Making it Look Easy
I was feeling a bit … let’s call it “feisty” … at some of the panels this weekend. I found myself jumping in to argue with several of my fellow panelists. (But only when they were wrong, of course!)
During the humor panel, it was put forth as a truism that you can’t force humor. It must come naturally. Organically.
I would like to point out that passing a kidney stone is also an organic process.
So I got feisty. Because you can force humor and make it work. You know who does it all the time? Professional humorists. Howard Tayler (of Schlock Mercenary) was in the audience, and we chatted a bit after the panel. 
Howard has been producing a daily webcomic since June of 2000. Not because Schlock flows organically from his–
Ack. Very Bad Image. Strike that.
The point is, I guarantee there are days Howard doesn’t feel funny, and doesn’t want to work on the comic. But he does the work anyway.
As I write this post, it also occurs to me that of the panelist who said you can’t force funny and Howard in the audience who in fact does exactly that, only one of these two people currently makes a living from their humor.
I’m not trying to bash my fellow panelist here. I disagree with them, but I understand where their assumption comes from. Because while you can force humor, that humor will fail if it feels forced. We’ve all seen the guy who tries too hard to tell a joke and ends up flopping. Heck, I’ve been that guy more times than I like to think about.
One sign of skill is the ability to make it look easy. I watched Jef Mallett draw his character Frazz last month. He sketched a bit, then began inking lines, making it look so easy and natural I’m sure a lot of us were thinking, “Hey, I could do that!”
And maybe I could. With years of practice and work.
Ask a professional comedian how many times they’ve practiced their routine. Ask them how often they bounce jokes past other comedians to learn what to keep, what to change, and what to discard.
I think this one pushed my buttons so hard because not only do I disagree, but I’ve heard similar claims about writing. “You can’t force the writing to come.” “The story has to flow naturally, when the muse is ready.”
Well, my muse is ready every Monday through Friday at 12:00 sharp, because that’s the only time I’ve got. Some days I don’t feel like writing, but I force myself to do it. As a result, I’ve written at least one book a year for close to a decade now.
And you know, there are some damn funny bits in those books, too.
Ali
May 5, 2011 @ 9:58 am
Oh, I agree with you. The whole Muse bit is a lie. Sure, there are moments of inspiration that seem to come out of nowhere. However, the large part of writing is work. It’s showing up, sitting down, and plunking out the words. Even on the days where it’s like pulling teeth, blindfolded, using only a pair of dull tweezers.
I forget who said it, originally, but an author once mentioned that there’s no such thing as writers’ block (is that apostrophe is the right place? Because I’m sorely undercaffeinated today). It’s a made up construct. A plumber doesn’t tell a client, “Sorry, I can’t work today. I have plumbers’ block.” Neither should writers.
Anyway, really great post.
jonathanmoeller
May 5, 2011 @ 10:01 am
Amen and hallelujah.
Like, this year, I haven’t written any new short stories or novels, because my work situation has been insane (good insane, but time-consuming insane). But things have since calmed down, and on May 1st, I started a new book. And it seems so much…less painful than it used to. I couldn’t figure out why at first. Then I realized that even when I was busy, I kept doing “choose your own adventure” on my blog, which meant that I *had* to have new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, even if my muse didn’t want to get off the couch, put down the bag of Reese’s Pieces, and turn off daytime TV (my muse is kind of lazy). The discipline, I think, is really going to pay off.
-JM
Jim C. Hines
May 5, 2011 @ 10:16 am
Plumbers’ block conjures up way too many bad visuals 😛
I’ve said before that Snoopy is my muse, mostly because he keeps lugging the typewriter up onto the doghouse and doing it. He gets rejected all the time, but never gives up on the writing. That’s the kind of muse and inspiration I want.
Jim C. Hines
May 5, 2011 @ 10:17 am
Yep. Discipline and momentum. With the latter, I’ve found that as long as I’m writing *something*, I have an easier time continuing the next day. Whereas if I end up with a few days off for whatever reason, that’s when it gets really hard to start writing again.
Glad to hear life’s calming down and you’re starting in on something new!
Bryce Moore
May 5, 2011 @ 10:20 am
I agree. One of the frustrating things I saw during my English MA program was how many of my fellow creative writers didn’t actually write anything. They’d sit back and say they could only do it when their muse was with them, or some other crap. And as a result, they struggled to piece together an entire novel over the course of two or more years. What other art profession do you have where the artist only decides to work when they feel like it? (Well, what other *successful* art profession do you have where that happens?)
Of course, I’m sure as I write this that it’s true for some people–they really *can* only write well when the moons are aligned. But my experience is that even when I feel like I’m having an off day, I’m really not. My writing isn’t noticeably worse on the days I have to force myself to write. As I look over a novel once I’m done, I don’t see the parts where I wasn’t “feeling it”. My output is surprisingly uniform in skill level (for better or worse).
Jordan Lapp
May 5, 2011 @ 10:40 am
This post is made of win.
I read your blog via Google Reader and rarely chime in, but I had to say something today. Would a firefighter be able to decide not to fight fires today because he didn’t feel like it? Writing is a craft AND a profession. Some days are craft days, but most of them are profession days.
Elizabeth
May 5, 2011 @ 10:59 am
I used to believe in writers block, but then I started writing for a living and couldn’t afford to anymore. I never ever get writers block for the stuff I’m getting paid for, which tells me that when I get “stuck” on the stuff I’m not getting paid for that I’m simply not prioritizing it highly enough. Not writing is a choice, and it’s one that I don’t generally have enough time on my deadline calendar to make.
Jim C. Hines
May 5, 2011 @ 11:03 am
Amazing what deadlines and empty bank accounts can do to help you overcome writers block, isn’t it? 🙂
Jim C. Hines
May 5, 2011 @ 11:04 am
Thanks, Jordan!
After reading various comments, I think I may have to make a LiveJournal icon of the old Duncan Donuts guy and caption it “Time to make the words…”
Howard Tayler
May 5, 2011 @ 1:05 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Jim. Yes, comedy is hard work.
I sat down last night with our writers’ group and hammered out the key moments for the rest of the current Schlock Mercenary book. We talked about jokes, we argued about which callbacks were critical and which could wait for another book. We talked about how one joke in particular might be out-of-character, but how, delivered correctly, it could instead be character development AND a “stand-up-and-cheer” heroic moment.
My cohorts in this process? Two experts in dramatic theory, one of whom is a Writers Of The Future winner, and the other a Dragonlance writer and incorrigible punster. And my brother, who did stand-up and sketch comedy for years, has two movie novelizations under his belt, and is consistently funnier on Twitter than I can ever hope to be.
We laughed throughout the process, but you know what? It was hard work. And anybody who insists that comedy can’t be forced would be positively APPALLED to see how we kept taking jokes that naturally arose and reshaping them with formulae to make them much, much better.
(It was a pleasure to see you at Penguicon. Our faux-adversarial, battle-of-the-toastmasters must be kept alive…)
Jim C. Hines
May 5, 2011 @ 1:14 pm
“Our faux-adversarial, battle-of-the-toastmasters must be kept alive…”
Was great to see and hang out with you too! I’m thinking we need to get you and Sandra out to ConFusion in January for Toastmasters II: Revenge of the Box!
May 6, 2011 Links and Plugs : Hobbies and Rides
May 6, 2011 @ 11:03 am
[…] Jim C. Hines on Making it Look Easy. […]
Amy (LunarG)
May 6, 2011 @ 9:07 pm
That would be fabulous. ^_^