Thread: Breaking the mood.

I was wondering what you guys thought of the all to often act of taking a very mysterious, romantic, or otherwise tense situation and turning into comedy for the sake of not getting too serious.

I'm writing a YA story of a guy who by mere coincidence notices a girl that can hardly be noticed. Upon insisting to learn the truth about her for an entire week, he learns that this seemingly unnoticeable girl is in fact a magician using an enchanted pendant.

The part where the mood breaks is when she removes the pendant. Normally, a seemingly normal person does something incredible with magic. But in this case an abnormal existence turns normal by the act of removing a pendant. The main character finds the girl he could not detail at first to be beautiful, and he ends up breaking the suspense with witty remarks (he has an habit of doing that when flustered). Later she gets angry and puts a chair on fire, effectively convincing him.

The story is quite a bit more serious than this, but I thought it would be suitable to put some comedy in a few places, and this part seemed perfect to me.

I'm all for adding some humour into serious books, but it has to be done delicately. When I read a YA fantasy that's technically a serious story, I always love it when a sly bit of humour is thrust into the work. But do this too often, and it changes the feel of the book. You need to do it in a way where it's the characters presenting themselves as 'messing about' rather than a direct act on your part to add humour into the story. Remember that you're writing a serious YA book, and humour has little place it in; but that doesn't mean it should be excluded entirely.

Originally Posted by KrisMunro

I'm all for adding some humour into serious books, but it has to be done delicately. When I read a YA fantasy that's technically a serious story, I always love it when a sly bit of humour is thrust into the work.

That's what I'm trying to do. The two characters have rather conflicting personalities, and this will probably be the only source of humor I'll have, other that a few remarks here and there done by the main character.

But do this too often, and it changes the feel of the book. You need to do it in a way where it's the characters presenting themselves as 'messing about' rather than a direct act on your part to add humour into the story.

True, I guess the humor should be justified.

In my case the main character is still a bit doubtful, and things suddenly turning "normal" made him make a sarcastic remark about it. The girl which has a bit of a short temper put a chair on fire by snapping her fingers, giving him definite proof. After that things get serious again, the main character does tend to cut conversations with sarcasm since at the moment there is really no plot going on. Until things do get serious. And in the end they are two high-school students, I can't really make things dead serious, can I?

Remember that you're writing a serious YA book, and humour has little place it in; but that doesn't mean it should be excluded entirely.

I would put my story in the same seriousness scale as the early harry potter books, if not a little less. It's not comedy, but there is a lot of slice-of-life mixed in the earlier parts of the plot. Later on it gets pretty much dead serious as the plot kicks in.

The only suggestion I'd make is to have the main characters 'outbursts' be related to him handling the knowledge that magic is possible. The mind does some crazy things when trying to cope with stress. Make it clear to the reader that he's only reacting to the pressures he is under; in that he uses sarcasm and humour to cope with stress (or anything else that's relevant). Too often, writers imagine how they want their characters to act/react, without making those seemingly random choices clear to the reader. If our hero is suddenly flourishing sarcastic words at someone he's interested in, the reader needs some idea of why he's behaving erratically. It shouldn't need to be said, but some people can be pretty unintelligent, and you don't want them thinking you're a bad writer because they couldn't work something out.

Originally Posted by KrisMunro

The only suggestion I'd make is to have the main characters 'outbursts' be related to him handling the knowledge that magic is possible. The mind does some crazy things when trying to cope with stress. Make it clear to the reader that he's only reacting to the pressures he is under; in that he uses sarcasm and humour to cope with stress (or anything else that's relevant). Too often, writers imagine how they want their characters to act/react, without making those seemingly random choices clear to the reader. If our hero is suddenly flourishing sarcastic words at someone he's interested in, the reader needs some idea of why he's behaving erratically. It shouldn't need to be said, but some people can be pretty unintelligent, and you don't want them thinking you're a bad writer because they couldn't work something out.

Thanks Kris, I'll take that in mind. It's true, my main characters are not average personality-wise, so I'll take some pages to explain this to the readers