Are You a Bubble Off Plumb?
by Jacquie Rogers
People, both readers and writers, often ask me how I write humor. In fact, this issue arises in nearly every writing conversation and interview. I’m puzzled by the question and completely stumped by the answer, whatever it may be.
So how did I end up writing humor? The first bit of fiction I endeavored to pen was a murder mystery set in the future. That was ten years ago and futuristics weren’t exactly the hot item then, but that’s beside the point. I have 32 first chapters. That doesn’t count the first chapters I revised and revised. It was dark and gritty. Oh, I was so happy to be lord over such drama!
Only there was a problem-my critique partners kept laughing at it. By the last half of the book, I made it into a pretty decent romance, except of course most of it took place in the Virtual Wild West Theatre. Then I had two elements I hadn’t ever bargained for: humor and western. (Westerns weren’t selling, either.)
So my next venture into a novel took me to western historical romance. This wasn’t a stretch at all for me because I grew up in a sparsely populated county in southwest Idaho where the Old West still lives, sorta. But I knew westerns weren’t selling and humor sure wasn’t, so at least I could make it dramatic. Only I soon found that plopping a laced-up schoolmarm in a brothel with batch of color-coded prostitutes was . . . well, dang it, funny. And it finaled in the Golden Heart that year.
Neither of these books sold, nor did the next three. So westerns and humor aren’t getting me very far. Until I hit the short story market.
Some writers thrive in a shorter format. Me? I’d never tried to write a short story and didn’t think I was suited for it at all, but was badgered into it. So while I love to write full-length novels (I have three of them started right now), my first success came in short stories. Two of my stories, Faery Good Advice and Single Girls Can’t Jump, were included in an anthology to benefit breast cancer research, No Law Against Love.
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