What if my protagonist moved to a snobby neighborhood, a place like the Hamptons, and put up a wire fence and started raising goats in his front yard? What if he added pigs, with their own mud-pools, and sheep, and other farm animals? What if he turned his front yard into a petting zoo overnight, and was influential enough to change the neighborhood codes so that he wouldn't be forced to shut down the zoo? What if he did this just to anger one of the neighbors, who had an affair with his wife? Have I lost my mind?
Well. some of this is straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies, and some of it sounds more like The Riche$. The question is, can you write it in a way that te readers buy into it?
I would like to take your thread title and ask you the same thing. What if they did do that? How would the neighbors react? What would happen next? Now, go away and wright it. There are no silly concepts in writing. If you feel you have a good story then put it down on paper.
I would personally suggest to drop the affair sub-plot and make it a children's book, because this type of story appeals to that demographic best, but it would be interesting to have an "adult" take on such a concept.
knowing the hamptons and other 'exclusive' enclaves as i do, i seriously doubt you can find a way that it could be legal to do that... however, anything's possible in fiction, so if you can make it believable, it could be a comic tour de force in the hands of a talented, highly-skilled writer with a well-developed funny bone... but i have to say it sounds more like a movie comedy, than a novel... and, for some reason i haven't figured out yet, humorous novels are few and far between, compared to other fiction genres, so it may be hard to snag a publisher for it...
yes, that, cog... but also because most book buyers/readers don't seem to enjoy reading funny stuff as much as all the other genres... though there have been some 'greats' in days gone by, like erma bombeck, the allens [steve and woody] whose every book was a bestseller, there don't seem to be any lately... guess folks [writers and readers alike] have lost their sense of humor?
Personally, I feel that other mediums are much more suited to comedy. Monty Python sketches are funny on paper, but hilarious on screen. Deadpool's constant stream of randomness would be amusing on a book, but it's nothing without the facial expressions.
Television and movies can get by on sight gags and double takes, and flawless comedic timing. Written humor generally requires more subtlety, books like Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas notwithstanding. There are some excellent humorous novels out there though. Piers Anthony's Xanth books are a riot, and Larry Niven and David Gerrold's The Flying Sorcerors is among my favorite pieces of sci-fi humor. David Gerrold is also notable as the writer of the classic Star Trek episode, The Trouble With Tribbles.
I'm not a fan of comedy films (love stand up, to be fair) but i adore books that can make me laugh out loud (last one was Yes Man). I'm not sure why (normally, I only like horror and gory crime), I think it's something to do with the level of intellegence, there's generally not slapstick (which I despise) in well-written adult books.
The is such as thing as 'comic relief' in books I think. But I always found irony to be funny in various sorts of writing.
i don't know if it's in the book itself, but in the audio book there's a passage about how to evade a ticket or something along those lines. one of the funniest things i've ever heard/read/seen/anything like that.
You could turn it into a romantic comedy. His neighbor is female. She is trying to get his zoo shut down. During the process of funny scenes they fall in love. Romantic comedies do fine as novels. They're not as popular as other genres of romance, though. Think of Confessions of a Shopaholic. That turned into a series of novels.
