Anne here, apologetically running in late. Sorry, I forgot what date it was. Today I'm pulling a question from the list of reader questions we've received over the years. And while I'm talking about that, I'll remind you all — if you submit a question for the wenches and one of us chooses it as a blog topic a blog, that person will win a book.
Today's topic is from Constance, who said... "It would also be very interesting to know how important humor is to each of you when creating characters. I’ve always found heroes with a self-deprecating sense of humor almost irresistible, and heroines who can match them in witty retort make it even better. But it can’t be easy to create that — or is it for the extremely talented writers you all are?"
Constance, I also love a hero who can make me laugh. But writing humor is never easy, especially if I set out trying to be funny. Forced humor can be horribly un-funny and usually gets deleted. Even when I think the story I'm writing is going to be a funny one, it doesn't always happen.
People have very different senses of humor, so what is funny to one person completely passes another. I remember so often when I was a kid, my brother and I would be cracking up laughing at some TV show, and one of my older sisters would say crossly, "I don't know why you're laughing. That isn't funny at all." Which made my brother and me laugh even harder. And of course, if you have to explain why something is funny, it immediately kills the humor stone dead.
So all I can go on is what's funny to me. My funniest scenes usually come spontaneously in the writing. I'm 'in the zone' busily writing, a character says something unexpected and another one responds, and then . . . we're off. And when it happens, it's a joy.
Most of my books have some funny moments, but some books are funnier than others. It's something to do with character chemistry. Some character combinations bring out humor better than others — a light-hearted, flippant hero and an earnest worrier of a heroine, for instance, sparked some funny scenes in my book, The Perfect Rake.
“I would appreciate it if you would stop… stop… ogling me like that," she hissed, tugging her very modest neckline higher. "It is very embarrassing." She folded her arms across her breasts defensively.
He tried to look contrite. "It wasn't me," he confessed. "It was my eyes. They are bold and easily led and have no sense of propriety.”
And particular character types can also lend themselves to humor. When my character, Freddy Monkton-Coombes first hit the page in The Winter Bride, I intended him to be a minor character, the hero's funny side-kick friend. But the more he appeared in the story the more I thought it might be fun to make him the hero of the next book. So I did—much against the advice of an experienced writer friend, who told me I'd never make a hero out of a muffin-fearing lightweight. And I have to say, most readers loved him. Despite this, it's often minor characters who spark the best humor.
Heyer had some deliciously funny minor characters in her books. Who can forget the battling valets in The Unknown Ajax, or the crashing bore, Lord Bromford in The Grand Sophy, or the gloriously silly ongoing conversation about "nemesis" in Friday's Child, not to mention the hilarious Pel and Pom conversation in The Convenient Marriage as, ever so slightly 'disguised' (ie drunk) they crash a card party in search of Hero's brooch. Then there's Damerel and Nurse and Nurse's dire predictions, in Venetia. I could go on. . .
In fact I chose Freddy in The Winter Bride as my hero's name in a kind of indirect homage to Georgette Heyer's Freddy in Cotillion, whose masterful interpretation of the poem "Young Lochinvar" makes me smile every time I think of it. Here's a quote from The Winter Bride, explaining why my Freddy won't attend a literary society as requested. The humor in this exchange rests on a kind of in-joke — the reader's familiarity with Jane Austen's most famous book.
“Not the literary society. The horror stories those girls read are enough to make a fellow’s hair stand on end.”
Max frowned. “Horror stories? They don’t read horror stories, only entertaining tales of the kind ladies seem to enjoy, about girls and gossip and families—”
“Horror stories, every last one of them,” Freddy said firmly. “You asked me to sit in on their literary society last month, when you went up to Manchester, remember? The story they were reading then . . .” He gave an eloquent shudder. “Horror from the very first line: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Must he, indeed? What about the poor fellow’s wants, eh? Do they matter? No. Every female in the blasted story was plotting to hook some man for herself or her daughter or niece. If you don’t call that horror, I don’t know what is!”
Apart from laugh-out-loud kind of humor, there's also the dry, ironic kind of humor, often in the voice of a character who isn't a funny character as such. Some of Heyer's heroes are not funny as such, but their dry laconic utterances are wonderful. Here's an example from Heyer's Frederica, the hero resisting the efforts of his sister to manipulate him.
“Do you forget that I am your sister?”
“No; I’ve never been granted the opportunity to forget it.”
And here's an example from my new book, Marry In Scarlet, my hero the duke, talking to his mother, who is also attempting to manipulate him.
“Do not fret yourself, my son, I shall try to weather the storm,” his mother said, rallying bravely. “It’s you I worry about, my dearest. I thought that you were all settled at last, and that finally I could go in peace.” She sank back feebly in her chair and closed her eyes.
“Go where, Mother? Off to Bath again, are you?” He blotted the ink of his letter, folded it and reached for his seal. “Or perhaps a sea-bathing treatment this time? I’ve heard that a bracing dip in the cold salt sea does people a power of good.”
She shuddered and clutched her vial feebly to her bosom. “Such a thing would kill me.”
“Only if you drowned, and I believe there are muscular females at the dipping sites whose job it is to prevent that. It’s perfectly safe.”
She sat up and glared at him. “Don’t be so obtuse, Redmond—my darling boy. You must know that the only thing that keeps me alive—the only thing, dearest—is the desire to see you settled. Married.”
“Then I shall postpone my nuptials indefinitely and provide you with a long life.”
So that's it, Constance. If I could guarantee to write humor every time, I probably would. But as I hope I've explained, it all depends . . .
So, wenchly readers, do you like a laugh in a book? What are your favorite books with humor? Throw some titles out there.