quote:...humor is like gold for publishing houses from what I have gleaned in my reading of publishers.
I'm not doubting her, but I wondered if others here share this opinion?
Posted by Isaiah13 (Member # 2283) on :
I'm guessing it's because so few people can do it well. It's rare for me to actually laugh out loud while reading, but when I do, I remember.
Posted by dpatridge (Member # 2208) on :
That's really odd, I laugh like a maniac almost every time I read something. Even books that aren't written as humor have some parts of it with great comedic relief.
Maybe I'm just too easy...
Edited to fix my capitalization... I'm trying! Honestly!
[This message has been edited by dpatridge (edited June 24, 2005).]
Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :
I personally like stories with humor woven deftly in among the action and, yes, some romance. It's a nice mixture. I can well imagine that editors appreciate the change of pace as well, provided its well done.
But I don't know from personal experience. *sigh* I've not yet earned my first rejection slip.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
Anything that is actually interesting and fun to read is like gold. Just trying to be funny isn't any better than making an effort to be passionate or dramatic or anything else. If you can move the reader to tears, that's just as good as inducing side-splitting laughter.
Humor might seem easier, but it isn't. It really isn't. But it's harder to laugh if the joke seems contrived rather than natural. A forced joke can only produce a forced laugh (unless you're cruel enough to laugh at the person forcing the joke--which I am, but I don't buy stories when I'm laughing at the author). So it is an essential part of successful jokes that they seem easy.
That said, I'm more along dp's line, I laugh out loud all the time, even when reading serious parts that have me fully engaged. Heck, one of the things I loved about Madlax was the pervasive sense of humor in even the grimmest situations.
Posted by Shendülféa (Member # 2408) on :
From what I've seen on fanfiction.net, the humorous stories tend to get the most reviews. I posted LOTR/Napoleon Dynamite crossover that parodies both movies and got up to 200 reviews on it. I posted an angst story on the same site and have gotten considerably less reviews. And this doesn't happen to just me. I see this with most other authors there. There's one person who wrote a funny story based on LOTR and has well over a thousand reviews. I hardly see those kind of numbers on more serious stories (with the exception of a Phantom of the Opera fanfic that has, last time I checked, about 5,000 reviews).
Then again, that's fanfiction. But I think the same goes for original fiction. I believe that it did hold true at fictionpress.com that humorous stories were more likely to get readers than the dramatic, angst-filled ones.
[This message has been edited by Shendülféa (edited June 26, 2005).]