I was at a party last night, and ran into a man I hadn’t seen in a long time. In school, he was very funny. And he is still funny today.
I told him what I do and he said he had plans to write a funny book himself.
He indicated that since he was a funny guy, it would be easy. I didn't have the heart to break it to him that, funny is not enough.
That's a hard lesson that I had to learn. As I've mentioned before in these blogs, the funny for me came much before the writing. And when I shifted over, I found that there was so much more I needed to know.
Just because you can get a waitress to laugh hysterically by talking about your tonsillectomy, doesn't mean the banter between a waitress and a customer in your book, will be funny. You have to write living breathing characters to whom the reader can relate. Otherwise, they won't laugh.
In person, you have your delivery going for you. On paper, the words are naked and have to illicit some form of response on their own.
As a writer of books, you need perseverance and endurance. Most people who are funny at cocktail parties enjoy it because it’s easy. They simply say things off the top of their head. With a book, you need to think a lot more. It is 300 pages of, sometimes, grueling work.
You must be ready for rejection. A lot of party-ers get laughs because everyone at Cynthia's Birthday is in a lighter mood. Even if they thought the joke about the monkey and the squirrel wasn't funny, they'll probably laugh. They're ready to have a good time and, of course, drinking does help. When you write a book, you can’t depend on the reader’s good mood, or on them being drunk.
Not to mention that you need to know how to create a story, and make the plot work and about a zillion other things.
Being funny is not enough!
Have fun every day!
Steve
I told him what I do and he said he had plans to write a funny book himself.
He indicated that since he was a funny guy, it would be easy. I didn't have the heart to break it to him that, funny is not enough.
That's a hard lesson that I had to learn. As I've mentioned before in these blogs, the funny for me came much before the writing. And when I shifted over, I found that there was so much more I needed to know.
Just because you can get a waitress to laugh hysterically by talking about your tonsillectomy, doesn't mean the banter between a waitress and a customer in your book, will be funny. You have to write living breathing characters to whom the reader can relate. Otherwise, they won't laugh.
In person, you have your delivery going for you. On paper, the words are naked and have to illicit some form of response on their own.
As a writer of books, you need perseverance and endurance. Most people who are funny at cocktail parties enjoy it because it’s easy. They simply say things off the top of their head. With a book, you need to think a lot more. It is 300 pages of, sometimes, grueling work.
You must be ready for rejection. A lot of party-ers get laughs because everyone at Cynthia's Birthday is in a lighter mood. Even if they thought the joke about the monkey and the squirrel wasn't funny, they'll probably laugh. They're ready to have a good time and, of course, drinking does help. When you write a book, you can’t depend on the reader’s good mood, or on them being drunk.
Not to mention that you need to know how to create a story, and make the plot work and about a zillion other things.
Being funny is not enough!
Have fun every day!
Steve