The title of this column is called “writers on writers”. I had intended to find local writers, read their works, and then create a dialog with them. This has not worked out as well as intended. Lately, my efforts to find writers have been about as fruitful as drilling for oil on the moon.
I should retool it and make a new title. Please vote your preference on the following: “Monkeys typing”, “Writer’s block”, “Badiu.com presents the fall of western literature”—my personal favorite—, or “Space Available”. Please voice your opinion below the article attached to your favorite ‘your momma’ joke.
Some believe this column to be about literature. Nothing could be further from the truth. Literature is up its own ass and on an unassailable level. Literature deals with works of lasting artistic merit. That means that first we’d have to agree on what constitutes artistic merit, then what it means to last, and any disagreements would be based upon matters of taste alone.
Face it; art is practically everything. Plumbing can be called a work of art, even thought it is fundamentally just a method for handling a problem. That is a lot like writing. You have a problem that needs to be managed. Thoughts and plot lines run together in a jumble inside an author’s head and need to be extruded onto a page, or other copyrightable medium, in a way that make sense.
This brings me to the topic of this piece. Laurel and Hardy were two comic pioneers from the dusk of Vaudeville or the dawn of film. They developed a comic method, or stole it and popularized it. We’ll never know who invented lots of things, so I just give credit to where I think it is due. And after hearing Al Jean from the Simpsons credit this to Laurel and Hardy, I tend to believe it’s accurate. I borrowed the term “Laurel and Hardy” for their set up. It is probably already known to you, since it is used in films, TV, books, and every other means of writing. Fine, I am not sure if the Laurel and Hardy setup is used in poetry. I suppose it could be.
There are four steps to this setup. Step one: Tell them what you are going to do. Step two: Show them what you are going to do. Step three: Do it. Step four: Tell them what it is that you just did. That’s it. There are infinite variations on this rubric. I’ll just make one up really quickly about pickles.
Have a character in whatever story you’re spinning leave a note on the refrigerator that reminds someone else to buy pickles. Show that character at the pickle store trying to decide what type of pickles to buy. Create some comic tension in this part by having way too many varieties of pickle, not being able to remember what brand, type, etc. A good slip and fall that ends with someone crashing into the pickle display would be the type of physical comedy that has wide appeal and dates back to the dawn of time when a caveman first slipped on a banana peel. The last step is to tell the audience what you just did. This could be done by the guy that left the note on the fridge, by a clerk in the pickle store, by a guy that wonders why he smells pickle, even by all three. Again, there are infinite variations.
The Laurel and Hardy has been around longer than we have been alive. It provides a joke that takes time to do. This means that your story can be going for many different acts before the joke is complete.
On the other hand, the joke can be condensed and done very quickly. For example, the time when Bart Simpson got famous and was ‘waiting for a bus’. Krusty told Bart that all he had to do was walk on stage and tell the audience he was waiting for a bus, and nothing else. After that, Krusty was to hit him in the face with pies for five minutes. Naturally, when the 3rd part of the Laurel and Hardy setup (do it) arrived, Bart knocked over the entire set. The ‘it’ to be done can be many different things, be it ironic, metaphoric, straightforward, etc. And for the 4th part (tell them what you just did) Bart said, “I didn’t do it.”
This is an easy setup/delivery method for comedy, or other genres. Many of you out there may have been familiar with this method. I hope that you’ll post your favorite narrative device below. Come on; help contribute to the writing scene in Milwaukee. Oh, come on. Leave us feedback explaining what component of writing you like.
Writing is a complex machine. Many different components work in conjunction with one another. Let’s analyze narrative devices in hopes that a greater understanding of them will lead us to being more effective storytellers.
Barring that lofty goal, let us tell your momma jokes bad enough to start fights. Let me start, and direct this directly at you: the reader. Your momma is so hot that I have sex with her for free. Think you can do better; prove it.
Tune in next time, when the article is either about a shred of truth, or Aqua Teen Hunger Force.