Humor

Humor comes from the surprise release of some buried tension. It may be buried in the story by the author or buried in the world of the story—a shallow grave will suffice—or the reader may bring his or her own sedimented feelings to bear upon the reading. Often it is several things simultaneously. Some expectation, however, must be disrupted. Wordplay itself is not usually funny, only clever, unless it is attached to some other psychological force in the narrative. (I am often interested in mishearings—part of the comedy of misunderstanding—which employs an accidentally generated wordplay. These mishearings I often collect from real life.) Most of the humor I’m interested in has to do with awkwardness; the makeshift theater that springs up between people at really awkward times—times of collision, emergency, surrealism, aftermath, disorientation. Bad jokes may be an expression of that awkwardness, without being inherently funny themselves. Of course, in including humor in narrative a writer isn’t doing anything especially artificial. Humor is just part of the texture of human conversation and life. Storymaking aside, in real life people are always funny. Or, people are always funny eventually. It would be dishonest to pretend not to notice.”

LORRIE MOORE