Yeah, academic training has a lot to answer for... but actually I find it LESS funny if the first person comes in, too ego-trippy...
we can get granola bars in the UK Personally I'd have placed it between Madhoca's and Mel's piece it needs the first person or it is too flat and less words to make it more punchy I guess. I was waiting for the fart joke with the granola and tofu though very Hugh Laurie. Was wondering if that was the power for the lights. The humour in my writing is more standard - I have a blustering verbose man, boys that sing while they pee, I had to have a Mrs Malaprop just hoping I have her right they are more difficult to do etc I think sometimes keeping it simple is best way to go. Pare something back to a snappy observation - also again humour can just be warm and pleasant without being laugh out loud funny. Someone described a door slamming in my book following a fight as a humourous observation
Coming back to the OP somewhat, character doesn't just affect the writer, it affects the reader, which is what makes it difficult to give specific advice on 'how to be funny'. For me, anything that is derivative while pretending to be original, or too much like 'journalise' i.e. with random personal interjections, is a total turn off in a novel. I can put up with it, even appreciate it, in a column or article if it's done well. P.S. If you can get granola bars in the UK, that's new. Still don't know what they are, though.
There's a Flamish writer, Herman Brusselmans, who's hilarious by not making a big deal out of the funny parts. Like "I went down to the grocery store, enjoying the breeze and watching an old lady beat up a nigger with her walker.". So there is a swear word in there, a funny scene (old lady beating someone up), some racism and all this as if it were a description of birds singing and children playing. Is this called cynicism? I dunno. All I do know is that this kind of humor works by not emphasizing the humorous bits. Just like "Nice shirt! By the way, your hair is on fire.". Also looking for original synonyms can sometimes help. For example, instead of asshole, try assmunch. Or instead of writing about a fat pug, write about a pigpug. Then there's the element of surprise. For example, when someone, in the course of an argument, doesn't give some kind of comeback as the reader would expect, but gets distracted and instead of saying "I disagree, shut up", he says "Big pretzel" (because there happens to be a pretzel stand), that can be hilarious. The "Big pretzel!" scene is my favorite in all Supernatural.
You make a good point, Axo, about 'this kind of humor works by not emphasizing the humorous bits' although I couldn't actually find humorous bits in your anecdote. IMO if there is too much swearing, racism etc it's rather boringly like an attempt at the humour that emerged in London at the start of the 80s in the Comic Strip with Alexei Sayle et al.
To be fair he is Flemish the work will have to be translated into English before it even has to be transferred to a new culture. I know watching a foreign language film with subtitles with friends that speak the language they will laugh in different places. Humour doesn't even transfer well between cultures that speak the same language which is why i believe it is nurture rather than nature that brings it about
Apart from being a tool to make people giggle, humour (i.e. satire) is probably the most powerful form of communication there is. Your audience is in a ready-position for the next big laugh and meanwhile you spoon-feed them all your radical oppinions about everything. Al Gore can make a thousand lectures and speeches, but I will always - always - associate him with ManBearPig, and never be able to take anything he says seriously.
All very good points, well put. But for me, it just comes naturally...I don't really think about it, in fact, if I "try" to be funny...I'm not.
Actually, humour certainly does not = satire. Satire is only one type of humour--which, in fact, not every person and culture finds amusing.
