Getting Serious About Humor: A Humor Fail

This is the first in a planned series on learning about humor writing from reading it. I even have a logo, custom-made by my computer guy.

Today's book will remain nameless, because I couldn't finish it. I skipped to the end, thinking I would at least see what happened, but I couldn't bring myself to read even that. I feel very bad about this, because it was a Netgalley arc, and I hate not to be able to give those books and their authors some support. In this case, while I can't support it, I won't attack it, either.

However, I think there's a lot to be learned from books we don't like, and I did have some thoughts about this one.

This was a YA book involving two girls looking to get in with the popular crowd, the popular crowd being an unpleasant bunch of people. Not a new situation/setting by any means. It did make me think a little bit of women pairs in TV humor, such as Patsy and Edina of Absolutely Fabulous. But only a little. I kept wishing Georgia Nicholson from Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging was running things in the book.

Since I'm trying to learn something from my humor reading, here is my takeaway from what I was able to read of this book:

• Characters should be well defined, anyway, but it really is a necessity for humor. Read anything by Louise Rennison, Georgia Nicholson's creator. The humor in Rennison's books comes out of her very strong characters.
• Weak characters struggle to pull off hyperbole/outrageousness. That goes back to character. 
• Don't rely on variations of the same shock joke for a big portion of your book. Shock has a place in humor. Shock can be funny. But once the shock is over, so is a lot of the humor. Have something else up your sleeve.

So while I didn't enjoy this book, I came away with something I hope to apply to my own work.

Louise Rennison--Fabby, Fab, Fab Forever

I have written about Georgia Nicolson many times here. I am sorry to be writing about her today, because I have to report that her creator, Louise Rennison, has died.

Rennison's most famous creation was, and continues to be, a fantastic character. Sometimes not much happened in a fabby, fab, fab Georgia Nicolson book. "Not many authors can write about the nothingness of life as entertainingly as Rennison. Sacre bloody bleu! She is a genius!" Yeah, that was me, saying that.

How terrific was Georgia Nicolson? How much of an impact did she have? Write alikes started appearing soon after Georgia exploded on the scene. They didn't last long, because there is only one Georgia Nicholson.

How good is she? I can read a book about boyfriends and shopping only if Georgia is in it.

How good was Louise Rennison? Even when she moved on to another series, one about Georgia's younger cousin, Tallulah, she couldn't help but be funny. And that's with Tallulah being deeper than Georgia. "Her interests  involve more than boys but not to the point that it ruins her sense of humor."  "She and her friends have read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, though, and are capable of some really clever Heathcliff and Mrs. Rochester jokes. In the Glossary at the back of the book, Tallulah defines Heathcliff as "The 'hero' of Wuthering Heights. Although no one knows why." Yes, I'm quoting me again. Because, seriously, Rennison is a favorite author.

Well, this stinks.