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Monday, December 7, 2015

Week 49: Add a Light-Hearted Touch to Your Writing

This week's chapter is pretty self-explanatory. 

Wilbers says, "Humor is a matter of perspective..." - oh don't I know this. My husband and I do not share similar senses of humor. I'm pretty funny, but I'm also the only one usually laughing at my jokes. And I think word plays or errors are generally hilarious. Like these things that cracked me up in NYC (just please forgive my obvious lack of photography skills):





Look for writing that elicits a 
chuckle from you and then try to 
imitate it. A juxtaposition or 
something unexpected. (like this 
behemoth of a sandwich): 














Wilbers continues his thoughts on humor saying it is, "a bemused awareness of the incongruous, illogical, and sometimes absurd dimensions of our existence. It's also a matter of timing, technique, and detail." I'm a huge fan of both Sarah M. Eden and Janette Rallison's writing because each seems to effortlessly create such scenarios. 

Wilbers offers a paragraph from Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind.

"I decided early in graduate school that I needed to do something about my moods. It quickly came down to a choice between seeing a psychiatrist or buying a horse. Since almost everyone I knew was seeing a psychiatrist, and since I had absolute belief that I should be able to handle my own problems, I naturally bought a horse. Not just any horse, but an unrelentingly stubborn and blindingly neurotic one, a sort of equine Woody Allen, but without the entertainment value."1

The incongruity between "seeing a psychiatrist or buying a horse" lends to the comic effect. 

So this week in your writing, throw in something unexpected for comic relief.


1 Wilbers, Stephen,  Mastering the Craft of Writing, pg 274.




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