Bird Flu Is the New Bird Flu
Strangely, when I mentioned bird flu on here the other day, my journal got linked to on several bird flu blog-watching sites, which amuses me deeply. Let’s see if it works again!
Papillon is at 72,000 words. I think the current part is very strong dramatically, but it has almost no jokes. I’ve found that one of the hardest things to do as a writer, after one has mastered crafting compelling plots and complex characters, of course, is maintaining tone. This is especially difficult over the course of an entire novel. Tone, you see, is a product of many things: my precise mood when sitting down to write, my caffeine level, whatever music may be playing nearby, the weather, etc. It is less frequently a product of intention. “Papillon” is particularly difficult in regards to tone. I want it to be fundamentally serious, if absurd, but not funny-absurd, but sprinkled with many hilarious jokes that amuse and inspire laughter but don’t detract from the impact of the drama. This tone is a knife edge!
Some good examples are the television shows “Deadwood” and “The Wire”. Each features uncompromising verisimilitude in acting, direction, and dialogue; the quality of those elements makes for wrenching, highly effective drama. Yet each show is frequently side-splittingly hilarious. It is a mark of incredible skill that they can have a foot in comedy and drama without falling into the respective pit-traps of farce or maudlinism. The two elements complement each other exceedingly well. Comedy relieves the tension of drama, and drama keeps the characters relevant and interesting. Leavening comedy with drama means not letting your jokes get the better of your characters, cannibalizing them for laughs - see the past ten years of “The Simpsons.”
(”Farscape,” that sweetest of shows, is not a good example of the balance I’m talking about; it falls into farce and camp, and leaps the fence again, with the greatest aplomb, and it always works. As far as I know, it is unique in this respect. The works of Joss Whedon are a better example.)
Why is this approach so effective? Because it most resembles life, methinks. Life is alternately difficult and joyous. We laugh and cry; works that evoke both reactions fire all our emotional cylinders. I keep going to television shows - something like “Heroes” leans too far to the drama camp, and, when watching it, the absurdity of so many straight lines in a row, with no one cracking a joke, simply strikes you as unrealistic. This quickly devolves to tedium (an unfortunate victim of lowest common denominator scripting). Purely comical works, though, become amusing nothings; enjoyable whilst consuming them, but forgotten within days or hours.
“The Office” strikes the sublime balance of which I speak; a comedy that doesn’t forget its characters.
The works of Sinclair Lewis often do this. What else? Glancing at my bookshelf: Eco, Philip Jose Farmer, Heinlein, Terry Pratchett (sometimes), George MacDonald Fraser, Balzac, Roald Dahl, Steinbeck.
I’m not saying that this is essential to producing great works. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Melville, Hemingway are not known for their ability to make jokes. I am saying that great works can be produced this way.
What say you, dear reader?
June 28th, 2008 at 5:23 am
[...] more: Bird Flu Is the New Bird Flu Tags: archive, balance, because-it-most, Bird Flu, characters, drama, fence, from-the-impact, [...]
June 28th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Ha, the bird flu thing is just a robot. Anyway, yeah, it can be difficult to get that mix of comedy. Comedic moments can often destroy dramatic moments (this happens a lot in GTA, which has good drama and plot, but the entire world is satire, so it can feel out of place), just as drama can make comedy hard to stomach (see: Scrubs). And it takes a good dose of dramatic tension and character to help a comedy be more than quick jokes. It’s the difference between, say, Futurama and Family Guy.
June 30th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I agree. I would also toss Peter David into the mix as someone who can write good dramatic stories with humor, though he does sometimes stray a bit into metahumor or come dangerously close to breaking the fourth wall. Most of the time he pulls it off, though.
I haven’t watched The Wire or Deadwood yet, but The Shield works that way for me.
I think it’s important to remember that people are funny. They’re sarcastic, or they tell bad jokes, or they embarrass themselves. They make a big deal about insignificant stuff. They screw up. They sit in awkward silence. All these things are funny in the right context. The people writing Heroes, which is a great example, have forgotten that, so the characters end up looking more like walking plot devices that real people.
I would also submit the excellent webcomic, Starslip Crisis by Kris Straub, as a good balance of drama and humor.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I know what you mean — that is a very delicate balance. It kills me when shows like Friends, that have a great cast of characters that have depth (despite the sitcom format) in their early years are totally stereotyped and devolved to characatures of themselves in the later years. The drama gives way to the slapstick, and the show suffers in its later years.
I would much rather read or watch something that strikes that drama/comedy balance. That’s one reason Joss’s shows rank so high on my favorite-show meter. GRRM’s Song of Ice and Fire series is really good, but it is so hard to read something that long without a breath of humor in it, just all fighting, treachery and action.
Good luck keeping that tone balanced through the end of the novel!