Kris Neri shared some of her secrets with us at the Tony Hillerman Conference. Here are a few tricks of the trade.<\/p>\n

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Teaching\u00a0humor is hard, Kris says. To teach, you must analyze and explain, and the more you analyze humor, the less humorous it becomes!<\/p>\n

Humor is semi-verbal, semi-visual, and semi-visceral. It is often a leveling device, sometimes a more acceptable way of expressing anger or coping with other emotions.<\/p>\n

Humor can show aspects of your characters that you can’t show otherwise. It provides an emotional break for your readers. It softens tough ideas (the “candy-coated pill” approach). It also provides a great writing voice.<\/p>\n

Here are some tools of humor:<\/p>\n

Expectation and reversal<\/strong> – taking an unexpected reversal to an expected outcome<\/li>\n

Incongruity<\/strong> – pairing concepts in an unconventional or illogical way<\/li>\n

Hyperbole<\/strong> – stretching the truth to a level that becomes comic<\/li>\n

Understatement<\/strong> – downplaying, or a droll presentation (the opposite of hyperbole)<\/li>\n

Absurdity<\/strong> – exaggeration pushed to a ridiculous level, often for a satirical effect<\/li>\n

Contrast and proximity<\/strong> – pairing contrasting elements that become absurd when coupled\u00a0together<\/li>\n

Miscommunication and misunderstanding<\/strong> – cross-purpose communications that cause comic confusion<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n $\"Concept$ <\/a><\/p>\n
Some additional guidelines:<\/p>\n
\n
Simple is almost always better than complex; short is better than long<\/li>\n
Determine the purpose of your scene and always factor your humor to non-humor ratio into that purpose<\/li>\n
Humor must come from the character for – for the character to point out the absurdity of a situation, he has to see things a little differently from a non-humorous character<\/li>\n
Abandon logic – humor thrives in chaos, not order<\/li>\n
Don’t over-analyze<\/li>\n
Be willing to surprise yourself – to write someone ho sees the humor in a situation, you’ll have to open those pockets within yourself<\/li>\n
Abandon your dignity – you can’t be funny if you’re afraid of embarrassing yourself – you also can’t write serious prose if you’re afraid to take emotional risks!<\/li>\n
Let your voice and attitudes, as well as those of your characters, flow<\/li>\n
Trust your own humor; don’t try too hard to be funny<\/li>\n
Don’t sacrifice truth for a funny effect – good humor always contains a grain of truth<\/li>\n
Don’t let your characters laugh at their own jokes – that’s the prose equivalent of a sitcom laugh track<\/li>\n
Handling taboos: the more absurd your material and the farther its set from reality, the more sacred cows you can make fun of<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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Kris Neri shared some of her secrets with us at the Tony Hillerman Conference. Here are a few tricks of the trade. Teaching\u00a0humor is hard, Kris says. To teach, you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,29],"tags":[632,634,635,5,633],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-onwriting","category-tipsandtricks","tag-humor","tag-kris-neri","tag-tony-hillerman-writing-conference","tag-writing","tag-writing-humor","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jeshays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}