Writing Humor with Douglas W. Clark 5/24/03

Thu May 22 18:53:16 2003

Event end time:

Thu May 22 21:10:38 2003

Douglas Clark

Hi, Mary

Mary Rosenblum

Hi, Doug! Glad you could join us, tonight.

Douglas Clark

Thanks. It's good to be here.

Mary Rosenblum

Tonight we're visiting with Douglas W. Clark. Doug has written humor for a variety of venues, including fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

A full-time writer and editor most of his professional life, he has also

worked as an environmental consultant, a laboratory director, and a

lecturer and teacher. Doug, welcome!

Douglas Clark

Thanks.

Mary Rosenblum

Doug, I have to admit that I've been looking forward to this evening

not just because I can't write humor worth beans, but for those of you in the audience…

Doug and I are old friends, from before either of us was published!

Douglas Clark

That goes back a ways.

Mary Rosenblum

No kidding! And we've both come a long way!

Douglas Clark

And I've been looking forward to this for the same reason.

Mary Rosenblum

So when DID you start writing? Before me, as I recall.

Douglas Clark

I started trying hard to write professionally back when I was an undergraduate in college.

Mostly I tried to write for the confession magazines...

a venue long since gone the way of the dinosaur.

Mary Rosenblum

Too bad. I know a lot of writers who paid the rent that way. Big names. When did you find your way to humor?

Douglas Clark

After I was married, I tried writing humorous articles a la Dave Barry and Erma Bombeck.

They were terrible attempts, and I was encouraged by well-meaning loved ones to give up writing humor for many years.

Mary Rosenblum

Well meaning loved ones are the bane of a writers' life at times!!! :-}

chatty lady

Yes, no one confesses anymore ...don't think anything they do is wrong, lol

senicynt

True confessions? Isn't that now the National Enquirer?

Douglas Clark

No, The National Enquirer was around then, too. It's just different.

Supposedly, it's not fiction

but then the operating myth of the confessions was that they weren't fiction either. No one got bylines with the confession magazines, as all the stories were written in first person and supposedly true.

Mary Rosenblum

What kinds of humor have you done, Doug? Fiction, right?

Douglas Clark

Novels, short stories, articles and poetry.

Mary Rosenblum

Poetry, too? You are WAY out of my league!

chatty lady

Really ,don't you think funny is something you ARE and not something you can learn? Some people just think funny.

Mary Rosenblum

That's what I've always heard, too, Doug. Is it true?

Douglas Clark

Yes and no. I'm not a person who can generally tell jokes.

In fact, it's not at all necessary to be the life of the party to write humor.

I DID have to learn to temper my humor attempts.

The first efforts were too self-conscious, too labored.

Humor is like cooking a souffle -- it requires a light touch.

Not easy for someone as heavy handed as me to learn.

Mary Rosenblum

Well, I can actually make a pretty decent soufflé, so maybe there's hope for me yet! LOL

senicynt

I couldn't tell a formal joke if my life depended on it. But I throw out quips and puns as the opportunity presents itself.

Mary Rosenblum

That's humor, yes? How can you do that in writing?

Douglas Clark

Okay, how? I read a lot of humor and analyzed how it worked, especially humorous pieces that resonated for me.

rupbert

Shouldn't it just come naturally, like over coffee with a pal

Mary Rosenblum

Or should it just SOUND as if it comes naturally?

Douglas Clark

Analyzing humor has been compared to dissecting a frog -- you may learn how it works, but the life goes out of it in the process.

Nevertheless, humor can be learned, at least the how of it.

Yes, it should sound natural, just like a well-performed symphony should sound as though each note follows logically and necessarily from the ones that have gone before.

But the actual doing of it can be very laborious

Mary Rosenblum

In other words, as with writing in general...the craft shouldn't show?

Douglas Clark

Exactly! But craft CAN be learned.

Mary Rosenblum

In other words, even if you're not a 'naturally funny' person, you can learn to conduct that orchestra well?

Douglas Clark

Yes. Humor is a matter of mental outlook, and you can train yourself to see the humorous possibilities in life.

Mary Rosenblum

Can you give us an example of that, Doug? I'm really curious.

Douglas Clark

Okay, one of my recent stories is about the downfall of Camelot and the death of Arthur.

The inspiration came from Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur, not generally considered a real crack-up kind of writing.

Mary Rosenblum

Definitely not a light topic!

Douglas Clark

But I kept seeing the possibilities of a skewed view of Mordred and his part in the fall of Camelot.

I took the example of the Lieutenant Keejay Suite (I'm sure I've misspelled that)

and made Mordred an invented person within the story.

He's just a rumor cooked up by one of the other characters, a creation that then goes horribly astray.

But he never really exists in the story, despite the effect the rumor of him has on the other characters.

Mary Rosenblum

And since your plot capsule here, sounds as if it could be a tragedy, just as easily as

a comedy, I'm assuming that the characters' interactions and actions give it the light tone?

Douglas Clark

Yes. The effect in this case is a dark humor, for the tragedy of Camelot's fall still exists within the story. But it's modulated, given a more detached perspective than in Mallory.

chatty lady

So it is not plagiarism if you use another story, dissect it and change it to make it funny? I like that idea.

Douglas Clark

It's not plagiarism because

Malory wrote his work a long time ago and all rights to the material have gone into the public domain, and because I changed the story enough, made this telling of it uniquely mine.

Mary Rosenblum

Now I do want to mention here the rather recent case where

the estate of Gone with the Wind’s author sued a woman for her parody of the book.

The estate lost, but it may still be on appeal.

Douglas Clark

Really? I hadn't heard about that.

Mary Rosenblum

At issue were the characters. The author of course used the same characters.

Douglas Clark

I'm no lawyer, but Gone with the Wind is probably considered fair game for parody.

Mary Rosenblum

The court thought so. And so did most writers!

It IS something to keep in mind before you go parodying Stephen King! He can afford lawyers!

Although I bet he wouldn't fuss. :-)

rupbert

Do you mean a good joke allows the person to think?

Douglas Clark

The Lord of the Rings, Bored of the Rings, parody worked because it changed the characters enough to make to skirt that problem.

Mary Rosenblum

That's true! They were quite different.

Douglas Clark

I think the best kinds of jokes do make us think.

They also allow us to view what otherwise might be tragedy from the safety of an outside perspective.

txmolly

How do you know when humor is appropriate? Some may be offended

Douglas Clark

It's always a touchy area.

And effective humor is probably always going to antagonize someone...

There are, however, some subjects that are just too touchy for popular humor.

Right now, a humorous story about the Middle East probably would not go over.

Which is too bad, because I have a couple of novels I'd like to write along those lines. But there would be no market for them in the foreseeable future.

Mary Rosenblum

ut you know, good fiction offends some readers.

If you write about any topic or character in ANY way controversial. And you're gonna have to wait for that middle eastern light book, Doug!

Douglas Clark

Yes, good fiction offends in much the same way.

chatty lady

A member of my critique group was writing a TRUE comedic story about Peter Sellers who is dead but she still had to get his estates permission. That was just a month ago.

Douglas Clark

I'm surprised she had to get their permission. Dead people can't be libeled.

Mary Rosenblum

That does happen, if the estate is territorial about 'Great Auntie’s' books or characters.

Mark Bourne just had to get permission to do a spoof of Sherlock Holmes.

Douglas Clark

He probably did it as insurance, though I doubt a suit against him for it would have held up. Does anyone still own Sherlock Holmes? I thought he passed into the public domain decades ago.

But who can sustain the cost and effort of a lawsuit, even if the decision is favorable to the writer.

Mary Rosenblum

Exactly! The family has maintained the copyright.

hoosier

Do personal experiences creep into your humor writing?

Douglas Clark

My personal experiences definitely creep into my humor. In fact, they fuel it.

What I see as funny comes from how I have experienced the world.

rupbert

Would you agree that more women than men read humor?

Douglas Clark

I haven't heard that. Although I have heard that more women read at all than men.

senicynt

I see humor as the unexpected. It catches us by surprise and tickles our funny-bones. Humor is looking at something from a non-standard angle. It pushes the envelope. When you open the envelope, instead of a message, there's confetti. It runs on the rim of the social convention pool and throws rocks in to see the splashes.

Douglas Clark

That's a great definition of the way humor works.

Mary Rosenblum

I like that one, too. :-) Now...how to apply it!

arfelin

In your stories and novels do you focus your humor through characterization or plot or both?

Douglas Clark

Both characterization and plot.

Sometimes my character is essentially comic, as the protagonist in my three comic novels,

and sometimes the situation is skewed, resulting in a plot that is comic.

This is the case in a recent story of mine, "Dungslinger," about a guy whose job is disposing of toxic dragon dung.

Mary Rosenblum

I love that idea! Now that is a comic plot! Which seems to be easier, Doug?

Douglas Clark

I don't honestly know which is easier. Sometimes one occurs to me, sometimes the other.

arwarner

When writing humor into a story, do you start with the basic story and then add the funny stuff or do you tend to write it in from the begining?

Douglas Clark

What's hard is when I don't see any humor inherent in a piece, but feel it necessary for some reason to produce a work of humor.

If the humor isn't there, in the material from the beginning, I don't think it can be overlaid very effectively.

Sometimes one can get away with forcing humor onto a non-humorous piece, but not as a regular thing.

Usually what comes as a result of forcing humor is a dead piece.

Mary Rosenblum

In other words, you really need to find either your humorous plot or the character twist that adds humor before you begin?

Douglas Clark

It's better to let a piece be non-humorous and write what's implicit in the material than to force matters.

mbvoelker

What about the role of humor in "regular" fiction? When is it a good idea and when is it just an extraneous distraction?

Douglas Clark

The humorous angle needs to be what sparks the thing from the beginning.

Small touches of humor effectively placed can almost always enliven a work of fiction, if appropriate to the overall subject matter.

As for knowing when the humor would be a distraction rather than a help, that just has to be learned through experience.

Mary Rosenblum

Where would you use it most effectively...say in a sword and sorcery fantasy plot? At what sort of point in the story?

Douglas Clark

You have to be willing to write some really awful attempts at humor before figuring out how to do it effectively.

Sword and sorcery takes itself very seriously, as a rule, so the humor could not be directed against the genre itself.

But secondary characters especially can do or say things that add a bit of comic relief.

That said, it's hard to know when the humor will work.

My comic novels satirized many of the conventions of fantasy fiction.

I was therefore very surprised to see the books accepted as genre fantasy.

Mary Rosenblum

So the humor might be best used, say, in a point between two strong dramatic peaks in the story? As a light moment in contrast to the sword fight or escape that preceded it?

Douglas Clark

Yes, to create a moment of relief between points of high intensity.

janp2

What do you think about using small touches of humor in non-fiction: i.e. informational or instructional material?

Douglas Clark

I've done it with good results, but one has to be careful.

Humor won't work in, say, technical articles

but can be used to introduce technical topics to the general public.

rupbert

I've done it in a career change article and it lightens up

rupbert

a stressful topic, indeed!

Douglas Clark

I'll bet! That sounds like a good place to use humor.

Mary Rosenblum

No, kidding! Talk about a grim topic!

Douglas Clark

Humor is often a way of obtaining relief from a stressful issue in our lives.

I wrote my comic novels after a crippling illness. The novels formed a retreat from the harsh realities of my life

and yet, my illness inevitably worked its way into the stories as well.

Humor was both an escape from the situation

and a way to view my life from a safer, more distant perspective.

Mary Rosenblum

I guess this is one of those life moments when 'all you can do is laugh'...but not everyone pulls that off! Have you found it easy to sell your humor?

Douglas Clark

Editors often say they're eager to see humor, but I've found that it can be difficult to sell. Not everyone considers the same things funny.

Mary Rosenblum

That's true, but then again, not everyone thinks 'good fiction' is the same thing, either!

Douglas Clark

When humor fails to work, a piece of writing can fall flatter than it would sound with no attempt at humor at all.

But when humor works, then the world laughs, and everyone feels better.

senicynt

Sword and sorcery humor might be things that affect the characters, spells that go wrong, like Shrek, right?

Douglas Clark

Shrek is kind of a different case from sword and sorcery.

Sword and sorcery readers can be pretty intense about how their genre is protrayed.

But Shrek was for a younger audience, not familiar with the conventions of sword and sorcery as a genre.

Mary Rosenblum

What about 'Princess Bride?" Wasn't that a deliberate spoof of all the S & S fantasy conventions?

Douglas Clark

However, spells that go wrong and other forms of misdirection or mistaken identity can be effective for adding a little humor in sword and sorcery.

Yes, but again, Princess Bride was aimed at a much larger audience than the genre it spoofed.

hoosier

I've found humor also works in how-to pieces - how about you

Mary Rosenblum

I lost the end of the question…but I know what he means…

the 'how to wash a cat'...articles and the like!

Douglas Clark

I haven't tried it with how-to's --

No, I take that back.

I wrote a very successful technical manual for water and wastewater operators

where humor was used to help ease a relatively uneducated audience into the rudiments of laboratory skills.

Mary Rosenblum

Doug, I LOVE the idea of a humorous tech manual for wastewater operators! I bet you were WAY more appreciated than you realize!!!

Douglas Clark

Does that undermine what I said earlier about humor not being appropriate for technical pieces? Probably.

Mary Rosenblum

I could sure use a touch of humor in software manuals once in awhile, believe me!!!

Douglas Clark

That manual was one of my real success stories -- widely distributed around the world. But when I tried to follow it up with a companion manual, the humor fell flat and the manual was not well received.

Mary Rosenblum

I bet!

You know, I do remember...years ago...a manual that came with an Apple product

and the writer added some lovely little quips.

Mary Rosenblum

like 'now that you're totally lost...go back and read page 48..the paragraph about how to reboot. Now do it... And I laughed instead of grinding my teeth!

Douglas Clark

It's always a tricky proposition.

Mary Rosenblum

It would be.

senicynt

The best thing then would be to study the type of humor already published and write a similar product?

Douglas Clark

The best humor comes from inside you, not something you try to mold from outside models.

But modeling your efforts after successful humor IS a good way to learn the craft and

to teach yourself what works.

Then your own humor can emerge naturally once you've learned the basic techniques.

Mary Rosenblum

Pieter asked what the title of the manual with humor and wastewater was. I think you have a fan. :-)

Douglas Clark

"Basic Laboratory Skills for Water and Wastewater Analysis," if I remember correctly. That manual is still around, 20-some years later.

Mary Rosenblum

It probably has a cult following!

navarrejudy

The best instruction I ever read...never never lift cover for 15 minutes. To do will flood counter and wet floor.

Mary Rosenblum

Now that sounds like unintentional humor, Judy!

navarrejudy

That was for a rice cooker

Mary Rosenblum

Ah, yes, the ESL connection...:-)

rupbert

Bridget Jones' diary is one way to connect with many single

women, so that humor is obviously effective.

Douglas Clark

Look at the success of people like Dave Barry and Erma Bomceck, who write about the humor in ordinary life, and you can see how well received effective humor is.

flashman

I've lived in a city a great deal of my life, then I moved to a rural area and learned a lot about farming. I want to write a book from the city slickers POV and the reaction of the farmers in my methods of doing farm chores, etc..... I think there would have to be humor in it, as there were many humorous things that happened at the time...

Douglas Clark

I think I need to read Bridget Jones' Diary.

That sounds like an ideal situation to treat from a humorous perspective!

Good luck with it...

Mary Rosenblum

As to flashman's idea, oh YES...the possibilities are endless!

Douglas Clark

It sounds like something that would potentially appeal to both urban and rural audiences.

Mary Rosenblum

I think 'The Egg and I' is a classic, and it's just that..newbies running a chicken farm. Betty MacDonald? Can't remember.

mbvoelker

How do you sustain humor through many scenes without it growing stale or repetitive?

Douglas Clark

That gets back to the issue of appropriateness of humor...

When we find the humor within ourselves and our own reactions to the world, we're generally on safe ground.

But when the humor must rely on someone else, the "other," it gets trickier.

Humor, just like drama, needs to be relieved occasionally...

I don't think you can write a book-length work of sustained, unrelieved humor.

It would ultimately become boring.

You have to advance and retreat, advance and retreat.

It's a lot like making love.

Mary Rosenblum

Now there's an analogy I didn't leap to...but it works. :-)

Douglas Clark

Ok, god, I didn't mean that the way it looks on the screen!

Mary Rosenblum

I'm laughing!!!

What about poetry, Doug? How do you use humor there?

Douglas Clark

Which goes to show, you just never know how humor, including the unintentional kind, will go over.

With poetry, I tend to rely on a twist at the end of a piece, such as a sonnet, which places the preceding lines in a suddenly altered context.

It's like a joke in verse, where the opening lines are the setup

and the concluding couplet or individual line is the punchline.

Mary Rosenblum

Something like a beautiful haiku about a fish...

that ends up as sushi in the final line?

Douglas Clark

Sometimes it works, sometimes it just comes out as both bad humor and lousy poetry.

chatty lady

Something like Roses are red????

Douglas Clark

You have to be willing to experiment, to fall flat on your face sometimes.

chatty lady

A famous comedian Jonathan Winters once told me that you can find humor in virtually anything so long as you use common sense.

Mary Rosenblum

Or should we toss common sense out the window?

Douglas Clark

Well, yes, kind of like "Roses are red," although that, like the limerick, is an accepted statement that what will follow is to be humorous.

I generally try to catch my reader more unaware with my attempts at humorous poetry.

I agree with Jonathan Winters -- almost anything ccan be treated with humor. But some topics are definitely more sensitive, more difficult than others.

When I was writing my first novel, I was making fun of the Inquisition.

The more I studied the actual Inquisition, the more difficult it became for me to see anything humorous in it.

I finally had to back off the historical research, give myself some time to detach from reality again, and just make up what I needed as I went along.

Mary Rosenblum

Interesting. So real life can definitely get in the way of humor?

Douglas Clark

Yes. The Inquisition was one of the great blots on the history of civilization.

senicynt

Monty Python made fun of the Inquisition.

Douglas Clark

Anything that gets us too close to the pain of existence can make humor impossible.

Humor only comes when we can step back and see our lives from a detached point of view.

And yes, Monty Python made fun of the Inquisition

but from the safety of that distance.

Mary Rosenblum

Well, that's it, isn't it? Humor allows us to step back from that pain, and if we can't step back...how can we have humor?

Douglas Clark

Exactly! Humor is the safety valve that lets off the pressures that build up when we're seeing life close up and personal.

Mary Rosenblum

Perhaps that's part of why some people...like myself...find humor difficult to do? We haven't found an effective way of stepping back?

Douglas Clark

Perhaps so. Although I find it interesting that many of the most successful humorists have led tragic lives.

Mary Rosenblum

Hmm. It may be that tragedy really forces people to step back in order to really preserve themselves...or their sanity.

Douglas Clark

It's laugh or die sometimes.

Mary Rosenblum

Something like that!

chatty lady

Humor is after all the one true reliever of pain.

Douglas Clark

Well, not necessarily the ONLY reliever, but certainly one of them.

Mary Rosenblum

Advil works, too. :-)

janp2

Do you ever, like court jesters of old, make someone else the butt of humor?

Douglas Clark

I try not to. It feels dangerous to me. I can tell disability jokes, because I'm disabled. But I wouldn't want to try telling Jewish jokes, or Polish jokes, or anything like that.

Although I guess I have made some jokes at the expense of both the French and the English in my novels.

Mary Rosenblum

I have to say that the comedians I've liked best

have picked on people with similar traits and problems. :-)

rupbert

How do you know when humor is flat?

Douglas Clark

I think it's better if we get people laughing with us, not at someone else.

There isn't any sure-fire test as to whether humor is going to work, except audience reception.

And even then, you can catch your audience in an off moment when nothing strikes them as funny.

Mary Rosenblum

So does all your work go to a critique group or readers before you send it out?

Douglas Clark

Yes! I may not agree with or use all of the feedback I get, but I rely heavily on the reactions of trusted readers to virtually everything I write.

navarrejudy

And sometimes...don't you just have to put down the words that you think are funny? Something that strikes you as so neat, you can't help laughing?

Douglas Clark

That happened with my first novel.

I had become convinced I couldn't write two kinds of works: humor and fiction.

So when I came up with an idea for a comic novel, I didn't tell anyone what I was doing for a good 6 months.

And even then I only entrusted that knowledge to a few, select friends I trusted.

Mary Rosenblum

Clearly, you were wrong about what you couldn't write! :-)

janp2

Comedy is tragedy turned inside out--heard that somewhere and have never forgotten.

Douglas Clark

I even tried hard not to write that book, because I knew I couldn't do it. But the story demanded to be written. And it became my first published novel --

several years and many rewrites later!

Douglas Clark

I've also heard it said that comedy is for those who think, tragedy is for those who feel.

Mary Rosenblum

That's an interesting take! Doug, tell us what you're working on now? Me, I want to buy that dragon dung toxic waste shoveler's story! :-)

Douglas Clark

I've been working for some time on a rather ambitious novel about Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales, as experienced by a grad student who goes back in time to do field research.

It scares me, because it is a more complex, "serious" novel than I've written before.

Mary Rosenblum

Oh, it sounds like a great idea, Doug! There's already a lot of humor in the Tales, but I suspect it's missed by a lot of readers because of its 'ancient' context.

Douglas Clark

Well, I'm having fun with it, and that seems to be as close I can come to a key as to how it will affect readers.

Mary Rosenblum

I suspect that's a good key...if you're having fun! So are you on deadline with it, or are you waiting

until it's finished to market it?

Douglas Clark

In a way, I think it would be simpler for me if the Tales weren't already funny.

I'm having to follow a very successful act that has had audiences rolling in the aisles for centuries,

which makes for a hard act to follow.

Mary Rosenblum

Yes, but you'll catch a lot of readers who either haven't read it, or plowed through it as an English assignment that made them miss the humor!

Douglas Clark

This one, I'm writing for myself first, then going to market it after I finish writing it. I want to get it right before shipping it off to an agent or editor.

Mary Rosenblum

I bet it does really well. :-) It gave me that goosebumpy...this is a good one...feeling!

Douglas Clark

Thanks. I'm glad to hear it had that effect on you. Now if I can just do the premise justice.

Mary Rosenblum

Hopefully, I'll get out your way before too long! Thank you so much for coming tonight! I think I can speak for

all of us when I say that you've done a great job of really taking a look at what makes humor.

navarrejudy

Who is a role model for you, for your humorous writing...the one you might admire most?

Mary Rosenblum

That's a good final question!

Douglas Clark

Thanks. I've enjoyed doing this. And the questions have been challenging.

They help me examine my own process more closely.

chatty lady

We've had a lot of guest speakers but none as funny and I will be looking for your books, thank you.

janp2

Thank you both.

arfelin

Doug, your a funny man. I'm still laughing about your making love analogy. Thanks for sharing your info about writing humor.

Douglas Clark

My most favorite work of humor is a book called "Three Men in a Boat" by the Victorian writer, Jerome K. Jerome.

It's still in print, and I recently finished rereading it.

Still a howl after several decades of familiarity.

Mary Rosenblum

I'm going to go look for that! You've been a great guest!

Thanks so much for coming!

We'll let you escape, and we really appreciate all the tips!

Douglas Clark

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a treat.

Mary Rosenblum

I'm glad. We've sure had fun!

Good night, and take care!

I really appreciate Doug's joining us tonight, because humor is something I am not competent to talk about!

And Doug used to critique my fiction attempts back before I had published anything.

For that he gets major credit! :-)

Douglas Clark

Thank you. But that critiquing worked both way.

You helped clue me in to a major rewrite I needed to do on my first novel.

when it was still in manuscript.

Mary Rosenblum

That's right! It was fun!

Douglas Clark

Can I add one last thing connected with that?

Mary Rosenblum

Sure!

Douglas Clark

I have found that, for such a terribly competitive occupation as writing, that other writers are some of the most accessible, giving people I've ever encountered

often willing to help someone newer get a leg up in the business.

We all of us tend to bootstrap one another to success in this business, and I'm grateful to all the other writers who have helped me along the way.

Mary Rosenblum

You've put it very well, Doug.

I, too, have had a lot of help from professionals who really had no reason to help me out, and did so anyway.

Remember that when you're successful pros, all you out there in the audience!

Give back, when you get there. You've been a great guest, Doug! I hope you'll come back some time!

Douglas Clark

Thanks. Gladly.

Mary Rosenblum

Thanks so much for coming!