DubstheDuke
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Messages
- 301
- Points
- 103
So, to give a bit of context, I wrote (And I say wrote because I've finished writing it), a litRPG dark fantasy series, and comedy is something that has always been an interesting part of the writing experience for me.
So when I first started writing my series, I'll be honest- my comedy was bad. Like really bad. I purposely tried to make things funny, and really all that ended up doing was making people cringe at my over the top attempts.
However as I wrote the series, I started doing more subtle comedy which played more into the characters and situations themselves, stuff like irony and references to things which happened earlier in the series.
One thing that I've notice though, or at least for me, is that the funniest comedy is almost always something that's an inside joke.
What do I mean by this?
A joke that would only ever be understood by someone who has read the series.
I really like using comedy which specifically requires someone to understand everything that has happened prior. If someone were to flip to that page and read it, there wouldn't even appear to be any comedy there, but for someone who has read the story, they know.
I also really like using sarcasm and sarcastic characters for comedic purposes. For example, the following line.
"What am I, a lawyer? I may be pure evil, but I'm not THAT evil."
One of my favorite lines by far.
As far as the irony goes, I quite like using serious scenarios to create dark comedy which we can laugh at, only because we are outside of the scenario. For example, writing from the perspective of a stupid villainous character, speaking their thoughts in narration as if they are the objective truth so that the readers laugh at the idiocy of such a character. Kinda like Philip in Overlord, if anyone knows about this.
Something like this.
Without a doubt, the plan was foolproof.
He had taken every precaution to ensure his own safety.
He would escape this horrible place, and he would live another day.
And then proceed to a scene where all said preparations go wrong, and said character dies horribly.
So yeah. That's about my experience with comedy. Since my series wasn't supposed to be comedy focused, but rather comedy was a biproduct of the events in the series, I think that keeping it subtle and not over the top is the best way to go. As for series which are focused on comedy, perhaps this wouldn't be the right approach. So? For the writers out there, what is your experience with comedy? And for the readers, what type of comedy do you think works best?
So when I first started writing my series, I'll be honest- my comedy was bad. Like really bad. I purposely tried to make things funny, and really all that ended up doing was making people cringe at my over the top attempts.
However as I wrote the series, I started doing more subtle comedy which played more into the characters and situations themselves, stuff like irony and references to things which happened earlier in the series.
One thing that I've notice though, or at least for me, is that the funniest comedy is almost always something that's an inside joke.
What do I mean by this?
A joke that would only ever be understood by someone who has read the series.
I really like using comedy which specifically requires someone to understand everything that has happened prior. If someone were to flip to that page and read it, there wouldn't even appear to be any comedy there, but for someone who has read the story, they know.
I also really like using sarcasm and sarcastic characters for comedic purposes. For example, the following line.
"What am I, a lawyer? I may be pure evil, but I'm not THAT evil."
One of my favorite lines by far.
As far as the irony goes, I quite like using serious scenarios to create dark comedy which we can laugh at, only because we are outside of the scenario. For example, writing from the perspective of a stupid villainous character, speaking their thoughts in narration as if they are the objective truth so that the readers laugh at the idiocy of such a character. Kinda like Philip in Overlord, if anyone knows about this.
Something like this.
Without a doubt, the plan was foolproof.
He had taken every precaution to ensure his own safety.
He would escape this horrible place, and he would live another day.
And then proceed to a scene where all said preparations go wrong, and said character dies horribly.
So yeah. That's about my experience with comedy. Since my series wasn't supposed to be comedy focused, but rather comedy was a biproduct of the events in the series, I think that keeping it subtle and not over the top is the best way to go. As for series which are focused on comedy, perhaps this wouldn't be the right approach. So? For the writers out there, what is your experience with comedy? And for the readers, what type of comedy do you think works best?
