Comedy

When I was thinking about making my blog post, I tried to think about the funny books that I have read throughout my life. But you don't really write comedy, I came to realize. You can make a comedy movie. You can even make a comedy game, given the right circumstances. But it's difficult to write a comedy.

Some of the great poets did, of course. There's all kinds of classics that are heavily comedic. But they wrote those with it in mind that they would be acted out by people. People who could deliver lines and act in certain ways and make the story more than just words. But when you're just pure straight writing, words are all you have.

That's not to say that I've never read something that was funny. There are so many books out there that I can point to in so many ways that made me laugh out loud while I was reading them. But I've never read a book that was just pure straight comedy. And I have trouble imagining that it would ever particularly work. I have no doubt that people have tried. But I do doubt that they have succeeded.

There are, of course, plenty of joke books. Plenty of books that have a sole intention of making the reader laugh. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a book with a story, and that story exists to make you laugh from beginning to end.

I've thought a number of times throughout my life about trying to write a book like that. But there are a number of problems with me doing that, the greatest of which is the fact that I'm not particularly funny. I can make dumb fart noises, say things that make no sense and make people laugh at the sheer stupidity of it. I can repeat jokes that I've heard. But I wouldn't consider myself funny. Especially not in a way that could translate well into words on a page. I remember when I was a kid, and I would try to write funny scenes in stories. They were funny then. But I was also a kid. No one over the age of ten would ever in their right minds imagine that the things that I wrote had any sort of comedic value to them.

But I just find it interesting. Every form of visual media has a sub-genre that is purely dedicated to comedy, and the closest that textual comedy gets is the scripts for those visual medias and collections of jokes. I mean, I suppose that you could write an entire story with the purpose of leading up to one big punch line at the very end, but I feel like your readers would find that more frustrating than hilarious.

Perhaps I'm wrong, though. Perhaps a comedy novel does exist out there somewhere, and I'm simply completely unaware of its existence. That would certainly be something to see. But I just find it unlikely. I'd love to see someone try and do it, though. I'd love for someone out there to sit down and find a way to turn comedy gold into a purely text substance. To be able to pick up a book and both enjoy its contents while laughing out loud the entire way. That would be something.