/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7345504]

Why is humor so difficult to write?

[Anonymous No.7345505]

>>7345504
because you're not funny.

[Anonymous No.7345508]

>>7345505

No one is actually funny, just very persistent (trying joke after joke) or very lucky (getting lucky with a string of few jokes)

[Anonymous No.7345510]

>>7345505
funny how?

[Anonymous No.7345514]

>>7345508
speak for yourself, you sad, sad, unfunny man

[Anonymous No.7345522]

>>7345514
hahahaha nice one anon

[Anonymous No.7345527]

>>7345510
Like a clown?

[Anonymous No.7345529]

>>7345508
You've just never met a funny person. I feel sorry for you.

[Anonymous No.7345534]

>>7345514

Be funny right now.

[Anonymous No.7345535]

>>7345527
J-just funny you k-know.

[Anonymous No.7345540]

>>7345535
Do I amuse you? Am I here to fucking amuse you? How the fuck am I funny?!

[Anonymous No.7345545]

>>7345540
Get the fuck out of here Anon...

[Anonymous No.7345569]

>>7345534
A lawyer was just waking up from anesthesia after surgery, and his wife was sitting by his side. His eyes fluttered open and he said, "You're beautiful!" and then he fell asleep again. His wife had never heard him say that so she stayed by his side.

A couple of minutes later, his eyes fluttered open and he said, "You're cute!" Well, the wife was dissapointed because instead of "beautiful," it was "cute." She asked, "What happened to 'beautiful'?" His reply was "The drugs are wearing off!"

[Anonymous No.7345627]

>>7345569
telling this one to my dad, he'll love it

[Anonymous No.7345644]

>>7345545
You fucking prick, you! I almost had him too! I worry about you sometimes, Anon! Ya might fold under questioning!

[Anonymous No.7345711]

>>7345569
Jesus that was terrible

[Anonymous No.7345721]

>>7345711
do you get it?

[Anonymous No.7345754]

>>7345504
Because people think humor is all about being weird and random. Humor is essentially a betrayal of expectations. It is essential to have proper timing for the punchline. A single extra word can ruin a joke. Just droning on about weird shit isn't funny. You know that guy who does that. He doesn't understand the anatomy of a good joke. And there's also that guy who drags out the joke after the punchline. Fuck that guy.

[Anonymous No.7345787]

>>7345754
Also it largely depends on your audience. I think your average 4chan fag would die laughing if you made a Bane-related joke. But your average joe would just look at you funny.

[Anonymous No.7345795]

>>7345787
why is the bane thing funny?

lots of people have asked, but what's the real reason? i don't even find it funny anymore, but i remember when i did. i find bane-like things funny, obviously.

how could bane-like humor be transposed to the literary form?

[Anonymous No.7345799]

>>7345795
Baneposting is an "in joke". It's something only a particular audience can understand.

[Anonymous No.7345817]

>>7345508
Just because you failed doesn't that other people can't succeed

[Anonymous No.7345828]

>>7345817

But his entire post is about how people succeed in humor?

[Anonymous No.7345836]

>>7345828
>No one is actually funny

[Anonymous No.7345841]

>>7345504
Because of the laughing part.

[Anonymous No.7345985]

>>7345508
Not true.

[Anonymous No.7346001]

>>7345721
Please explain

[Anonymous No.7346004]

>>7346001
you had to be there

[Anonymous No.7346007]

>>7345508
Certified funny man here. Youre wrong.

[Anonymous No.7346011]

Because nerds lack the ability to self-analyze enough to produce really punching self-deprecating satire.

[Anonymous No.7346015]

>>7345569
So how old is your son?

[Anonymous No.7346016]

>>7345508
Humour comes from a simultaneously light-hearted and dark response to life; it's not some science you can learn, it's just recognizing ridiculous internal reactions.

[Anonymous No.7346021]

>>7345754

[Anonymous No.7346024]

>>7345795
Jesus fuck, its just an inside joke -a meme if you will- that lampoons a ridiculous scene in an overrated and disappointing movie

[Anonymous No.7346029]

>>7345795
Bane is funny, like so many memes, because it is not funny, but silly, and is more silly everytime someone finds it funny (for being silly) and more funny every time someone thinks it's silly. It's a viscous cycle. The joke is basically that it's been taken way to far and has drag on to an absurd degree. At the start I'm sure it was different for /tv/ but that's the state of it now.

[Anonymous No.7346032]

If it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny.

[Anonymous No.7346036]

I'm known for being the funny guy. I'm actually thinking of writing a book on how the process works because it's so interesting.

Everyday humor is usually the spontaneous wit that leads to someone shooting off a joke or having something snappy to say - this is wisecracking. This usually starts in school, where there's hundreds of opportunities to be a wise ass every day. >>7345508 isn't entirely wrong that it's a trial and error thing, but they are wrong in assuming it stays that way. You have to hone your timing skills for years to get the aspect of spontaneity down. But I actually think wisecracking is very closely related to how Plato describes poets in Ion. Things have to happen at such a rapid pace that it really is the most spontaneous thing in the world. You have to be inspired towards a joke. I'd open it up to you guys whether you think this can be trained or not.

Then there's old humor, which is fart jokes and body humor, funny voices and stuff. This stuff comes off more as a skit than anything else, and when two funny people are together it's the most likely type of humor you'll see. It's actually pretty interesting how funny people interact with each other. It's not exactly acting, but good funny friends can reach a level of straightman and foil that feels entirely natural. There's a lot less at risk in this than in wisecracking, but to get to this level you have to be a pretty good wisecracker in the first place.

Then there's stuff like stand up comedy which really unfunny people try to emulate, not understanding how much of stand up comedy depends on context and orientation. That's how you get shit like OP's post or the worst reddit jokes, those little awful plays they write and shit. People that don't think in terms of wisecracking every day look at stand up and think that that is how humor works, that the stand up is spontaneous when it's totally the opposite. Stand up comics earn their right to do stand up because they go through the terrible process of writing down wisecracks and retooling them, rather than just blurting them out. This is why truly funny people never laugh out loud at televised stand up. They can see through the veneer of the show, see the wisecracks for what they are, and deconstruct the whole stage. Going to stand up shows in real life, however, is a totally different experience because it removes separation from the wisecracks. It's not cut horribly, the comedian is actually pacing around and being casual, etc.

But stand up is really just a combination of wisecracking and storytelling, which MUST be trained.

[Anonymous No.7346039]

>tfw your sense of humor will always be weird and autistic

I was laughing my ass off when I read this passage in If On a Winter's Night by Calvino

"The plan to trap me envisaged that between the Honda motorcycles of my escort and the armoured car in which I rode, three Yamaha motorcycles would interpose themselves, ridden by three false policemen, who would suddenly slam on their brakes before the curve. According to my counterplan, there would instead be three Suzuki motorcycles which would block my Mercedes five hundred meters before, in a fake kidnapping. When I saw myself blocked by three Kawasaki motorcycles at an intersection before the other two, I realized that my counter-plan had been frustrated by a counter-counterplan whose author I did not know."

Nobody I read it to even found it slightly funny though

[Anonymous No.7346051]

>>7346039
Yeah, I don't see what is funny about it

[Anonymous No.7346057]

>>7346011
Most Jews are nerds though

[Anonymous No.7346062]

>>7346036
That's where writing humor comes in. You have to set the entire context for these events, whether they are wisecracks or drawn out humorous story sequences. Old humor works best in writing because its principles of humor are self-contained: the fart is funny, the asshole is funny, etc. So Aristophanes, Chaucer, Rabelais, and Don Quixote are timeless in that respect.

But how do you begin to craft the scene for a wisecrack? The fact that you remove yourself from the spontaneity of an actual wisecrack and have to set the scene beforehand dooms a lot of people from the start.

Really, most funny writers settle for the televised stand up comedy route. They take wisecracks and refine them and tool them for a scene. They craft long humorous stories containing absurdities and reversals of expectation. This is just as hard to do as actual stand up, but is never as funny, because there's still that separation from the audience.

The best funny writers try to incorporate wisecracks with all their spontaneity. I think Gaddis and Pynchon are excellent examples of this. Gaddis for example uses a ton of parapraxis, which is just an ingenious way of getting wisecracks out in the open. His predominantly dialogue style also benefits wisecracking really, really well because of how free it is. Pynchon almost builds his scenes around the jokes themselves.

So I guess humor is hard to write because it's very spontaneous in relation to its context. The best writer will try to capture this, not by anticipating the jokes, but by anticipating the jokes and building the context around the jokes.

[Anonymous No.7346072]

>>7346057
Therefore, 4chan is Jews.

[Anonymous No.7346073]

>>7346004
Kek

[Anonymous No.7346076]

>>7346039
I laughed.

[Anonymous No.7346095]

>>7345504

Anyone else struggle not to write humour?

[Anonymous No.7346103]

>>7345504
Because you aren't funny. Three things are required to be a funny person: a) know what is funny b) no what other people find funny c) understand that all that is funny is founded in absurdity (even Nietzsche recognized this).

[Anonymous No.7346107]

>>7346072
I like to think of myself as an honorary self-hating Jew. Kind of like Bobby Fischer

[Anonymous No.7346128]

>>7346095
Everything I do is a joke. Get it?

[Anonymous No.7346145]

>>7346128

You obviously don't struggle with the issue I was pointing out.

[Anonymous No.7346174]

>>7346145
You're not being funny. Get it?

[Anonymous No.7346241]

>>7345754
Except when you make a joke of dragging the joke out. Humour is weird.

[Anonymous No.7346319]

>>7346036
> truly funny people never laugh out loud at televised stand up
I think you know this isn't true. I'm funny when I'm comfortable and with friends, and I love stand up. I know people 10 times funnier than me who think Dane Cook is hilarious.

That being said, you know what your'e talking about. All humor is based on irony, which is the contextual subversion of expectations; if you can catch people off guard, you can be funny

[Anonymous No.7347102]

>>7345504
/k/fags are fagfags

[Anonymous No.7347136]

What culture are we talking about here when you say Humor?

No humor is universal.

[Anonymous No.7347189]

>>7345569

It's interesting how only 2-5% of jokes are funny.

[Anonymous No.7347303]

>>7345504
The fact you saved that image probably means you're not very funny

[Anonymous No.7347305]

>>7346241
No that's just meta

[Anonymous No.7347308]

>>7347303

[Anonymous No.7347414]

>>7346062
>Pynchon almost builds his scenes around the jokes themselves.
>almost
For De Mille, young fur-henchmen can't be rowing.

[Anonymous No.7347432]

>>7345787
>I think your average 4chan fag would die laughing if you made a Bane-related joke

[Anonymous No.7347434]

because whats funny to some is offensive to others

laughter is a nervous response sublimating a fear of the unknown or someshit like that.

[Anonymous No.7347457]

>>7345504
>haha reich sounds like right
>haha

Americans are retarded

[Anonymous No.7347462]

>>7347457
it just dawned on me that OP's green text would fit perfectly into a Family Guy cut-away

>no wordplay or twist, no expectations from the viewer
>the subject of the cut-away is somehow edgy
>the edgy part is repeated several times just in case you weren't paying attention the first time
>the end

While it airs, somewhere in North Dakota a single gun enthusiast laughs - a long forgotten burrito is shaken loose from between two flaps of fat and falls on the floor, having regained freedom

[Anonymous No.7347466]

>>7347308
funny and cute

[Anonymous No.7347468]

>>7345569
Expected punchline, most would have figured it out before the end of the joke

[Anonymous No.7347472]

>>7346062
You touched on some good things. Also, you mentioned the set up. That's why Moliere, Wodehouse and Hammet all work for me. The characters are really dumb and it's always fun to see characters have flaws and suffer repercussions from them. It's difficult to do this properly but the joke, often, comes from the unexpected situation plus the unexpected stupidity of the character.

[Anonymous No.7347487]

>>7346062

>not by anticipating the jokes, but by anticipating the jokes

What did he mean by this?

[Anonymous No.7347519]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTwxiKMWCkg

[Anonymous No.7347542]

Sometimes it's something as simple as the fact that everybody poops.

[Anonymous No.7347549]

>>7347542

Except, you know, that one freak of a baby Eddie and his wife had last year that was born without an asshole and survived for only a few days before it filled up with shit and died.

Quite sad, really.

[Anonymous No.7347550]

>>7347549
You're full of shit

[Anonymous No.7347555]

>>7347550

Not as much as that kid though!

WHACKITY-SMACKITY-DOOoooOOOOOOO

[Anonymous No.7347558]

>>7346036
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

(Ed. note: this is something I did not say while reading this)

[Anonymous No.7347561]

>>7347555
Yeah your story really scared me shitless

[Anonymous No.7347564]

ITT: retards trying hard and failing at humor

[Anonymous No.7347568]

>>7347564
You're probably hilarious without trying at all

[Anonymous No.7347571]

>>7347568
I know :^)

[Anonymous No.7347639]

Pretty sad how unfunny this thread is

[Anonymous No.7349115]

“Mr. Incandenza, this is the Enfield Raw Sewage Commission, and quite frankly we’ve had enough shit out of you,”

[Anonymous No.7349123]

>>7345505

im funny though and cant write humor

[Anonymous No.7349158]

>>7346036
>>7346062
Could you elaborate the difference between "spontaneous" humor and "weird and random XD" humor?

Nonetheless, good work anon. Best explanation of humor I've ever read, if you eventually did write that book I would no doubt read it.

[Anonymous No.7349161]

Humor is hard to write because the vast majority of humor relies heavily on timing. With words it's almost impossible to set the pace at which the reader reads and because of that you can't rely on timing to make a joke. Other types of humor, like satire, don't have broad appeal because they require an understanding of what is being satirized which cuts down on the amount of people who "get" the joke, assuming the satire is funny in the first place. So all that's really left is being silly and making puns. Both are pretty hard to pull off without using in-jokes and pop culture references as a crutch or coming off as dull. That or do something original which we all know is pretty much impossible now.

[Anonymous No.7349170]

>>7349158
>Could you elaborate the difference between "spontaneous" humor and "weird and random XD" humor?
Off the cuff humor. Nothing to do with non sequitur humor.

[Anonymous No.7349208]

>>7349158
Go to YouTube, if you think its for 8 year olds its the latter

[Anonymous No.7349218]

>>7345504
Humor is context sensitive, and even more sensitive to timing. People have a problem writing humor because most humor doesn't translate to writing very well. Without the comedian there doing the act, and adding in the gestures, and animations, and all the other nuances that go into conveying emotion, most jokes fall flat on their face.

Writing humor also requires you to strike a balance, and stick to that balance, otherwise you don't get humor, you get cringe.

[Anonymous No.7349309]

How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

Don't be silly, feminists can't change anything.

[Anonymous No.7349336]

>>7349309
that's not true. they're destroying video games.

[Anonymous No.7349348]

>>7349309
>>7349336
its so cool to me how people who care about video games and puritan cultural critics have decided to fight each other forever and leave the people actually worth talking to alone

[Anonymous No.7349351]

>>7349336
:|

[Anonymous No.7349374]

>>7346039
I chuckled

[Anonymous No.7349379]

>>7349336
ded

[Anonymous No.7349382]

>>7349379
You're right. >>7349336 is the funniest thing in this thread.

[Anonymous No.7349436]

>>7346039
>When I saw myself blocked by three Kawasaki motorcycles at an intersection before the other two, I realized that my counter-plan had been frustrated by a counter-counterplan whose author I did not know.

It's not LOL worthy, but I can see some humor in that.

[Anonymous No.7349450]

>>7346095
I struggle with this.

I have a self-deprecating streak that prevents me from taking anything I write seriously. Whenever I finish a chapter or a story I just want to poke holes in it and call attention to the ridiculousness of it all. It's really stopped me from progressing with things because I don't feel drawn to fix the problems, only to mock them and discourage myself.

I have a good bit of the situational gift where I can joke on the spot, but I haven't yet tried to make anything actually based on humor, except a few dozen scattered lines of poetry that I would have to track down.

[Anonymous No.7349549]

>>7346039
Calvino would have made an excellent pulp comics satirist