Snark Levels: Rising

There has been a rise of late, imo, in regards to the levels of snark in storytelling. And not in the writer's voice, but in the characters. I feel like this is mostly in the self-pub YA genre??? Anyways, let me continue...

I'm not 100% ranting against snark. I like it. It's funny. There are times when I need some of those back-and-forth banters on a t-shirt.

But I'm going to be honest. It starts to get boring after non-stop snark for pages and pages...

We all want to make our books entertaining. We like it when readers quote the characters and want to put some of their quips on t-shirts and insta posts and all the bookish swag. I'm an author. I understand.

But there are other ways to provide humor and entertainment without resorting to nonstop snark and sarcastic humor. 

How to Write Humor: a quick crash course by me, Helena

First off, there are basically four kinds of humor in writing.

Word Humor - When a character says something funny, or when there is back and forth banter, or basically any kind of funny thing that someone says. A quip, a sarcastic comment, a quotable quote, you know what I mean.

Narrator Humor - Kind of like when the character says something, only it's the voice of the narrator. Obviously, this isn't found in every book, and it can be subtle, or boldly on the page.

Action Humor - When something funny happens. A character slips on a banana peel in mid-sentence. Spills soup all over an important document. Gets spit on by a llama. These are also fairly common, but usually fairly forgettable. Maybe the reader chuckles a little as they continue to read on.

Situational Humor - This is like action humor, but it builds up, until it becomes a complete "situation". This isn't a funny little single paragraph incident, but at least a page of building up before releasing an absolute bell-ringer of a Humorous Situation.

Secondly, why is snark (or Word Humor) on the rise?

Simply put, it's a quick and easy way to make readers smile. It makes them like the character(s), and it makes them laugh - two things you want for your book.

And with the rise in Social Media, book swag, and book crates, quippy one-liners can often be a big help in advertising.

"Never trust an assassin within six feet of a weapon."

Sounds cool, yah? It's got a hint of danger, and people see that on a bookmark or a t-shirt or opening a Bookstagram post, and they want to know more about the book the quote comes from.

But notice what I said. It's a "quick and easy" way... It's easy to write, especially when you get in that snark zone. The words are coming quickly and your fingers fly across the keyboard, and BOOM you've got the scene finished and it's so funny and okay, so maybe the characters just verbally sparred for three pages, but you got the plot more or less where it needs to be and readers are probably going to be laughing the whole time...

Third - why write Situational Humor?

Once the four types of humor existed in harmony...until the Snark attacked.

*clears throat*

We need to stretch our abilities and be able to write at least the three types of humor (the Narrator Humor, I'm not so concerned about).

We need to write Word Humor so it feels natural, not stiff. We need to write it so it sounds like something someone would say, and complete it with enough description and action beats for the writing to flow.

We need to write Action Humor so readers can clearly see what's happening, and be able to execute our narratives with professionalism. A good little "whoops, I just tripped" moment can add realism to our writing (and a laugh to our readers).

And we need to write Situational Humor because it expands our writing abilities, keeps our writing voice (and the plot) from growing too weary, and when done right, makes a book extremely memorable. Being able to successfully pull off SH can help strengthen our Word and Action Humor as well. How in the world does one even write situational humor?? Answers coming soon...in another blog post!