ConCarolinas just past and ConGregate is around the corner. I’m rubbing elbows with a whole lot of authors – and, yeah, the below just may be a bit accurate.
(If you want to send some sales my way, go to my Books and buy some through the amazon links. THANKS! – don’t make me resort to the Deadpool advertising method.)
Image acquired from the Internet Hive Mind
Taken from a sales website – the link should be good if you are interested
As citizens in America, we are only asked to do three things – vote, serve jury duty and, of course, pay taxes. While I have never had a customer with the below occupation, I have often wondered what it would be like to process such a person. After all, everyone needs to file taxes if they are employed. The below flash is completely fictional.
Governmental Obligations
“I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?” I look back from my desktop at the rather plain woman. Pretty, as all young girls are pretty, but with a face bare of makeup, her nondescript blondish hair pulled back in a ponytail, loose jeans and an oversized T-shirt printed with the logo of a national sports bar chain, nothing stood out about her. Except her flip flops, but even those were the popular style where the strips were bound together by a silly jewel. Rinestones and rubber always struck me as a strange combination. The ruby exactly matched her vivid red toenails.
Her eyes crinkled, smiled as some people put it. I could see where she would be striking with mascara darkening her nearly blonde eyelashes and eye-shadow forcing her eyes to a particular color. As is, the brown, green, blue mix washed out into the surrounding pale winter flesh. “I was wondering if I could claim my whips against my self-employment.”
“Well…we are required by law to claim all income AND all expenses for your self-employment. Are your whips ever used for your personal pleasure?” I managed to keep my voice firmly nonjudgmental and accountant flat. I had hit the zone before I had even walked past the waiting line to unlock the doors for the day, sleep deprivation in mid-March does provide some benefits, but she was threatening my calm.
“P-leeease,” she drew out the word, “I’m a dominatrix by trade. Like most people, I leave my work at work.”
“So the answer is no.” Taxes required precision, and she hadn’t actually answered the question.
She sighed. “I leave my whips in my dungeon. And I only use the dungeon for work.”
I nodded. We had already covered her office rental. “I assume you have the receipts for them?” I hadn’t seen whips or leather goods among the other purchases, which included everything from business cards to scented oils for resale to Internet fees.
“I used my business credit card for them, but I wasn’t sure if I could count them so I didn’t break them out separate.”
I flipped through the printout she made from her American Express website, finding the annotated bills. “So February, $130, and then again May $300, and once more in September, another $200. That seems like a lot of whips.”
“They break over time. Not from whipping people, but just sound effects. Everyone loves the crack.” She shivered for effect. “I use lotion to keep the leather from subtle, but eventually it gives.”
“Okay, so these won’t qualify for depreciation since they last less than a year. I am going to put them under office supplies.”
“Sound perfect. Now about the chains,” she pointed to another purchase on her credit card statements, “does this group qualify as furniture since they are permanently attached to the walls?”
(words 473; first published 4/8/2014; republished new blog format April 21, 2019)
Image acquired from the Internet Hive Mind via ifunny.com
Image courtesy of farconville at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Humor is tough. Ask any actor – drama may be a challenge, but timing a laugh is a unique talent which has to be honed into a skill. This is why you might see comedic actors do drama, but rarely will drama actors do comedy. Same with writers. The best comedies will make you cry, but dramas with laughs snuck in are fewer. And comedic genres mixes (fantasy, sci-fi, etc) are as rare as unicorns.
Humor comes in many forms: slapstick/physical, snide remarks, comedic characters, comedic situations (sit-coms), straight-up weird (surreal), puns/wordplay, topical/current events, observations/every-day-life, and fart jokes. Some authors writing comedy will attempt every single type joke one sentence after another, never stopping – like the movie Airplane. Exhausting reads, and often side-splitting, except when they are not.
The problem is some writers aren’t funny, and they are trying so hard.
A recent book I read had constant joking between characters, snide and straight-up humor versions. Normally I like this type of thing, but these read like a sitcom with canned laughter. Anytime someone said something snide or “funny”, the people they were talking to laughed and smiled at the jokes. Every.SINGLE.time. It’s like the author did not trust the reader to find things funny and lit up a big sign “laugh here” to make sure the audience knew when a joke was said.
This is not what funny is.
Comedians do not laugh at their own jokes. They tell a joke and wait for the audience to laugh. If it doesn’t work, they strike the joke from their repertoire.
Don’t tell readers when to laugh. Have them discover the funny on their own.
