The Serious Side of Humor

Recently, at a writing conference, a speaker explored what she called “the serious side of humor.” I’m still considering her ideas, because I’m not sure I’m able to find seriousness in humor.

I’m much more likely to consider a different writer’s idea. He studies certain times in history and looks for details that were more or less ignored or even too small to highlight in any way. Then he creates a character, inserts into the time period, and makes up a situation involving the character into the history which becomes a story.

In order to create fiction from nonfiction, a writer would need to read a great deal in order to know as much as possible about the underlying facts. It’s a huge project but surely could be a delightful journey.

A third writer focused on music; that is, writing both the music for lyrics and/or lyrics for music. So, for example, if she had some lovely or even disturbing music, she listened to it until lyrics began to emerge. It stands to reason then that she may have written poetry that needs music.

Since I’ve never thought about a process for combining music and lyrics, I was fascinated by the author’s work. Of course, she played her guitar accompanying some of her lyrics. It was beautiful but not something I’d aspire to do. Besides her guitar, she introduced us to a small instrument she called a Finnish harp. Again, she demonstrated the beauty of this tiny instrument. Lovely.

The last speaker gave us the practical side of writing and talked about openings and closings of our stories. I was happy to hear him, because he confirmed my belief that the opening lines of a book, for example, determine whether or not I read it.

So, whenever I’m in a bookstore, you’ll see me opening a book that has intrigued me to see if the first sentence or paragraph will corroborate my initial attraction and cause me to buy the book. This test has worked for me. How do you determine if you will read a particular book?

Endings, too, are very significant. It happens every now and again that I’m terribly disappointed when I come to the end. This writer/author suggested one way to think about endings for both fiction and nonfiction is to “close by closing the door with a click or opening it—back out to the world.” I found this advice sensible and sound.

Because I love reading and writing, this writing conference was perfect for me. I write about it to encourage you to find the serious side of humor!

Mary Jane Berger, OSB

Photo by R. Swafford on Pexels