Having trouble integrating humor into a comedic mystery

Have you read some funny mysteries? The first that come to mind for me would be by Donald Westlake. Most of the Dortmunder books are funny, but it's not slapstick. Dancing Aztecs is not a Dortmunder, but it is funny. Bank Shot is one that was made into a very funny movie.

I've interjected humor into my serious mysteries with characters who say things that are not quite right (mixed metaphors are always good,) or characters who are just plain weird. Not sure I could ever write straight comedy though. Your idea sounds clever!

Have you watched any Jackie Chan movies? I know it's difficult to use a movie to write a novel, but the Jackie Chan movies do a better job of blending serious action with good comedy than anything else I can think of.

Also, look up Jackie Chan interviews where he talks about how directors tried to mold him to be like Bruce Lee. You can see that in his earlier movies before he decided to do his own thing. Some of the specifics he talked about were funny, but I can't remember the interviews off the top of my head.

I'm not sure if this will help but I guess it involves an investigation (plus the Bruce Lee/comedy)

http://monk.wikia.com/wiki/Mr._Monk_vs._The_Cobra

Ian Nathaniel Cohen said:

A while back, I came up with an idea for a murder mystery set in Hong Kong in 1979 - specifically in the world of the Bruceploitation film industry. (If you want to know more about Bruceploitation, this is an excellent Bruceploitation fan site I've found useful.)

Here's the basic premise: in 1974, Billy Chang (a Bruce Lee pastiche movie star) is killed by his crazy ex in a murder-suicide. Over the next five years, a bunch of imitators with similar sounding names (Billy Cheng, Billy Ching, Tiger Chang) are making movies basically ripping off Chang's style - and now someone's killing off the imitators. A Hong Kong cop, who's a hardcore Billy Chang fan and who hates the imitators with a passion, has to go undercover as one such imitator as bait for the killer.

Given how cheesy and bad a lot of the Bruceploitation films were (although there were quite a few genuinely entertaining ones, and even a couple of good ones), I'd thought this would make for a good comedy. As part of the ruse, the film studio (who's in on the operation) builds up this whole publicity campaign for the cop and actually put him to work on a movie. At the end of the book, even after the killer is caught, the cop is forced to finish making the movie - and much to his embarrassment, it ends up being a huge hit. (The book ends with him being abducted by his cop buddies and taken to a theater where the movie is showing and made to watch it.)

However, aside from that, I'm having trouble with the comedy aspect - especially since I'm more paying homage to the Bruceploitation genre than making fun of it, as well as taking people behind the scenes of classic martial arts movie making. If I play it completely straight, I feel like I won't be taking advantage of the comedic opportunities a plot like this offers. However, any attempt I've made at interjecting humor comes off as forced and not that funny (and slapstick humor doesn't work that well in prose fiction). I'm also wondering how far to push towards farce.

Any thoughts or words of wisdom on this?

(And no, the killer isn't the real Billy Chang. The book opens with his murder, and you see the body.)

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Wow... this sounds like it would make for a terrific noir, hard-boiled detective story rather than a comedy. I own a small collection of late 80s early 90s Hong Kong and Chinese hard-boiled DVDs where peeps like Chow Yun-Fat and Ang Lee got their start (I know, they're movies, not books, but still relevant to the discussion). They're fascinating stories and it sounds as if yours could fall comfortably into that genre, even though set in the 70s (which would actually be another attraction for me personally as I enjoy stories set in that decade for completely selfish, nostalgic reasons).

But I'm not trying to change your genre. If you think it works better as a comedy then throw yourself full-on into it. And kudos to you for recognizing that your current comedic bits aren't working. A lot of writers who attempt comedy think their pieces, their skits are laugh-out-loud funny though no one else thinks so and the writer can't figure out why. At least you recognize that your comedy needs work.

Without looking at your manny I can't even begin to guess where the comedy may have gone awry, but I'll try anyways. Maybe the set-ups weren't strong enough or weren't paid off well later? Or maybe the payoffs really didn't nail it? Or maybe the situations you constructed just didn't lend themselves to comedy very easily?

My only recommendation is to read mysteries/detective novels with a funny bent, and watch films with similar storylines to see how they pull it off. For movies, Peter Sellers in the "Pink Panther" might give you clues. In literature, damn near anything by Elmore Leonard would help. Can't say any of his novels that I've read are true comedies... but most had quite a lot of comedic elements in them. Especially his novel "Get Shorty" which yes, is the origin material for the Travolta movie. The film was great but do read the novel first as you'll be able to see how the master worked comedy into a crime story. Sean Chercover also mixes comedy well into his crime stories. For a true comedy that happens to be a detective story, you can't go wrong by studying Lee Goldberg's "Watch Me Die" which I found very entertaining.

Hope this helped.

Comedy, like any other writing technique, just requires study. I'd recommend reading lots of funny mysteries, but stop when something tickles your funny bone and try to figure out why. I love reading Lee Goldberg (and now Hy Conrad, who took over writing the Monk books), Laura Levine (who used to write for Newhart). And also Janet Evanovich.

Another good resource is The Comedy Bible, by Judy Carter. In fact, if you read this while you read funny mysteries, it's easier to start recognizing (and hopefully replicating) the techniques.

Funny mysteries on television can also help. My favorites are Castle, Monk, Psych, and the older Remington Steele and Moonlighting.

Most of the comedy in comic mysteries, in my experience, comes not so much from the situation, but from the personality of one or more of the characters. The protagonist or narrator has a comic take on the world, and THAT is what makes it funny. Donna Andrews and, as quoted above, Donald Westlake are brilliant with this. It's not really about what happens or what the premise is; it's about how the protagonist views the experience.

I remember hearing Jenny Crusie (known for her funny dialogue) speak once about humor in writing. She'd been asked to write a book on "adding humor to fiction," and she kept telling the editor that she couldn't do it, that there was no way to ADD humor. It is either part and parcel of the protagonist's/narrator's/author's voice or it wasn't.

So, look at the voice/outlook of your narrator. If it's comic, then you can sort of sharpen the observations. If it's not, it's just not, and trying to ADD humor to someone who isn't funny isn't going to work.

Just as an aside, the protagonist/narrator doesn't need to KNOW he/she is funny. The Donald Westlake Dortmunder books are an example. The character doesn't know he's funny; he's kinda' morose and pessimistic, in fact. But he's SO morose and pessimistic that it IS funny. If Westlake had tried to ADD humor, in the form of one-liners, it would have ruined it.

Some others you might want to have a look at are Martha Grimes's early novels in the Richard Jury pub series, like The Man With a Load of Mischief and The Old Fox Deceiv'd. Her earlier novels were very funny, her later ones, not at all.

BfloGal said:

And also Janet Evanovich.

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Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is a bit of a benchmark in that sub-genre. John Locke with his Donovan Creed wacky secret agent / assassin adds a a much darker tone.

-cb

cbenoi1 said:

Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is a bit of a benchmark in that sub-genre. John Locke with his Donovan Creed wacky secret agent / assassin adds a a much darker tone.

-cb

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That's what I was going to suggest. I love the Stephanie Plum books.