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on writing humor
Nov. 5th, 2005 06:09 pmWrote a few hundred words of "Guardian" this afternoon -- two of my major storylines have been introduced, and the groundwork is there for introducing the third in chapter 2. I think chapter 1 will end on a cliffhanger, partly just because I can, but partly to set the mood for the rest of the story. I want a faster, tighter pace than in "Apartment Manager," because the stakes are higher.
...
It's interesting that when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
askerian suggested including Sasuke into "Apartment Manager" continuity, my initial response was to dash off a couple vaguely comedic snippets, but as I wound up with more and more detail in "The Way of the Apartment Manager" and had more time to sit and think about the Uchiha massacre, Akatsuki, and what to do with all my characters once I finished the first story, "The Guardian in Spite of Herself" turned into a much more complex undertaking. I think it will be much better than if I'd stuck to my first fumbling around -- it certainly makes more use of the world and Kishimoto's handy cast of thousands! -- but... mneh. I kind of half want to write my original impulse as well, as a sort of AU of an AU, if only because I rarely write straight up comedy.
I've never been terribly good at being funny on purpose. I can tell jokes, sure (I'm damn good at that, if I do say so myself) but that's more a matter of timing and vocal inflection than anything, and besides, I'm not inventing the stories. I was once voted Funniest Person in my elementary school class, but that, I think, was largely because I didn't get a lot of jokes and was thus a perfect straight woman for other people, and because I was inadvertently physically amusing.
So writing comedy is something I like to try now and then, to sort of stretch my writing skills. I treat sex scenes the same way -- I can do them if I have to, but they're not something I'm comfortable with as a writer. I used to be that way about action scenes, to a lesser degree, but writing Naruto fanfiction has helped me learn how to choreograph fights and so on. Romance... eh, I'm still trying to figure out how to categorize that.
Anyway, "Guardian" will have a fair amount of humor -- it's Naruto fanfiction, after all -- but humor is not the driving force, not the way it could have been. *sigh* (Although the only excuse for the physical appearance and certain personality quirks of one character is that I have a terrible sense of humor and am working off of a very bad auditory pun.)
...
It's interesting that when
askerian suggested including Sasuke into "Apartment Manager" continuity, my initial response was to dash off a couple vaguely comedic snippets, but as I wound up with more and more detail in "The Way of the Apartment Manager" and had more time to sit and think about the Uchiha massacre, Akatsuki, and what to do with all my characters once I finished the first story, "The Guardian in Spite of Herself" turned into a much more complex undertaking. I think it will be much better than if I'd stuck to my first fumbling around -- it certainly makes more use of the world and Kishimoto's handy cast of thousands! -- but... mneh. I kind of half want to write my original impulse as well, as a sort of AU of an AU, if only because I rarely write straight up comedy.I've never been terribly good at being funny on purpose. I can tell jokes, sure (I'm damn good at that, if I do say so myself) but that's more a matter of timing and vocal inflection than anything, and besides, I'm not inventing the stories. I was once voted Funniest Person in my elementary school class, but that, I think, was largely because I didn't get a lot of jokes and was thus a perfect straight woman for other people, and because I was inadvertently physically amusing.
So writing comedy is something I like to try now and then, to sort of stretch my writing skills. I treat sex scenes the same way -- I can do them if I have to, but they're not something I'm comfortable with as a writer. I used to be that way about action scenes, to a lesser degree, but writing Naruto fanfiction has helped me learn how to choreograph fights and so on. Romance... eh, I'm still trying to figure out how to categorize that.
Anyway, "Guardian" will have a fair amount of humor -- it's Naruto fanfiction, after all -- but humor is not the driving force, not the way it could have been. *sigh* (Although the only excuse for the physical appearance and certain personality quirks of one character is that I have a terrible sense of humor and am working off of a very bad auditory pun.)
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