Don't Take The Easy Jokes

In comedy, there are a lot of easy jokes to make. Sometimes they are the crude ones. Sometimes they are just the classic ones. In either case, I would advise against using them if you can avoid it.

There is a classic joke that just about every comic has made. It boils down to one character giving a long rant on a subject that serves no purpose but to make the speaker sound like an arrogant blowhard, immediately followed by a single phrase or action that completely makes the first character look like an idiot.

In practice, this situation is funny once, max. The problem with it is that it is wasteful. Since all of the speech is completely useless and only exists to build suspense toward the punchline, the audience completely wastes its time in reading it. I have come to the point that once I realize a strip is doing this tired bit, I just skip to the punchline and move on.

It makes you wonder why anybody would choose to do a joke so unfunny. Well, that's because it's easy. Wasting space is easy and generic slapstick is easy. Most people also have occasional glitches in their internal filter. Sometimes you think up this exact scene and it seems like quite the rib tickler. And, truth be told, if you go on the ride and really get into the strip, it is at least a little funny. The problem is that it requires so much work to get through the strip that I do not get sucked into it. I am not within the illusion, not under its spell, and that is why the strips are not funny.

Easy jokes are any joke that you see on a TV sit-com. If you watch a random episode of Friends and you can't predict at least 90% of the jokes, maybe you shouldn't be writing comedy. Those are nothing more than a collection of obvious set-ups and natural punch lines. The biggest indicator of an easy joke is that somebody says something so out of character or unrelated to the current subject that it can only exist to make a joke. Then all you do is think of any phrase that has the most obviously out of place word in it, and make a pun or other cheap joke.

The real problem with writing easy jokes, aside from the fact that they get old really fast, is that it prevents you from writing better jokes. If you're writing a comic strip, you only have room for one big punchline. If you take the easy joke, you don't have the room to put in another one.

Do yourself a favor and write a joke that you don't see coming. Take a little extra effort and it will show in your work.

A Scope of Magnitude

The most annoying thing about amateur writers is their misconception of the writing process. Students know two phrases, 'rough draft' and 'final draft', and they think that's all there is. First you write your rough draft, then you write your final draft, then you're finished.

That couldn't be more wrong. It is very rare that the first iteration of a piece is lacking only small touch ups to be perfect. Usually, there are several steps of writing that occur before a first draft is even made.

For example, I am working on a graphic novel. It is a horror story, broken into chapters, each one being a character's personal experience with the attacks. In terms of writing, the first step was to come up with story ideas. Who has an interesting story to tell and how many of them are different enough to overlap in basic premise? So I had to write several ideas that I could play around with.

The second step was to write the story outline for each story idea. How does it start? Who is in it? What are the significant things that happen in the story? How does it end? These can be as vague and general has a three-sentence paragraph or as specific as a 5-page outline. Of course, the less work I put into this step, the more I have to put in future steps, so spending the time on the 5-page outline is better if it's needed.

The third step is making a script. From the story idea, I hammer out all of the small details. Where are people? What are they doing, what is going on as time passes? What exactly are people saying. This is the step where all of the vagueness of the story needs to be taken out. This is also the step where having an outline of a 3-sentence paragraph makes for a great deal more work.

The fourth step is story boarding. From the script, I need to figure out how each spoken line and every action translates into panels on the page. While this may not seem like a step that has to do with writing in pure prose, it actually does matter. Storyboarding is about pacing. Is the action moving quickly? Then don't spend 5 panels setting up one punch; that slows down action. If you are writing your book, don't spend three paragraphs on description when exciting action is going on; follow what's interesting.

The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth steps are penciling, inking, coloring, and shading, respectively. This is the visual version of what your words need to do in their final steps. All of the previous moments were big in picture. You were figuring out what was happening, why, and how people dealt with it. These are the steps where you get to touch up the small details. Make your characters defined and alive. Make your scenery vibrant and tangible. Draw your readers in with your story, but create a world so real that they forget it's an illusion.

Even with all of the steps I have listed, there are several skipped over. Internal revision and editing is very important. Peer review and constructive criticism helps you get through a lot of the developmental steps. I also skipped all of the preliminary steps of coming up with an idea, creating a world, a history, inhabitants, and a future.

All things considered, the writing process is a vast one. Even when you know exactly what you are doing, a large project will take large amounts of your time, upwards of months and years. To say the least, there is a lot more to it than a rough draft and a final draft. Be aware of the levels, and layers involved in the writing process. Don't let it stop you from writing, but make sure you understand what you are getting yourself into if you want to create a truly polished piece of work.

Look Through Your Audience's Eyes

There are a number of techniques that you can use to surprise the reader. Many of them involve misdirection. Consider the hero coming across a shadowy figure several times along his travels. Now, as the author, you know that this character is actually a fellow hero who is watching over the protagonist and keeping him safe from hidden dangers. Because you know that he is a good guy, it is easy to try to paint him as such. You like him and you know that everybody else will, so there's no reason to smear his face. Unfortunately, you have taken away his power. Now he's not a shadowy figure, just a guy who wears a lot of black. When he shows his true nature, it doesn't surprise the reader because he didn't seem that bad in the first place.

Now, the above example is a painfully obvious one, but it leads to the more important point. When you write, you have to look through your audience's eyes. As the creator of the story, you know far more about your characters and their surroundings than your audience ever will and you know it before your story is written. But just because you know it doesn't mean your audience does. How will people interpret a scene without the full context behind it? Maybe the scene will be obvious or lend itself to the most likely theories. Maybe the shadowy figure really is a spy and is not to be trusted.

The artistic use of this technique is to make your audience think a particular way with incomplete information so that you can blow them away when they learn the whole story. The technical use of this skill is to make sure that when people read your work, they think exactly what you want them to, whether it is the truth or not.

Little tricks can help. When two people see each other in the distance, friends will smile and shout and enemies will either show no emotion or start a fight. When you say that your main character saw another person and walked toward him, we could assume that they are friends or enemies. If you intended them to be riends, then throw in extra details. Say that he saw his friend and felt a big grin form, that he waved his hand through the air to get attention.

Writing is all about leading your reader exactly where you want them to go. Be your own reader and see where your writing takes you. That is one of te safest methods of finding out if your writing is doing what you intend it to do.

Excitement

In large part, I am a reserved person. I keep to myself and talk very little. I plan for the future, but am realistic in my hopes and dreams.

When I started writing, I never expected that I would be discovered, revered, and given the world on a silver platter. I didn't even expect that my work would get accepted by most publishers. When I wrote my pieces, I couldn't wait to have my peers review it so they could rip it to shreds and tell me everything that was horrible about it. When I did submit my work to publishers, I tried my hardest to forget that I even sent it so I wouldn't be thinking about it during the waiting period.

This bothers people. There are those who think I'm depressed. They never see me excited or giddy about my writing. They never see me reaching for the stars, praying for the best, hoping for the impossible. These people, however, miss one critical point.

I write. I revise. I edit. I submit my work. I may not pray for the impossible, but I would never turn it down. I don't expect to be accepted by a publication as famous as The New Yorker, but that doesn't mean I won't let them know I'm out there.

I care about my work with all of my heart. I care about it enough to create it and work on it to make it as good as I humanly can. Rather than expend my energy on wishful thinking, I use it on planning and trying. When I submit a piece of writing to a publisher, I don't wait with bated breath; I keep working on my next project because it is a productive use of my time. When I do get accepted, you will see my excitement. I will jump with joy and shout it from the mountains. But every step that comes before that isn't anything to be overly excited about; those are just preparation for the final decision.

What this comes down to is that, for me, outward excitement is not equivalent to passion. I am greatly passionate about my work. That is why I do it, even when I'm not excited about it. I am excited by things that will happen, not things that might happen. When I get accepted by a publication, I get excited because I know in the future that I will see my words in print. When I submit my work to a publisher, I don't get excited because I have no idea what will happen in the future.

If you are easily excited, I'm not saying you shouldn't be. What I am saying is that, regardless of what emotions you feel and how you express them, all writers should have one thing in common: they love writing.

Turn Off The Noise

I like to have some kind of background noise when I write. Sometimes it's music. Sometimes it's the television. I usually have the problem that writing without some kind of noise is really distracting. Either I pick up all the ambient noise of everything around me or the quietness is deafening and I start obsessing over how quiet it is. It's like, when I choose the sound that I will be hearing, I care about it less, so I can focus on the writing.

Of course, no plan is without problems. The worst comes with the TV. Every time it is on, I start paying attention to it. If there is a stupid show on, I have to change the channel. When commercials come on, I have to mute it. When it's a show I actually like, I start paying attention to it. Suddenly hours have passed and I've gotten no work done. Music is nowhere near as time-sucking, mostly because there isn't any dialogue I'm listening to. But even still, when a song has a catchy theme or lyric, I stop paying attention to my writing and focus on that song.

Ultimately, when you write, you either have to remove all distractions or temper your focus to be undistractable. Since the latter option is way difficult, I choose the former. I find that finding the right balance of noise to drown out distractions while not also calling attention to itself is less work and less difficult.

Of course, since every person is different, neither of these may be useful. You may be somebody who prefers the TV or you could love being out in the world and hearing a million sounds at once. If that is true and you know it, congratulations, you obviously aren't having problems with concentration.

Rules, No. Suggestions, Yes.

Most fiction writers will talk about their characters taking on a life of their own. Those writers will tell stories about having an idea or intention, but that their characters disagreed and took the story where they wanted it to go.

It always sounds silly and at least a little crazy. If you create your characters they do whatever you make them do. How can they control their own creator?

The reason is that the creator is receptive and responsive. If they create a story where the main character ends up killing their antagonist, the main character has to have certain characteristics. However, if you create a different main character, then that character won't have the personality traits that would have them commit callous murder like that.

Now, sure, you can force your character to kill the villain in the end, but you run into problems. It is out of character. It doesn't make sense. It destroys any reality that you have established in all of the story up to that point. If you want to make a good story, then the character traits you create will guide their actions more than your whims or desires.

There is nothing wrong with planning out the journey of your story. Figure out where you start, where you end, and important checkpoints along the way. However, realize that these are suggestions, not rules. As you are writing, you may come to realize that your characters would naturally do something different than you originally planned. If you experience this, always choose whichever is most natural. If that means revising your original path, then do so. It will make for a better story.

Critique Others

If you want to become a better writer, it will greatly help you to critique others. Read anything at, below, or above your level, and give it a solid critique. Consider all of the aspects of writing you know about and judge how well somebody's work stands. Consider technical aspects, like rhythm, movement, and melody, and consider deeper aspects like plot, believability, consistency, and interest.

If you can, critique these pieces objectively. You can enjoy a piece of writing that has no kind of rhythm, but you should at least be able to recognize that it is lacking. This is an important skill because, for as much as writing is intimate and intuitive, there is a cold, technical aspect of writing that must be appeased.

After you have done an objective critique, you should do a personal critique. When you read that piece of writing, how did it make you feel? Where you confused or lost? Did it surprise you or was it boring? These are questions that should be easy to answer because they're based on emotions and immediate reactions. The reason you do thihs is to compare it to your objective critique.

If an essay was perfectly logical and step-by-step, but it was still confusing, there is an issue. Why did this happen? Did the author move too quickly? Did they put in extraneous information that cluttered up the important parts? Discover whatever causes these dissonances in the objective and subjective critiques and then fix them.

Critiquing is always beneficial. For one thing, it keeps your skills sharp. For another thing, it keeps these aspects of writing in your conscious mind. Sure, you may naturally know how to make rhythm in your writing, but when you don't actively think about it, you don't realize when you get lazy or sloppy, or you may simply miss an opportunity to do something special.

Critique others, so that you can critique yourself.