Writing Funny Part 4

The Snow Globe

(This is a fourth post in a six-part series on being funny in novels. To start at the beginning go here.)

Before we get into the situations in a novel that most naturally lend themselves to humorous treatment, I'd like to introduce you to a concept that I call the "Magic Snow Globe."

Since Dwayne's YouTube clips have been so helpful in illustrating concepts so far, we'll start with another one:


In this clip, we see something interesting. There are actually three characters in the clip.

We might refer to the first character as "Dwayne-Now." This is his baseline persona, the manner in which he presents himself onstage. It very likely tracks closely with who he is most of the time on- and off-stage, with a few tweaks here and there. He might edit some parts of his normal personality out of the baseline persona (maybe he gets grouchy at times in real life but decides he's not interested in presenting that onstage), and he might augment a few key aspects as well. But basically, it's him.

The second character is a guy we might call "Dwayne-Then." It's basically Dwayne injected into a comedic situation, in this case, introducing his new girlfriend to his family.

The third character is of course Laqueeta, the new girlfriend.

So, here's what happens:

Dwayne-Now sets up the central problem of the story. He then slips into the character of Dwayne-Then, addressing his family as if they were standing on the stage with him. After introducing Laqueeta, he slips into that character, then back to Dwayne-Then. He closes out the bit as Dwayne-Now and delivers the final punchline.

In this piece, Dwayne has essentially created a miniature play, sort of like creating a snowglobe and showing it to the audience. Dwayne-Now is the snowglobe's creator, and Dwayne-Then and Laqueeta are like figurines inside the snowglobe that Dwayne-Now has created for us.

(Stay with me here. The snowglobe metaphor becomes important when we start talking about novels.)

Now, Dwayne has a lot of responsibilities when he's onstage, and one of his most important responsibilities is maintaining audience control. It's a skill that's learned by comedians over years of hard work, and it's one of the key things that separates a skilled comedian from a wannabe. It's also one of several reasons that an amateur might blow the doors off a YouTube following but crash and burn horribly in front of a live audience.

Because Dwayne has this responsibility for maintaining control of the audience, he can't afford to stay in the snowglobe for very long. But he can jump in for a few moments, illustrate the situation, and then jump back out into his Dwayne-Now onstage persona and retain control of the show.

Here's another point about being inside the snowglobe versus being outside of it: Neither Dwayne-Then nor Laqueeta have any awareness that the situation is funny. They are just trying to meet the requirements of the situation that Dwayne-Now has put them in.

Dwayne-Now, of course, knows that the situation is funny. He's the comedic persona onstage, and it's his job to know what's funny and what's not. He won't flaunt his knowledge, of course, because it's the audience's job to render the funny/not-funny verdict with their laughter or silence. But he knows what the verdict is going to be. He knows his material and has a very clear sense of the reaction he's most likely to get in front of any given audience.

So how does this apply to including humor in a novel?

Think about what life must be like inside a snowglobe. We're on the outside looking in, so it doesn't look the same to us as it does to the figurines inside. When we shake a snowglobe, we see a cute scene with tiny snowflakes floating around gently in the water-glycerin mixture.

But that's not what the figurines see. First they feel a massive earthquake, their world appears to turn upside down, and suddenly they're trapped in a blizzard with gail-force winds. Not to mention the gigantic distorted face that's staring at them and grinning stupidly as it happens. It's not cute or funny to them; it's real and terrifying.

And that's the critical point about humor in a novel: Never let your characters in on the joke.

In the next post, we'll look at some ways in which things can be funny to the reader when they are anything but funny to the character.