Writers' guild speaker offers advice on writing humor

The annual Marshall Writers' Guild Workshop was held Saturday morning, April 24, with writer, speaker and workshop leader Mary-Lane Kamberg as special guest speaker.

Kamberg, from Olathe, Kan., has written several books, including her latest, "The I Love To Write Book: Ideas and Tips for Young Writers."

Under the topic "What's So Funny?", Kamberg discussed writing humor.

"It's really hard to teach someone to be funny, but you can learn the techniques," she said. "It's not all natural. You can be a naturally funny person, but you can learn techniques (for writing humor)."

"All writing techniques are all the same, no matter what you're writing," Kamberg added, "but different techniques are emphasized in different genres. ... When I started writing, I was nonfiction/magazine article/journalist-type writing, and then I started writing poetry and I found that the poetry techniques really helped my nonfiction. And I talked to a poet who said, 'That's funny you'd say that, when I started writing nonfiction my poetry got better.'"

Kamberg began by talking about the kind of person who would be good at writing humor:

Did you grow up in a well-adjusted family? Are you the type of person who would never make fun of someone else? Are you nice?

If so, writing humor is likely to be difficult for you, according to Kamberg.

"I have a friend who's a really nice woman," said Kamberg, "and she tried to write humor and it just wasn't funny. You know, she's just too nice! She won't stab anybody in the back!"

"If you grew up in a dysfunctional family (my family would say that we put the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional'), you have a mean streak, and this is a pretty big requirement, you crack jokes during a crisis, ... you're a natural comedian!" Kamberg said.

She said, "Whenever someone in my family is in the hospital, our room is roaring with laughter. You can hear us echoing down the halls of the hospital. And that's just how we deal with things, we laugh."

Written humor has to be grounded in something true, otherwise it's just a joke out of a joke book, said Kamberg. "Truth makes it easy for reader to relate to the humor."

Kamberg said frustrating situations, someone you're mad at, horrible experiences, phobias, and things nobody talks about are all good starting points for a humor piece, but there are many more. "It's the same way when you're looking for ideas for other writing," Kamberg noted.

The next step is choosing the format the piece is going to be written in. Kamberg suggested the diary format (chronological order of events), how-to or how-not-to, parody or parody interview, a quiz, list of good versus bad on the selected topic, or Q&A advice format, "Kind of like a Dear Abby column, and of course you're going to make up the questions," Kamberg added.

"I did a parody of American Idol as if Bob Dylan were a contestant," she said. "You know, I put what Randy said and what Simon said and it was real fun! They're saying, 'You know, we really couldn't understand a word you sang.' All these things Bob Dylan is known for, if he were on American Idol would be big negatives!"

"And we know from fiction how you want you're character to be constantly challenged and getting in deeper and deeper trouble," Kamberg said, "and that's the same with humor, you want to start out kind of funny and than get funnier and funnier."

Discussing some aspects of "cracking the joke" in a humor story, Kamberg said, "You build the joke, and right before the punch-line, you pause. And in writing, a lot of times all you have to do is either make a new paragraph or put a line space (before) the punch-line. ... If you were doing stand-up, you'd stop talking for a second."

She also added, "Surprise is something that you need. I would say probably 90 percent of (humor) is because you've surprised the reader."

In addition, "Your character needs to have a go-for-the-throat mentality," said Kamberg. "You just have to have that mean streak!"

Asked if she wrote in the same way she spoke, Kamberg replied, "Kinda. When you're writing a humorous essay you really do want to have a conversational tone."

Kamberg did give a word of warning for writers of humor, "Libel is a very serious thing writers can do, which is lying about someone in print. ... The (victim) needs to prove that you knew it was untrue and you said it anyway. If the victim can show that a reasonable person reading what you said would think it was true, then you can get sued for libel. It's hard to prove, and it's not likely to happen, but make sure that what you put down is so outrageous that everyone would know that you were kidding."

"And a final thought," said Kamberg, "Robert Frost said, 'No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.' And I'd like to add, 'No laughter in the writer, no laughter in the reader.'"

Kamberg is a member of Missouri Writers' Guild, as well as Kansas City Writers, which publishes Kansas City Voices, a yearly magazine that includes poetry, essays and nonfiction articles and is "open to all writers everywhere," Kamberg said.

The regular meetings of the Marshall Writers' Guild are held on the third Thursday of each month at 1 p.m., and the Night Writers meetings are held the last Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m.

On the Net:
www.sullivansfarms.net/writersguild