Describing the "funny" scenes

[CrystaI]

When we watch animes/cartoons, or even reading the manga/comics, we can find occasionally many "funny" scenes which the characters have exaggerated funny actions/reactions. Such as that sudden falling on one's face when one hears an extremely stupid comment from the other; get a harrisen from nowhere and hit the other who one is pissed with; have one's body stuffed halfway upside down in the ground when one fell from the sky, or may be it is even that simple sweating of stupidity.

Well, of course we don't get such actions/reactions in real life. But because the canon we fanfic writers work with are mostly animes or mangas, which doesn't use our "real-life" logic. So I wanted to ask, in case that one get to the "funny" scene, should we picture it like the anime exaggerated way, or the real-life plain-and-nothing-special way? And how should we describe it?

 

[TheLlama]

I usually feel that such exaggerated scenes work best within a visual medium, that is, cartoons or movies. So I would recommend not using it, and if you are, frankly, I don't have any good suggestions

 

[Legacy]

I agree with Llama. I don't do much of the fall falls, tear drops, slap stick kind of stuff. That stuff, like Llama_guy says, is better in a visual medium IMO.

The humor in my stories comes more from dialog, character reaction, etc.

 

[TheLlama]

I agree with Llama. I don't do much of the fall falls, tear drops, slap stick kind of stuff. That stuff, like Llama_guy says, is better in a visual medium IMO.

The humor in my stories comes more from dialog, character reaction, etc.

Exactly. Humour in written stories are best portrayed through humorous dialog, character interactions, misadventures, digressions courtesy of the narrator and so on. The way you phrase a sentence can also be the difference between not and hot in the humour department (without having any specific examples coming to mind right now).

Of course, if you're writing a crack fic or something that's just meant to be absurd, there's no stopping you from doing that kind of stuff.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

It is true that certain forms of humour only really work in a visual medium, but it is also true that the humour the OP mentions is only funny even in a visual form to certain people. Even in visual media I look for wit over sweatdrops and other animé conventions.

 

[CrystaI]

Then mind to ask how would you describe the funny scenes in writings?

Now that you guys mentioned it, I knew now that we should separate the visual humour from literal humour. But still, how one can describe the humour out from the words and sentences? That is somehow difficult.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Writing humour is not something I feel is even possible to teach, especially not in one post. I have to tell you, if you're going to write humour, you have to be witty, and no one can make you witty but yourself.