HOW HUMOR WORKS (for Writers) or COLLISIONS & UNEXPECTED SWITCHEROOS

 So how does humor work? Simple--humor’s fuel is mainly surprise. We create humor by working against expectations.

 One definition says humor occurs when two different frames of reference are set up—the more incongruent, the better—and a collision is engineered between them.

 As my nineteen year-old daughter can attest from a recent fender-bender, a collision is usually a surprise.

Remember that laughter is simply the release of tension. Dark reality (truth), incongruity, absurdity, all make us feel uneasy or tense.  A surprise coupled with this, releases that tension.

 Let’s back up a moment: The brain reacts in one of two ways when it is surprised. Delight or fear.  If the atmosphere around the unexpected event is threatening, we’re moved to fear, and a fight or flight impulse. 

 Remember when Coraline goes through the door in the wall into the duplex of the “other mother and father”? By use of weird and menacing details, Neil Gaiman sets up a scary atmosphere. When the “other mother” turns around, Coraline is shocked to see that she has big black buttons for eyes.  Buttons are not especially dangerous or threatening things, but this surprise is creepy as heck.

 We laugh, though, at something unexpected if the atmosphere is non-threatening, or in the case of The Wee Free Men: The Beginning by Terry Pratchett, if the atmosphere is wildly absurd, despite being threatening:

 Twelve year-old Tiffany Aching, a witch in training, is being pursued by a headless horseman without any eyes. Now that certainly is threatening. But one of the six inch-tall, blue tattooed, red haired, kilt-wearing, Nac Mac Feegle drops out of a tree to help her out. He lands between the horse’s ears, yelling,  “Here’s a face full o’ dandruff for ye, yer bogle, courtesy of Big Yan!” and then head butts the poor animal between the eyes, The horse staggers, and Big Yan repeats the process: “Big toughie, is ye? Once more wi’ feelin’!” The horse and presumably his confused headless rider, collapse in the snow.

 

A six inch-tall, tattooed blue pixie (in a kilt) that can fell a horse with a head butt is entirely unexpected. What was dark and threatening became absurd and hilarious. And wait until you hear about their drinkin’ and fightin’ and stealin’!

 So, to review: A writer introduces an idea or subject, the more weighty, dark and emotional, usually the better. A headless horseman works fine.

 Then we turn it on its, um, head by pairing the former with something totally incongruous—the two would not normally be associated in the same thought. The Nac Mac Feegle would not be associated by most people with anything, normally. It’s an unexpected pairing, and we’re surprised.  We laugh.

Next: How writers can increase the humor in their fiction