Writing Funny…and Not so Funny
Funny Fiction VS Not
Word Chart of The Big Lebowski script.
Photo by Thomas Hawk | SRC: Flickr
I have always admired the Coen brothers.
These are the guys that gave us Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski, (yes, The Dude does in fact abide) but also Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men, originally a novel by Cormac McCarthy under the same name. Speaking of, have you read The Road, by McCarthy? If not, and you like Apocalyptic Fiction, you should (after you pick up Truncated for free here). Anyhow, the fact that they can go from making some of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, and then go on to make gritty films, including True Grit (pun probably intended) is really impressive.
Most people like to stay in their lane.
Do what works. Over and over. Not to say that staying in your lane doesn’t have its positives, or that it should be something that’s looked down upon, because hey, maybe that just heats up the artist’s noodle. The thing that always struck me, and still strikes me about the Coen brothers is that they just seem to do whatever the hell they want. And what they want to do is whatever inspires them at the time. That’s badass.
Bison staying in their lane on two lane highway, but what if there were more lanes?
Photo by Scott Taylor | SRC: Flickr
It is not an easy thing to do, in a way.
If you’ve read articles about successful writers, and probably many articles by non-successful writers, you may have ingested something along the lines of, “Don’t write out of your genre… ever.” And really, I think all of us writer people want to have some success at what we do. Hopefully, make a living off the writing itself, quit our day jobs, all of that. So that’s sitting there in the back of your mind as you contemplate stepping out of your lane… from a moving car… on the autobahn… doing one-twenty… into gravel… and broken glass… wearing a salt suit.
“Books by Christopher Moore.”
Photo by clemsonunivlibrary | SRC: Flickr
I don’t know if Christopher Moore has ever written a “serious” book.
Well one that wasn’t the funniest thing I’ve ever read in my life, as most of his books were to me. There is no other author who has made me laugh out loud so hard that I was in tears. I think I’ve read most of his books. If you have not read Christopher Moore, but want to laugh your ass off, try: Practical Demon Keeping, A Dirty Job, Lamb, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Secondhand Souls, Coyote Blue, You Suck… just read them. Now, I don’t know enough about Christopher Moore to know if he’s written some hardcore violent thriller, but I’ve read all of those books and a few others, and they were all just a trip down funny-bone lane. If he did write a “non-humorous” horror, or some “serious thriller” I would like to read it.
I wouldn’t say that I’m incredibly well-read on the best of days.
I’ve read a fair bit of Stephen King, and I can’t recall a comedy he wrote, one that I have read anyhow. I’d read some dark books by Dean Koontz, and I wouldn’t call the Odd Thomas series comedy, but it was for sure humorous, while being as serious as a heart attack at the same time.
It’s hard for me to come up with authors who do write in genres that are completely different in tone, because I don’t think a lot of them do it. Maybe they tried though, maybe wrote under a pseudonym, maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t. Maybe that’s why they say not to do it… whoever they are. And maybe, like I said, I’m just not well read.
Dean Koontz speaking at the ALA speaker series.
Photo by The American Library Association | SRC: Flickr
I never set out to write novels to be successful at it.
I simply wrote for the fun of it (pure joy seemed lame to say) I just wanted to make movies. But even in that story-telling format, I had come across a certain prejudice (sort of) about how people had come to perceive me. If I told someone that I had written another screenplay, or had raised some money for another movie, they would always ask if it was another horror. “It’s not another creepy horror is it? You’re weird,” was often the response, or probably that’s just how I heard it.
A RESURRECTION
I wouldn’t necessarily call “A Resurrection” a horror.
Maybe more of a slow burn dread movie, though it was marketed quite a bit differently. It was interesting to me how people assumed I’d stick to that genre. We’re somehow wired to think that people are just, and wholly, a certain way, that Edgar Allen Poe wrote some wonderful crazy stuff, and always would, just like Lovecraft. I suppose if either of them had written a cheesy romance story, their fans, who expected their usual wonderful crazy stuff, would be asking… WT holy F?
Which is why when I started writing, what is hopefully humorous fiction with the Truncated series, and even Westgate, I should have probably been more apprehensive about staying in the lane that I’d paved for myself.
But I wasn’t. I didn’t care. I hadn’t written them for an audience that I had known existed in the first place (not that it didn’t) I’d just never come across a humorous post-apocalyptic series. Or even one book for that matter. I was just writing something that was fun and interesting to me at the time.
TRUNCATED: APOCALYPTIC AND LOVING IT
I’ve never known for sure the reason I’d written my first book, Truncated: Apocalyptic and Loving It.
But when I’d heard Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club) talking about writing on the Tim Ferriss podcast (author of The 4-Hour Workweek), it helped me fill in those gaps between doing, and knowing why doing. Chuck had said something to the affect that: there is a reason that you are writing what you are writing, and it’s a deep and meaningful reason to the writer, whether she or he knows it or not. It made me go back into my thoughts about why I had written the Truncated series, and even Westgate. It also made me wonder why they were on the humorous side. I was actually surprised by what I had found when I looked inside myself to answer those questions out of pure curiosity.
I’d write about it here, but the content would be too long and disturbing for most readers.
And would likely result in me finding my family sitting on my couch with a therapist for a much-needed intervention. So here I am, with ideas for the Truncated series rolling around in my limited imagination, and a sequel to Westgate brewing like a spicy pasta sauce, and I got this damn idea for a mystery thriller trying to poke its way through the dizzying marinara. Well, do I just keep doing what people think I’m going to do, expect me to do, that they say not to do, or try my hand at something I’ve never attempted before? Something, according to the writing-advice-givers, was tantamount to author suicide.
Then I thought, if I only had six months to live, what would I write?
Migrant, a mystery thriller, with close to zero humorous aspects, pretty much demanded to be written. So, I did it. I had no choice. I imagine if I had an agent or manager, they would have fired me.
Starting out, I didn’t know what to expect. Truncated is written in first-person. Shifting to third-person, as I had in Westgate was a bit of a change, one I was surprised to find as much easier. I could take different points of view, tell the story from different perspectives. First-person is one person often trying to figure out what people are saying beyond the subtext and human subterfuge. And while I found third-person writing to be easier, it was maybe just easier due to the fact that it was the third book I had written. So, now shifting gears, and leaving out all the funny crap (which is probably just how I see the world) I didn’t know if I could even do it. It was apples and squid, let alone oranges.
What I found was, that it was just the same.
The characters determined how they viewed the world around them, and if they didn’t find much humor in it, then neither did I. I could have written Migrant as humorous, but it didn’t want to be. I couldn’t even imagine it as such. I had no control. The story did.
Now, writing my sixth novel, Rogue, which is an FBI thriller, and even grittier than Migrant,
I find myself having just as much fun as writing my humorous stuff. It’s just a different juxtaposition. Not even a huge — as I thought it would be — shift. We can look at anything as funny or tragic, and more often than not, they seem to be both. I wonder why more writers and directors don’t do it. It’s a hoot.
I suppose I can’t get on board with the whole “successful” writer path. I don’t write to make money, though it would be nice. I write because it’s fun as hell, and instead of putting up walls around a certain style or genre I can never escape from, I’ll just keep doing what heats my noodle, regardless of the consequences. I guess my "lane" is more like a drunken fish swimming in the ocean with no internal compass. I like that.
Thank you, Coen Brothers.
Coen Brothers walking into uncharted darkness by Sam Javanrouh | SRC: Flickr
Dear Reader,
Did I miss anything? Do you have great examples of multi-genre authors I didn’t mention? Leave your comments below.
Check out my books Truncated (free) and Westgate ($2.99) below!