On (finally!) Delivering an Overdue Manuscript and Thinking About What’s Funny

This post is mostly an update to this one from earlier in the week. At that point, I was close to delivering the revised draft of Makeup Test: A Rom-Com Winter Tale. At this point, I have done so. What I think is probably the last major draft is now in the hands of my publisher, The Story Plant. Which is a good thing, because it goes to the copy editor before the end of this month, and it’s already available for pre-order.

Most of the revisions involved making the main character’s boss, the closest thing to an antagonist this book has, more three dimensional. Those notes from my editor and publisher, the great Lou Aronica, were priceless. With all sincerity, I think those notes made the book much, much better.

We had the most . . . conversations (I won’t say arguments, or even disagreements, because those words are way too strong) about the humor in the book. I’ve tried to add humor in all my books, even the epic novels, but since this one is a true comedy, it’s a lot more important. If the jokes don’t land, the book doesn’t work. I mean, I think the characters and the story work anyway, but one generally picks up a comedy with the intention of laughing.

One of the screen comedies that made me laugh the hardest was Airplane! Airplane! relied heavily on callbacks and running gags, which apparently are similar but not exactly the same thing. A callback references an earlier line or incident, while a running gag repeats the same joke over and over until it becomes funny through sheer repetition. If you’ve seen Airplane! you might remember how the “don’t call me Shirley” and “What is it?” gags are repeated over and over again. That’s what I’m talking about here. If you haven’t seen Airplane!, well, you have homework.

Anyway.

I use the callback and the running gag devices throughout Makeup Test. A lot. The question Lou and I were considering as I revised and polished the book was this: does a device that works on screen also work on the page? I don’t honestly know the answer to that, except that there’s likely a reason why there wasn’t a novelization of Airplane! (There was, apparently, a novelization of The Blues Brothers, a film which depended heavily on visual gags, music, and the talent and charisma of its cast, who what do I know?)

I recently had a comedian tell me that running gags are the lowest form of humor, with the possible exception of the pun. If there’s one gimmick I use more than the running gag in Makeup Test, it’s the pun. So uh oh. Then again, none of my books have ever really been about the following of the rules.

In the end (spoiler alert), I kept the running gags. I did, however, use them as a way to further define and develop the characters, and add to the world of the story. At least I hope so. On the page, jokes don’t just have to be funny. They have to be earned. They have to make you laugh, but they have to move the story and the characters along at the same time.

Makeup Test is quite a departure for me. I hope it works. Of course, that’s up to y’all in the end. In any case, the book is now officially delivered, so mission accomplished. No more revisions until after the copy editor does their worst.

In other writing accountability news, I am now almost exactly 1% of the way through Incandescent, the next Winter Tale, which may not sound like much, but it’s more than 0%. I am about two-thirds of the way through What the Thunder Said, the third book in the series that begins with The Widening Gyre. I have not written even a single word of a potential sequel to A Planet Called Eden.