#humou

Friend: ??????????????? don’t you fucking hate yourself

OLD SKULL par B-GNET

Old skull, c’est un western, un pas forcément autenthique mais en tout cas un mythique, au cœur des montagnes Rocheuses, sur le territoire des Crows, avec des vrais Crows (disons quelques uns, qui passaient par là). Mais c’est de l’Ouest de légende (nord-ouest pour être plus précis) pur et dur, à la Sam Shepard, à la Anselm Adams, surtout si par “Ouest de légende” on accepte de prendre en compte les bigfoots et les fantomes. Et les cannibales aussi... Au moins, il y a de l’action, ça oui. ça tue comme on se dit bonjour, un peu machinalement sauf qu’après des fois on regrette. C’est le cas d’un des personnages, il a tué sa femme, décapitée, net. Et pas qu’elle d’ailleurs. On va dire qu’il ressemble plus à un tueur en série, ça sera plus simple. Et puis, il y a Jack et son comparse, deux aventuriers sans scrupules, à la recherche du Bigfoot, c’est pas des rigolos eux... quoique, c’est un peu des tocards. Et puis il y a aussi un vieux trappeur solitaire, travaillé par sa libido. Il tombera vite amoureux du fantome de la femme décapitée. Du coup, il part à la recherche de son meutrier, le mari, celui qui a recueilli un petit orphelin (et tué son cheval)... et mangé sa femme (suivez bon sang, on vous a dit plus haut qu’il y avait des cannibales). Il y a aussi un loup qui parle avec une indienne, une forêt qui sifflote, des saloons qui brûlent, un bordel reconverti en mercerie, des feux de camp, des ballades à cheval, des bètes la nuit dans la forêt, c’est très champêtre en fait. Donc Old skull, c’est un western. “Old skull” comme les os usés de ces rudes hommes des Rocheuses, comme les cadavres pourris-sants des chevaux, comme les têtes des femmes assassinées... et old school... comme un western. Et tout ça sort de l’imagination absolument ahurissante de B-gnet, l’auteur de Rayures et de Santiago. Et c’est drôle, non-sensique, plein de neiges et de coups de feu... (cinq, c’est déjà pas rien). Rhaaa l’ouest, le vrai, c’est fichtrement bizarre.

Nouvelle édition cartonnée et mise en couleurs.

Collection Monotrème - 56 pages - Format 21x27,5 cm

Sorry this is taking so long! I’ve had this ask in my inbox for a long time, but the thing is I, too, struggle with comedy. I do it sometimes, but don’t know how I’ve done it, so this took quite a bit of thinking through.

You’re usually a lot funnier than you think you are, that’s the first thing. Writing humour isn’t something that you can force, because a forced joke is never funny. It comes weirdly naturally to a lot of people, and they just don’t see it.

Some things you can do to improve are by consuming a lot of comedy. Books, TV series, films, talk shows… and not doing that passively, either! Really consider what makes them funny: is the way they talk, the dialogue, the sarcasm, what? Take notes, mentally or physically, and experiment in applying them to your own writing. I read a lot of books that were exclusively in the comedy section, including Apathy and Other Small Victories, and am currenly binge-watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine “as research”.

There are all kinds of comedy and hundreds of ways to make something funny. Look at the TV show Supernatural, which is horror- but there are plenty of inside jokes, fourth wall breaks, one-liners and comic relief characters (although, be careful to avoid harmful things with those, such as “dumb, fat kid”. Spn blunders on that)  which mean that you get a few good laughs each episode. A step on from that is dark comedy, bitter humour, self-deprication: the kind of stuff that fuels the negative depression meme culture on here, but can also make for really funny characters when handled carefully in small doses. The kind of dry humour that leads to a character going “Fun, I’ve always wanted to know what a dead body smells like.” as they haul the corpse out of the room, whistling mock-cheerfully.

You can also do what I call extended comedy, which is where the whole situation is funny. A good example is As You Like It, a Shakespeare play, which as well as being littered with jokes and political satire, is also based on a mass confusion of cross-dressing, coincidences and confused or mistaken identity. This employs a very powerful comedy technique, dramatic irony, where the audience knows something that none of the characters do. In this case, the identity of the characters. Admittedly, this is designed to be done on stage, but you can also apply it to your writing–but be careful, dramatic irony can also be used to create tension (the readers know that there is a monster behind the door, but the character doesn’t).

You would also need to consider what audience your book is aiming for. Teenagers and young adults generally appreciate an odd mix of really immature humour, refined wit and lots of sarcasm. Younger readers will laugh at more simple things, such as tabboo language (remembering that things like the cheese-touch are still more important to their age group than school, which really carried along the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books). Adults in their middle-ages and into elderly years would usually look for more blatant wit, not always clever humour, but definitely sophisticated. They also seem fond of the shock factor, which I’ve noticed only ever works as a comedic device on older members of my family. Siblings and younger friends don’t find that one very funny.

A blend of all of them also works, which is why Shakespeare’s comedies are still so successful. They appeal to everyone.

Finally, pick where and when to drop the funnies. A lot of humour and comedy is situational. For example, when walking my dog and talking to other dog owners, we laugh a lot about really random things like “Oh look, he’s interested in the ball.. he’s going, nope. Eating it!” and in the situation, that’s hilarious. Out of the situation, to someone who has never experienced it? Not so much, or at least, not in the same way. So get your readers invested in the same thing as the character so that the readers and character find humour in the same things.

Similarly, if there has been a moment of high tension, a bit of comic relief through teasing or cheeky dialogue is always good.