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I have the feeling I've shared this anecdote before, but not having found it in my blogs, I'll tell it (again?):
For a period of years I had a long commute by car that was sometimes shared by others. One of my colleagues grew up somewhere near Hollywood, and like all true Angelinos, he was always working on a screenplay. This guy really put the work in, a lot of people talk about writing, but after months of mentioning his current labor of love, he gave me a finished script to read. It was... okay. It fit all the professional standards of presentation and length and all that. It wasn't any worse than much of the stuff that gets produced. The story was a comedy about ecoterrorism, if I recall correctly. No -- more than that -- it was a rom-com. And it was funny. And hopelessly romantic. And the characters weren't really terrorists.
Then after a few fallow weeks, my friend began fishing for a new idea, and he found a doozy. One morning of our long commute, he laid it out for me. It took him a while just to tell the bare bones of the story because he kept stopping to laugh, and he'd laugh so hard, he couldn't speak. Luckily, *I* was the one who was driving. Otherwise his comedy would have ended with the two of us upside-down in a drainage ditch on the side of a California highway.
Well!
His idea was not funny in the least. In fact, it was gruesome. It was about a man who needed an organ transplant, and he has all sorts of difficulties in getting on the transplant list. At last, the poor man becomes so desperate that he goes to a second- or third-world country and gets involved with criminal elements to hopefully solve his problem. I think he might have had to smuggle some contraband, or had to promise to do so.
[At this point, I exclaim, "Nick, that's not funny; it's horrible!]
And then there is this second thread about a local church needs a new organ -- here he bent over, clutching his stomach and almost had an asthma attack, he was laughing so hard. In fact, he couldn't stop laughing long enough to explain how this church-thread tied in with the story of the man who needed a transplant.
My gasps and protests didn't dissuade him at all -- they only made him laugh even more. I have to stress that my friend is a normal person, with no kinks, and no strange dark side. He's a very positive, happy person. Strangely, though, he couldn't see what I saw.
Now I find myself in a similar situation. I had an idea for a story that I found cute, funny -- maybe even hilarious -- but as I begin to work on it, I find myself shocked and dumbfounded to realize that the lives of the characters are more SAD than funny. It's such an odd reversal that I'm actually shocked. I don't know whether I can lard the plot with humor, or whether I even should.
I'm wondering whether something similar has happened to anyone else out there. I'm not really asking for advice, just wanting to compare experiences, particularly if you came out on the other side of such a thing.
thanks,
Kaleigh Way
Comments
Been there
I had an idea for a story set in my "Daughters of Time" universe. It was a kind of prequel set in Victorian times and how a budding couple got manipulated by a relative. The idea was to be a melodrama of wrong assumptions and unexplainable events.
However, as I began fleshing it out it became darker and darker and it reached the point where it became a lot more violent and unpleasant than anything I normally write.
Dash and Blow. Good idea shelved, at least for a while. Maybe I'll have another look at it sometime.
Penny
Your idea may work.
I'm not an author. The only fiction I've ever produced outside of a writing class assignment was my resume. That said, I watch more than my share of movies and there are all sorts of black/ absurdist humor stories and films that actually succeed. It is all in how the plot unfolds.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of this genre is the film Eating Raoul. It is incredibly funny despite the minor moral travesties of murder and cannibalism.
Georges Lemaître's Nightmare
Consider how unfunny a sitcom would be with this premise:
Two thirty-something physicists live together and plaster their apartment with subtle jokes only a top scientist could ever understand -- if they had a sense of humor. The "Jeff" of the two displays his angst by actually wringing his hands. Despite "Mutt" being anal-retentive and having a photographic memory for even the minutest slight, the two seem to get along, until a beautiful blonde moves in next door upsetting their world. The blonde waitress from the Cheesecake Factory has alcohol problems and is leading a high-risk sex life driven by her failure in her bid to become an actress.
The two main nerds are almost normal compared to their two best friends. One is a Jewish MIT graduate engineer whose infantile sexual fantasies result in pick-up lines he should have left behind in sixth grade. The other is a young man from New Delhi who can't talk to females unless he drinks alcohol and then he becomes Bogart-like. The running gag is that these two are really homosexual. (Isn't that a hoot?)
Almost every minor recurring character is horribly flawed. There is even one that has a distinct lisp. His lisp is handled in the worst possible way by the writers. It's almost as if the writers are determined to bring every cringe-able character from The Simpsons to life, especially Comic Book Guy.
Doesn't that sound hilarious?
Yet, you throw in Wil Wheaton, dozens of cameos (Bob Newhart was amazing), electric dialogue, and superb acting -- and magic happened.
Another classic example is the infamous show about nothing, which was also one of the very funniest.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Glad to see you still around.
Glad to see you still around.
I agree with Penny. It may still work. Keep in mind that both Grapes of Wrath AND Death of a Salesman, while both depressing as heck, became extremely popular. Step back, turn on some schadenfreude, and look over your characters. It may be that they're funny in the "My dog, I'm so glad that isn't me!" way.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Your idea may work.
I'm not an author. The only fiction I've ever produced outside of a writing class assignment was my resume. That said, I watch more than my share of movies and there are all sorts of black/ absurdist humor stories and films that actually succeed. It is all in how the plot unfolds.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of this genre is the film Eating Raoul. It is incredibly funny despite the minor moral travesties of murder and cannibalism.
Thanks for the comments!
And thanks for the encouragement.
I hope I made it clear that the idea of the man who needs the transplant is not mine at all, and I have ZERO intention of writing a story based on that idea.
I am going to keep struggling with my idea. I'm still committed to it being a comedy. Maybe I need to add another thread to the mix that will throw the whole mess into a bigger context, or (more likely) I just need to find a better ending.
Kaleigh Way
Thrilled to hear from you again...
But does this mean that you also write under the nom de plume (silent e), Iolanthe Portmanteaux? I always thought the two of you wrote in similar styles. As for needing encouragement -- good lord! you're one of the best writers on this site. We need encouragement from you. LOL.
Looking forward to new stuff...from Kaleigh or Iolanthe (as in theme).
Hugs,
Sammy
You caught me (with my big muddy footprint)
Yes to all that, and thanks for the compliments. I didn't realize that I hadn't set that name correctly. I didn't know that a person even could! I'm going to change it now to throw off the late-comers.
The reason for Iolanthe is that I had ideas for stories that were heavily salted with explicit sex, but didn't feel I could write them as Kaleigh Way. So, after a few calculations and searches, I came up with that name.
I have been going over my old KW stories, tweaking and repairing here and there, and as always I have ambitious plans to rewrite and write more, because I never did all the projects I planned.
Also, after writing this blog I *DID* work out how to make my idea funny again (at least I think it's funny). I started listing all the problems that each character had, especially the difficulties they are left with in the end because some of them seemed unsolvable (and quite sad). I also evaluated how each character viewed and felt about the other characters -- which was a VERY surprising exercise.
There was one character who I named in the story, but who never appeared. But I'd worked through everyone else's motivations, so I looked at this person as well, and suddenly it came to me: it made perfect sense for this person to frame the entire story and be the donkey who carries off a fairly Hollywood ending. I've been sketching it all out while waiting for real-life work/job stuff to percolate.
I guess I was silly to think no one would catch on to my double selves. I should have worn glasses, like Clark Kent.
Hugs,
Kaleigh Way
Oh My Gosh
Well you fooled me, and I'm an expert in noms des plumes. :)
The worst thing is now I have one less favorite author. Phooey. :D
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Company
You're in great company, Iolanthe/Kaleigh. Someone (who shall remain nameless) at one time visited ASS* under three noms de plume, and still uses them once in a while here.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Possibly Related
The two blackest comedy movies I am aware of are "Dr. Strangelove" and "Heathers". ("My teen angst has a body count.") Might one react as you did, to these?
I persuaded a friend here known for twist endings, to read a story of mine with a twist ending, but with subject matter he normally doesn't read (or write). He found the story sad.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Another movie and or novel you might enjoy.
The Loved One is based on a short novel of the same name by Alec Waugh. A comedy about the funeral business in Hollywood? Who would have ever imagined such a thing. As the blurb on the DVD cover says: the motion picture with someone to offend every one.
A Sixties Movie
I was surprised it was that far back. And it's something to offend everyone.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
Very loosely based on the Evelyn Waugh novel.
I think screenwriter Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, The Magic Christian, Barbarella) was very, very high when he adapted The Loved One into a movie.
I don't recall where I picked this tidbit up, probably the forward to something; but Waugh's novel came about when he and Aldous Huxley visited Forest Lawn cemetery in Los Angeles shortly after they arrived in California. Like many famous writers of the time (such as notable New York playwright Barton Fink) Huxley had been lured to the writer's cottages at Universal with promises of big bucks; and the two writers were shocked at how gaudy and ostentatious the whole place was---the palm trees and fountains, the big movie star tombs, the knock offs of famous European sculptures---a uniquely California cemetery that mixed the somber business of death with show biz. It was just another dose of culture shock for the two transplanted Brits. They sort of challenged each other to write a story about it. Waugh wrote The Loved One, which was hilarious but nowhere near as bizarre as the film; and Huxley penned his After Many A Summer; which mixed in a lot of other west coast weirdness of the late 30;s...
Forest Lawn Memorial Park is actually a beautiful and fascinating place---I had to put it in my circa 1940 Hollywood age regression/transformation story Alchemy and Essence---but unfortunately they don't blast dead people into orbit from there like in the film- That would really put the fun in funeraL!!!
~hugs, Veronica
What borders on stupidity?
Canada and Mexico.
.