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odd_buttonsThe following is an excerpt from Part III of the book Making Shapely Fiction, by Jerome Stern. The first two parts are very much worth reading as well. The book is available in paperback.
Farce
Farce is a form of comedy that allows exaggerations, improbabilities, slapstick, old jokes, bad puns, and caricatures. On the stage, pure farce approaches ballet in its demand for exquisite timing, dancelike movements, and gymnastic clowning. In fiction, farce can be similarly effective, as in some of the novels of Joyce Cary or Tom Sharpe.
You need an uninhibited and zany imagination, and you also need to establish your settings and props with great care. When the Volkswagen is sliding backward into the lake that contains an ancient but demented alligator, and your hero is trying to crank open the stubborn sunroof to escape, readers need to know already that his girlfriend, who broke off their relationship because of a misunderstanding about the odd shape of his suntan, is a scuba diver who searches lake beds for the fossil coprolites of ancient marsupials. In farce especially, you need to have all the ducks in a row befour you make them quack.
Farce is also used negatively to mean that the comedy has gotten too exaggerated and readers no longer believe in the outrageous ideas. There is no exact answer to how far you can go, but your characters have to be kept in character -- they need to retain their human complexity, even underwater.
See Comedy, Premise.
Farce
Farce is a form of comedy that allows exaggerations, improbabilities, slapstick, old jokes, bad puns, and caricatures. On the stage, pure farce approaches ballet in its demand for exquisite timing, dancelike movements, and gymnastic clowning. In fiction, farce can be similarly effective, as in some of the novels of Joyce Cary or Tom Sharpe.
You need an uninhibited and zany imagination, and you also need to establish your settings and props with great care. When the Volkswagen is sliding backward into the lake that contains an ancient but demented alligator, and your hero is trying to crank open the stubborn sunroof to escape, readers need to know already that his girlfriend, who broke off their relationship because of a misunderstanding about the odd shape of his suntan, is a scuba diver who searches lake beds for the fossil coprolites of ancient marsupials. In farce especially, you need to have all the ducks in a row befour you make them quack.
Farce is also used negatively to mean that the comedy has gotten too exaggerated and readers no longer believe in the outrageous ideas. There is no exact answer to how far you can go, but your characters have to be kept in character -- they need to retain their human complexity, even underwater.
See Comedy, Premise.