Forum / Sad, funny, or both?

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    Meg Pokrass
    Jan 06, 06:42pm

    I'd love to have a discussion about stories that mix up sad and funny. It intrigues me to know end. I suppose my piece "Doctor Love" which is up now and how it has been seen as "sad" or "funny" or "sexy" reading through the comments and at times, all of these things.

    The subject intrigues me enormously. I love this community, and welcome thoughts about this. For example, if i were to enter it in a contest, could it be entered as a sad dramatic piece, even though it is erotic and funny-ish?

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    Ramon Collins
    Jan 06, 10:23pm

    I dabbled in cartooning for a few years and found sad - funny are the extremes of expression. By that, I mean all expressions are somewhere in between.

    In drama logos there are usually two masks; one sad and one happy. You can laugh until you cry and cry until you laugh (that's when there's nothing else to do).

    About submitting: The woman dying of cancer is a terrible suggestion; the reader might be reminded of an occasion and cry -- a Kleenex tissue. Or the doctor is so preoccupied with his profession might bring flecks of spittle to the corners of the reader's mouth (more Kleenex). Or as the narrator notes in the story, perhaps there's other Kleenex duties.

    What intriqued me about DOCTOR LOVE was how did it end up on her chest?

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    Susan Tepper
    Jan 06, 10:46pm

    Meg to me your work is always sad/funny. I see no distinction. Clowns are funny but terribly sad, really. Don't analyze too much, you'll let the genie escape the bottle. That you don't want to do--
    Like our old acting coaches used to say: Just keep doing what you're doing

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    Roberta
    Jan 06, 11:03pm

    I think maybe sad/funny are often two parts of the same whole and maybe trying to separate them too much isn't useful. (...Cept if you need to enter a story into a specific category,) and maybe your gut feeling on what the atmosphere of a story is is more relevant?

    Certainly I think 'funny' is one of the most effect ways of communicating sadness in writing.
    It's that effect of laughter followed by the realisation that you've just read something really painful. It doubles the effect somehow. It's something Jonathan Franzen's good at.

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    Matt Dennison
    Jan 07, 01:58am

    Was it a huge load? That'd be funny, maybe sad...

    Dramatic at the least!

    (obviously I lost the battle in my fight NOT to post this!)

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    James Lloyd Davis
    Jan 07, 02:26am

    It's no mystery, I think. Tragedy and comedy exist entirely in the perception of events which are colored by the manner in which they are presented. When you stop for a moment and consider the base cruelty of so many things that elicit laughter, you begin to see how they might also be a source of sadness if viewed entirely out of context or with a different perspective.

    What is humor? Do we laugh at the happy conclusion of a dilemma or do we laugh at utter failure? When we laugh at depictions of riotous calamity, perhaps we laugh because we are so prompted by the specific and 'comedic' delivery of the cry from yet another 'loser' going down, one who is not you, one who is not like you. It's delivered with a wink and a nod and a chuckle, but if the pain was yours ...

    Supposed you so perceived it that way, suppose you lost the printed program and empathized with the unhappy suffering of the broken hearted harlequin? Would he still be a clown or would his painted teardrops seem symbolic of his tragic existence?

    But, no. He is a clown, presented as a fool, an ass, dull and witless, quite worthy of our laughter, but ultimately it's the fool's suffering that makes us laugh. Where does that come from? A sense of justice or something else?

    That may seem to be a somewhat dark, even cynical view of humor, but remember that great subtlety in presentation of a tragedy confuses us, even to the point that we cannot sometimes discern the difference between what is 'funny' and what is 'sad.'

    Why do we laugh, then? Is it part of our nature to be cruel? Or is humor and laughter the normal reaction to those things we fear, but know we can never control?

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    Christopher Allen
    Jan 07, 10:47pm

    Great explanation, James.

    I write humor. I also write dark humor in which the situation is awful but the way the characters speak and react is humorous. I find it difficult to see the world any other way.

    Someone said recently that someone who has experienced real pain can't employ irony in his work. I don't agree with this (or maybe I haven't experienced real pain).

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    Robert Vaughan
    Jan 09, 02:12pm

    In the lyrics of the wise sage, Joni Mitchell: "Laughing and crying, you know they're the same release."

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    kate hill cantrill
    Jan 09, 07:05pm

    Funny, I was just stopping in here to post this call for submissions, which you probably all know about already. The NPR 3 minute story contest requires both a joke and some crying.

    The article/interview somehow annoys me btw (linked below)-- not somehow, I know how: they're stating the obvious a lot about writing and I'm so tired of people saying they're interested in character and emotion. Who isn't if they're interested in literary writing? It's like a sculptor saying she's interested in form. No freaking duh! Anyway, I digress...

    http://www.npr.org/2011/01/08/132744031/three-minute-fiction-round-6-laughing-and-crying?sc=fb&cc=fp

    And Meg: some of the best humor/sadness work I've read (other than yours) is Lydia Davis. She freaking cracks me up and makes me want to shoot myself at the very same time.

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