Wits Ends - Why Humor Doesn't Win Awards
Library of Congress (LCPA) Speech May 14, 1997
TODAY I am going to talk about SF humor. First, I will make a few comments about the place of humor within SF and the degree of appreciation heaped upon it. Then I am going to talk about some techniques and use (with remarkable modesty) some outstandingly brilliant examples from my own stories.
LET'S get serious here! Nobody's gotten awards for being funny in the SF world. From all indications SF and Fantasy are serious stuff, not to be toyed with. How can we ever hope to become accepted by the mainstream if we treat our fiction lightly, most would say. This viewpoint is held by far too many people in the genre, particularly writers who are notoriously serious people! The SF/F fanatics apparently believe that only socially bitter, poignant, and emotionally charged philosophical screeds are acceptable fodder for acclamation and/or awards. Let me quote from an acknowledged master - Dr Esther Freisner, winner of two (2) Nebula awards, a funny person, and excellent writer of both comedy and serious stories.
One of the hardest rows to hoe in the SF/Fantasy fields (or SpecFic, if you will) is that of the humorist. No one takes funny stuff seriously, or at least seriously enough to award a piece of humorous SF/F the kudo of a Nebula or Hugo. Name me five humorous pieces that copped a major award in the past five years. Now name me five that did bag a biggie and dealt with such rib-ticklers as child abuse, child murder, or the victimization of a childlike being! Uh huh, thought so. When it comes to humor we read, we laugh, we don't give it a second thought.
Esther M. Friesner,"Who Was That Alien I Saw You With Last Night?", Amazing
WHY don't people understand that humor is serious business? Certainly good comedy is harder to write than drama because it requires an understanding of comedic techniques and the ability to make a point in a off-beat way.
HENRI BERGSON spoke of humor being the encrustation of the mechanical on the living - that is, we laugh when we see a human being behaving in a mechanical manner. The premise of most sitcoms is the character's inappropriate,mechanical responses to a situation. And, it stands to reason that the encrustation of the living on the mechanical should be equally funny - as proven by Lewis Padgett's insane, but very human robots or nearly anything written by Pratchett.
AT THE same time that humor threatens us, it appeals to our sense of the absurd, the ludicrous, and the ironic. Humor is believed to be light because it makes us laugh and bring a smile to the soul. But, as we all know from our fiercely serious puritanical roots, "laughter is the devil's playground".
EFFECTIVE humor straddles the line between amusement at another's discomfort and an assault on our own. To be perfectly honest, much of what appeals to our sense of humor relies upon the banana peel syndrome - "better him than me!" We must always leave enough truth in the humor to make the reader slightly, even subconsciously, uncomfortable - as if they can imagine themselves in this same situation, or being the butt of the joke. Perhaps this is the reason that humor is treated so lightly - we never are sure of when the joke is going to turn on us or our beliefs. Comics are not to be trusted so let us not permit them a pulpit.
STAN SCHMIDT, editor of ANALOG SF/F for the past nineteen years, once advised that, although humor wouldn't bring either critical acclaim nor win awards, it is vitally necessary to the science fiction community. "People always need to smile" were the words he used when he bought the first of my Sam Boone parody series for ANALOG sometime after making that comment. I think that he's come to regret letting that particular alien cat out of the box, since he recently bought the fifth story in the saga.
WHICH illustrates a very nice point, at least for we writers. Despite the lack of critical acclaim humor is very well accepted by editors and readers. Humorous books seem to have larger, often multiple, print runs, stay on the bookstore shelves longer, have great fan acceptance, but receive little praise from the critics. Needless to say, humorous stories are very much in demand in the magazine markets as well.
AS A RESULT our genre has been blessed with some wonderfully creative and funny stories over the past few years by people such as Randall Garrett, Connie Willis, Piers Anthony, Terry Pratchett, Spider Robinson, and my favorite - Gene Wolfe!
I'VE always been attracted to SF comedy, especially those stories where it is the premise itself that tickles the funny bone. The stories are even better when they also make a nice point - preferably one sharp enough to pierce some pretension
HUMOR is hard to conceive, tougher to write, and an absolute dogs-mother to edit! I find that writing comedy works best when I am depressed, because only then do I fully appreciate the futility of taking anything seriously. The danger of not writing humor is to give in to the dark side and, as we all have learned from that famous philosopher O.B. Kanobi, "Beware of the dark side."
ON THE other hand I edit comedy when I feel optimistic and the combination of the two keeps me on an even keel.
THE FIRST step in creating a humorous piece is to find something at which or with which to poke fun. Luckily the SF and fantasy genre is replete with ample fodder; tropes, cliches, and characters, settings beyond imagining. Over the last sixty years we've accumulated warehouses overflowing with materials strange, fantastic, and oft-times patently ridiculous. We've invented a wealth of bizarre and commonplace names. We own stockyards full of stereotypical beasts, aliens, characters, and colorful personalities, both fictional and live. By pushing the envelope of the possible our genre writers have created a fictional multiverse of worlds, all of which are grist for the humorist's mill.
MY SAM BOONE stories in ANALOG are all based on the prevailing SF conceit that there is a vastly superior galactic civilization out there. What if, I supposed, aliens were simultaneously alien in some sense, but very human in others?
OF COURSE simply settling on the basic idea wasn't enough: I had to then figure out a way of making this hackneyed idea of a galactic civilization appeal to the reader. I had to devise a way of twisting what has become trite and commonplace concept into something a little off-center.
LET ME give some examples - all taken from the Sam Boone stories - that show how the traditional comedy techniques are employed in this setting. Sam Boone, for those of you who aren't familiar with his stories, started working for an alien on Earth but later becomes an interplanetary negotiator. Sam is, for most of the time, clueless about what is really going on but nevertheless manages to win through in the end.
THE FIRST technique I want to illustrate is Analogy (from Rational Choice) Sam is acting in this story as a tour guide.
"Most of the other aliens he had taken on tour appeared puzzled by nearly everything human - "part of the charm," a fifteen-segmented worm in a fuchsia environment suit had remarked casually as it purchased a ceramic urinal in a hardware store and perched it rakishly on its head with one of its antennae sticking through the drain hole. "Isn't it just me!" it preened."
THE PIN PRICK here is at the shopping habits of a certain class of tourists, not alien worms in fuchsia environment suits. This example also illustrates another comedic principle, that of contrast - putting the urinal and the alien tourist in conjunction. And I honestly don't know why this scene struck my fancy - it just seemed funnier at the time I edited it!
ANOTHER TECHNIQUE I've used is Exaggeration (Appeal to Common Scents)
"Offal/taint of mustard, as leader of the Scrofulousans, would always wait until Fluthth was finished before clicking her mandibles and squirting the haze of chemical mist that explained the Scofulousan point of view. The windy flatulence of the Mephitisite delegation, combined with the odors produced by the Scrofulousans, usually left the negotiation room smelling like an explosion in a fart factory"
IN THE MAGAZINE version this was changed to "an open sewer' which I thought lost the flavor of the piece. The names of the aliens and their races were deliberately chosen to sound funny. This is an old vaudeville technique - why is rutabaga funny and potato isn't, why is Hoboken funny and New York is not? Verbalization apparently plays an important part in humor
SITUATIONAL HUMOR is always effective. I've always loved the Wodehouse stories where everyone misunderstands the situation. The characters all behave rationally but result in quite an irrational situation. This extract is from a story that was deliberately modeled on the structure of a Wodehouse tale. (Rational Choice)
"What is the problem with your leg" Sam asked.
"It's the change," Town replied, "I'm in the early stages of what you would call adolescence. I will soon be mature."
"So you'll be able to vote?" Sam suggested nervously, not sure of what rights and privileges an adult Crumptonian enjoyed.
"Much more than that," Town replied with an azure dribble of spit. "I'll be allowed to breed," she said shyly, "and that is why I need your help."
Sam was unsure of how he could help her. Although he liked her well enough, the physical incompatibilities alone would -
"I need some of father's money," Town went on, ignoring Sam's squirming discomforture.
Sam's obvious misinterpretation of Town's intentions is the comedic aspect of this piece.
WORD PLAY is the writer's curse and it is difficult to remove puns from a story once they begin to creep in. The Discworld and Myth series of books illustrate where this compulsion has taken firm hold, much to the detriment of everyone's sanity. I'll say no more on this subject.
SOMETIMES I use deliberate combinations of seemingly unrelated elements to play on the funny bone; This particular conceit has appeared in several stories in various guises.
Aliens came from throughout the galaxy to see the wondrous sights that Earth had to offer, places incomparable to any other in the civilized Universe: Disneyland, Hoboken, and Kawasaki's Sushi n Ribs were the most sought after sights, although, it was reported by some of Earth's returning traders, many of the Galactics were not keen on their young being exposed to such bad art, gross pornography, and wasteful pleasures as the three attractions. Which of the three had which attribute was still being argued extensively throughout the globe as most of the visitors were unwilling to discuss the matter.
Some even blushed.
PACING is important. One can choose to present a joke directly, peripherally, or sneak up on the reader from behind. Sometimes the reader must be led to expect the joke, as in the previous example. This technique allows anticipation to build to the punch line. Sometimes, as in that last sentence, you have to suddenly spring the joke from ambush, so the reader doesn't see it coming and is surprised at the novelty, which is Bergson's premise.
SOMETIMES, when you are too clever by half, you can slip the joke in so subtly that the reader initially passes it by, pauses, and then re-reads the passage slowly to see if that really was what you intended.
WHICH BRINGS US to; satire, the accepted child of humor, parody, it's embarrassing uncle, and lampoon, the idiot cousin we try to hide in the basement when company comes to call. The role of all these is to speak directly to some significant issue without speaking about that issue at all. A satirical piece on pigs feeding might well be a biting observation of the behavior of congress men at election time, even though that is never specifically mentioned. The Russian news magazine KROKODYLE brought this to high art in the fading days of the soviet empire. Here is an example of satire that appeared in the February 1996 issue of ANALOG. (Reading of THE BILL - Analog Feb '96.
Thank you for listening. Are there any questions or comments?