Random thought of the day: is comic fanfic less interesting than angst?

[teasel]

There's a terrific children's book by James Thurber called The Thirteen Clocks, unfortunately now long out of print, which includes among its many wonders a character whose tears turn into jewels. A useful and valuable trait, and one that would make the production of angst fics such a vital contribution to the gross national product that fanfic

Comments

[ex_lbilover]

I've always thought of the best comedic writing as combining wit and angst, or using comedic writing to make serious points. Jane Austen comes to mind. I don't see them as mutually exclusive. As a reader I think as highly of a well-written comedy fic as one that is full of angst. I love your "Frodo Hill" and I love "Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang". I don't think of the former as less well-written or worthy than the latter. They are both brilliant because you are such a gifted writer. And both have their place

[lame_pegasus]

Since jokes come to me more easily than tears, I'm not so sure I want to step out of my comic bubble and hear the answers to these questions.

It's just the other way round when I write. The thought of drama or of inner conflicts (or even of dramatic action) tickles my personal muse, and it were the more dramatical stories that brought me to fanfiction. Later I read Beyond the Havens by jodancingtree and Sing me home by shirebound and I was deeply moved by the richness and deep emotions of stories like these.

But I also highly admire everyone who is able to write really funny stories, for I am not. The only thing I can manage is a humorous remark or short dialogue, but not a whole scene, save a whole tale. And the readers of my site highly enjoy the funny stories I've found and translated meanwhile. I personally love both types of stories... as long as they are well written.

[suspect_terrain]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Good points

[glimmerfic]

In any case, one of my least things I have written is parody
I meant, "one of my least favorite things I have written..."

Another thought -- (you have a habit of making me keep thinking after I've left the computer) -- in real life, I'd rather make someone laugh than make someone cry. Crying may involve empathy, but inducing laughter also seems to involve a sort of empathy. And I think people do remember things that make them laugh, though I haven't tested the hypothesis by trying to make people cry in the same situations. (Ack! at the very thought.)

And both crying and laughing can be cathartic, in different ways.

one more thing...

[suspect_terrain]

Because I tend to mull things over for days (this would be why chat and me are a bad mix):

Humor can also be like a sudden, bright light shining on something and bringing everything into focus. Or maybe, a sharp wit can slice through the Gordian knot that too much discussion (including trying to see all sides of an issue, which can be a curse of too much empathy) can tangle issues into.

Different from empathy? Yes. Exclusive of empathy? Maybe for the moment the joke is made or written -- I know I can only make jokes quickly, because if I think about them too much I engage my "tact filter" and try to soften them until they are no longer funny. But that doesn't mean that incisive humor is a bad thing. Not in the least.

The world needs its Seletas. So don't feel guilty about being one.

[semyaza]

I think the distinction between comedy and angst is a rather artificial one and I would be inclined to say that both of these genres, in their 'pure' forms, are deeply unsatisfying. In fact, when they're in their 'pure' forms I'd be tempted to just call them 'melodrama' and 'farce' and have done with it. Whether one is crying or laughing at the end of the tale it's all much of a muchness--cheap emotion wrung from the reader/viewer and soon forgotten. People can be moved in this way by cheap music, cheap religion, cheap fiction. It may be cathartic at the moment but ultimately ephemeral

[strangerian]

Several of the later entries have given some aspects of the concept that humor and tragedy aren't truly opposed, but I agree also with you that the extremes of either tend to be shallow. It's fiction or writing that takes both joy and sorrow into account that shows us real humanity.

I definitely prefer the kind of humor based in knowing the characters and human nature, out of things labelled comedy or humorous, and that can be part of a story that explores sadness and high drama.

[semyaza]

No doubt this is why I have a great antipathy toward sit-coms, where the 'humour' arises from artificially created situations; it becomes difficult to feel with the characters because neither those characters nor their circumstances are quite real to the audience. And it's humour unmixed with "sadness and high drama", as you say. I'm not suggesting that it's not what people want or need at a specific moment--clearly they do need it. I do agree with Thurber, however, that it doesn't last (though I wonder if his ideas on this were perhaps a result of his personal problems or his reflections on his own career), but I would say the same of 'angst' (or 'tragedy') that is equally divorced from all those other things that make up human life.

[fyrdrakken]

I'm going to write this now before I lose the thread and then go back and finish reading through the comments, because from what I saw some of them are pretty crunchy...

I think you're falling into the fallacy of modern American society, that serious is more worthwhile than humorous. I come at it from the other perspective -- laughter is a coping mechanism for pain, while the biggest angst queens out there are spoiled teenagers who haven't suffered anything worse than a school dress code and a parental curfew. You say that humor causes one to distance oneself from the pain of others, while angst causes empathy. I disagree -- I think that what you write is practice for how you handle your own life, and that laughing at yourself is healthy but that focusing on the wrenching woe of existence causes ulcers and self-dramatization and smoking clove cigarettes and wearing too much black eyeliner.

Actors and writers alike agree -- it's harder to do comedy (and have it turn out genuinely funny) than drama (and get a genuinely weepy result

[teasel]

You say that humor causes one to distance oneself from the pain of others, while angst causes empathy. I disagree -- I think that what you write is practice for how you handle your own life, and that laughing at yourself is healthy but that focusing on the wrenching woe of existence causes ulcers and self-dramatization and smoking clove cigarettes and wearing too much black eyeliner.Hee! Yeah, we all know about the black eyeliner babes, don't we? But I refuse to condemn clove cigarettes, because Elijah smokes them, and he is the inverse of an angst bunny. /arbitrary reasoning

[fyrdrakken]

I guess it depends on what we think is going on in readers' heads when they read fiction. Are they using the characters as surrogates for themselves? In that case, angst is just as self-indulgent as you say it is, because it's wallowing in your own misery by proxy. But if a reader is genuinely thinking about the character as another person -- maybe one she likes and to some extent identifies with, but as essentially other -- then sorrow is an act of sympathy rather than self-indulgence.

Comedy or tragedy (or tragi-comedy, for that matter), it's the mark of expert storytelling that the audience experiences the events as though they were occurring to themselves. Perhaps it's not the genre that causes empathy but the characterization -- and actually I find that an idea that resonates with personal experience