I particularly do this with jokes, because I find it very difficult to write jokes on command. I have a whole file of humorous things that various people have said/written that I look over when I need to bring the funny.
I find this really interesting because recently I started doing the same thing. I had an idea for a humorous fic, but I didn't feel comfortable writing it because I don't think of myself as funny. So I started doing research online . . . what was interesting about it was how HARD it was to find anything that actually made me LAUGH.
Sometimes people on lj do posts that make me laugh, but partly it's because everything is more funny when it's personal--you're less likely to laugh at the tv than a live comedian, you're less likely to laugh at the tv alone than with people around you who are also laughing. On lj when I know a person and am intimately acquainted with what they're talking about, stuff they say can be really funny . . . but it's not quite stuff I can adapt into a fic.
I'd love to do a post on this, to see how people construct funny, but I think a lot of the people who write humor are naturally humorous and probably don't know the way they manage it.
it helped to read a few pages of one of the Discworld books whenever I was feeling stumped. It always gave me the inspiration I needed.
This is exactly how I use style research. It helps to get my words flowing.
What's that old agage? Good writers borrow from others; great writers steal from them outright.
no subject
I find this really interesting because recently I started doing the same thing. I had an idea for a humorous fic, but I didn't feel comfortable writing it because I don't think of myself as funny. So I started doing research online . . . what was interesting about it was how HARD it was to find anything that actually made me LAUGH.
Sometimes people on lj do posts that make me laugh, but partly it's because everything is more funny when it's personal--you're less likely to laugh at the tv than a live comedian, you're less likely to laugh at the tv alone than with people around you who are also laughing. On lj when I know a person and am intimately acquainted with what they're talking about, stuff they say can be really funny . . . but it's not quite stuff I can adapt into a fic.
I'd love to do a post on this, to see how people construct funny, but I think a lot of the people who write humor are naturally humorous and probably don't know the way they manage it.
it helped to read a few pages of one of the Discworld books whenever I was feeling stumped. It always gave me the inspiration I needed.
This is exactly how I use style research. It helps to get my words flowing.
What's that old agage? Good writers borrow from others; great writers steal from them outright.
Bahaha! That's excellent.