been teaching her the dance, and she’s very very proud of what she’s learned. It hasn’t occurred to the mother or the dad to check to see what kind of dance the grandfather taught her…

And so, when the music starts, it’s SUPERFREAK and Olivia (who is 7) start performing an outrageous strip-tease/pole dance/slutty girl grind that is so horrifyingly cringe-worthy, and so hysterical. The other mothers are hiding their girls’ eyes and the woman in charge is very snottily trying to stop the dance and evict Olivia from the contest. But her dad runs up on stage and starts dancing and soon enough, the whole family is up there, and it’s terrible and funny at the same time. But the moment of the reversal of expectations–when that girl rips off her “tear-away” pants (I think she has gym shorts on underneath) and tosses them out to the crowd? Utterly brilliant comedy.

Okay, I’m going to stop here for this week–I have a bunch more for next week, which will be the last comedy week. I’ll have a bunch more examples of comedy mechanisms (like the above) and we’ll talk about tone (wry, black humor, ironic, dry, hyperbolic) and literary means (analogies, similes, metaphors, etc.).

For now, how about a fun game: tell me an example of humor. Any example, any movie, book or BLOG. Anywhere. And I’ll see if I can name the mechanism at work. [I'll be checking in about lunch time.] I’ll also be really curious if anyone can name a funny moment in a darker film (any genre). And just to make this fun, all commenters are eligible for a $15 Amazon or B&N gift certificate. So getcher examples cracking!

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You know it’s happened to you… you’ve been in a group of people and someone says a line that begs for a funny comeback. Maybe you even come up with something mildly wry, slightly amusing, and the conversation ebbs and flows on to other subjects, and then about ten minutes later, the perfect line pops in your head. Worse, about two days later, the exact right bit blooms in your mind and you can see now how it would have gone over (they would have laughed) and then it would have segued better into the next bit of conversation.

Welcome to humor writing 101.

I think one of the things that surprises a lot of people when they ask me about the humor of the Bobbie Faye books is that I always say, “I layer it in.” No, the original first draft is usually not funny. Maybe it has a few chuckles in there, possibly even one laugh-out-loud moment, but I’m one of those writers who needs to know, organically, where I’m going and where I’ve been in order to create the right humor. Even my editor was a bit stunned by this process. (Seriously. She’d read the first draft and get a slight bit nervous. I’d assure her that the funny was coming, I just needed to make sure the logic of the story worked. Then she’d read the next draft and she’d inevitably write to me, “The funny! Is back!”) So just because you don’t “write funny” through a draft doesn’t mean you can’t.

First off, a lot of you are going to say, “I can’t write comedy.” And you’d be right. Also? You shouldn’t be trying to write “comedy” — unless you’re a stand-up comedian. Generally, writing balls-out comedy isn’t the goal and I’ve seen many writers avoid using humor as a tool because of a misconception of what they’re supposed to do with it. So let’s start there:

What do you think the goal of humor is?

If you said to make the person laugh, you’d be wrong.

Yeah, I know. Crazy.

1. The goal of using humor in your story is to illuminate character.
2. The secondary goal is to show the irony of the situation, whether that irony is dry, wry, bleak, black, twisted, or incredulous.
3. The third goal of humor is to set up expectations for the next part of the story.

The end result can be laughter. (Or chuckles or amusement.) But don’t make laughter the goal. You’ll be holding the wrong end of the bat if you do.

The hard part? Try to accomplish two or all three goals each time you use humor.

Now, you don’t have to have a character who is trying to be funny in the moment to utilize humor. (For examples, I chose moments of “amusing” humor–most of the laugh-out-loud moments take context to work. I’m going to give a few examples from book 1 and then dissect them to show what I think that scene/humor is accomplishing. Next blog, we’ll tackle other aspects of writing humor and I’ll use examples from movies that we all have in common.)

We use forms of humor to cope with everyday stress as well as big, scary moments. In CHARMED AND DANGEROUS, the first Bobbie Faye book, Bobbie Faye and Trevor (her hi-jacked sort-of “hostage” who, for his own purposes, has decided to help her) are on the run through the swamps. They are trying avoid police and bad guys as Bobbie Faye has sort of inadvertently robbed a bank (total accident) and the item she’d gone to the trouble of trying to get in the first place–the item kidnappers want or they’ll kill her brother–is running ahead of her in those swamps. She’s not going to stop:

They swam a half a mile around the bend in the bayou when Trevor motioned for Bobbie Faye to stop. Standing in the middle of the water, they could see a hundred yards upstream where two alligators sunned themselves on fallen logs. Trevor glanced over Bobbie Faye’s shoulder. “Going back is asking to get caught. We need to get a little farther upstream before we move out of the water.”

“Maybe we can walk past them. I’ve been told gators are pretty shy.

“You’re sure this was someone who actually liked you who told you this?”

“Um, not entirely.”

He caught her unsure expression and shook his head, amused.

[Dissecting humor almost guarantees it's no longer funny... however...]

This scene is the beginning of the phase of the book where Bobbie Faye is really getting to know Trevor, her hostage. [She isn't entirely sure that he isn't a criminal and she'd hijacked him earlier to help her follow the thieves who stole what she needed.] So far, in spite of what she’s dragged him into, he’s been even-keeled, smart, and not the least bit afraid of teasing her. She sees his sense of humor with the “liked you?” comment, but at the same time, she gets something in the show-don’t-tell way: he thinks she’s rational and even-keeled enough in the face of disaster to be receptive to teasing. He also respects her thoughts on the matter–he’s not just telling her what to do. Simultaneously, he’s diffusing a very scary situation (alligators) (which shows his character) and she responds with self-deprecation, not defensiveness, which shows a bit her her character. While illuminating character, the humor (are you sure?… not entirely) echoes the irony of the situation: Bobbie Faye is a popular local Contraband Days Queen who is famous for sometimes being unpopular.

This scene also sets up something innate for the forward motion of the plot: Bobbie Faye will not stop. She will think about crises in self-deprecating terms, she will recognize the danger, but she’s not going to panic and she’s not going to stop. Her brother’s life is in jeopardy. That’s all that matters to her, and if she has to plow over half the state to save him, she will. Alligators should have been the scary part for her… particularly nesting alligators who are very protective of their young. Ironically, the alligators turn out–almost immediately–to have been the very least scary thing in her day.

A little while earlier, Trevor has nicknamed her “Sundance.” Trevor has a knife out and has instructed her to walk over to him. She says:

“Great–you’ve nicknamed me after a guy who dies in that movie. I’m not feeling all swooney happy over that knife.”

He seemed genuinely puzzled. “If I didn’t do anything to you when you shot my truck, why would I start now?”

“Better cover?”

That’s the comic beat… the “better cover” — which sets up his response:

He laughed. “We have really got to work on these delayed survival instincts, Sundance. Now c’mon, we don’t have much time.”

Which sets up her first inkling that maybe she could trust him. (This will be a major issue throughout the book and the series.)

And dammit if she didn’t find herself smiling and stepping forward. The man could probably charm the snakes clean off Medusa’s head and make her think it was her own idea.

Which sets up what Trevor’s doing for the rest of the book (and series).

If I had just told you (whether through introspection or with them verbally sparring) about the beginning of trust there, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Because you, the reader, know that if a woman sees a big ass knife and isn’t backing away screaming, or tensing in fear, or having a hundred different negative thoughts, if she’s collected enough to exchange quips with the guy, then she doesn’t sense that she is in real danger. Sure, she’s cautious, but that innate trust is at work, and the humor tells us that. (Character, also, ironic observation of her situation: her best hope is her own hostage.)

I rewrote this scene a half a dozen times before finding the right phrasing that led to the right question from Trevor that allowed for the “Better cover?” line. [That line has a triple meaning, which she doesn't even realize 'til later.] I knew I needed a moment where that beginning of trust was crystallized in her mind through her own choice and action. Up until this point, she’s trusted his help more as a survival instinct / reaction. Now, she’s making a conscious choice to step closer to him, knowing he’s faster than her and he could hurt her here. I also knew I wanted to give her a funny line in that moment (which shows him a lot of her character-under-pressure). I refer to these as my “Scooby-Do” reactions… you remember the cartoon… the moment where Scooby has seen something suspicious or scary and makes that, “uuuhhhh?” noise.

Now, humor isn’t right for the tone of every book. In fact, in straight romantic suspense, it should be used sparingly and in thrillers/romantic thrillers, probably even less, because inserting a humorous moment in some otherwise scary event ratchets down the fear factor. It’s called “comic relief” for a reason, so you must consider the overall tone of your story. However, there are times when humor can be darker, more negative and instead of ratcheting down the fear, it can underscore it in a way that straight narrative wouldn’t. For example, Cam, Bobbie Faye’s ex (the detective tracking her) is talking to his partner, Benoit, who observes:

“Yeah, well, if you really wanted her to ask you for help, maybe you shouldn’t have arrested her sister.”

“Fuck off. I was doing my job.”

Benoit laughed. “Right. And she took it so well, too. You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen armed cops dive for cover and hide from an unarmed person?”

The irony (the cops afraid of her, in spite of them being armed) sets up a whole series of smart assed remarks and suppositions from everyone around Bobbie Faye, and that notion is reinforced because an “eye-witness” is telling us about it. The other irony is that Cam clearly wants to be the one helping Bobbie Faye and he’s done pretty much everything that would guarantee that he’s the last person she’d ask. And, on top of this, he’s the one chasing her down now, putting her in more danger–which he wants to avoid, no matter how pissed off he claims to be on the surface.

Cam is extremely angry with Bobbie Faye for not having called him for help with whatever crisis this is, and a moment later, Cam thinks:

He hadn’t expected the head-spinning, Defcon one, stupendous meltdown that had been Bobbie Faye when she found out he’d been the arresting officer. It was not quite a year later and he still could feel the blisters from her fury.

Hadn’t she known what it meant that she was dating a cop? What the hell did she expect? he’d done the right thing. He stood by that. But accusations were hurled and words were said that neither could take back.

“You still writin’ checks for that ring every month?”

Cam hated the way Benoit knew him so damned well. The night Bobbie Faye had ended it, Cam had thrown the ring in the lake. She’d never seen it, had never known, and he was never going to tell her.

“Every month. And I’m gonna keep writing them for the next two years just to keep remembering what a stupid idea that was.”

“Maybe if it takes writing out a check to remind yourself you don’t want to feel the way you do, then–”

“Don’t even finish that thought.”

Benoit turned and leaned his back flat against the wall, one ankle crossed over the other, arms folded and his brown eyes closed. “You can’t shoot her, you know.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

Cam is obviously in denial. I’m using humor here in a darker, jabbing sort of way. In the context of what happens just before and just after, this exchange takes on another undercurrent: fear. Cam is afraid for her and pissed off that she’s put herself in a position again where he has to be afraid for her. He absolutely does not want to care for her, and he more than cares: he’s frightened.

Benoit is Cam’s closest friend (now that Bobbie Faye is no longer his best friend), and Benoit isn’t going to stand idly by and let Cam hang around in denial, especially with so much on the line. There is also a juxtaposition of the two kinds of humor that is telling in a subtle way: Bobbie Faye and Trevor’s humor is teasing/self-deprecating, open, whereas Cam and Benoit’s exchange is more closed, painful. The kind of humor Cam and Benoit use here is pointed, sharp, and it reflects where Cam is in his life: in pain, angry, denying it. I don’t have to tell you he’s still in love with her, or how bitter he is about their break up. (She is just as angry as he is, and her side of the story is wholly different, which we see and explore throughout the trilogy.)

So, first up in our discussion is that the goal of humor should be threefold, and we need to try to accomplish all three at once, if possible. Secondary to that is laughter–or amusement. Out of context here on a blog, I hope these examples were at least amusing. In context, I hope they are funnier. Heh.

Next time I blog, we’re going to talk about the different kinds of humor you can use and how you choose which kind for which moment. We’ll also talk about actual ways of structuring the humor and I’ll go find some “before” and “after” moments in the copy edits so you can see how that layering process works. Finally, we’ll talk about structuring the moment (rhythm, pacing, flow, sound) and then how to structure the moments overall in the story.

For now, though, please tell me some of the funny movies you’ve seen or funny books you’ve read and we’ll use the ones that are most common for dissection next time! What were your favorite parts? Why?

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