Recently, I finished reading Kurt Vonnegut's short book 'Man Without A Country'.
In it he outlines many things. How his faith in America is wavering. The shapes of popular stories. Oil being the worst addiction the world has ever known. Being a worse writer than Abraham Lincoln. And those parts are very good. I encourage you to read the entire book. (It's only 150 pages or so)
But that's not what interested me the most. What interested me the most was the section late in the book where he talked about humor.
Now, most people like to believe the are funny. Even more like to think they they can do or say funny things.
But humor, real humor, isn't that easy. This is the reason why the entire field of stand up comedy exists. If it was easy everyone would do it. But being funny over and over again takes time and energy.
The lesson I took from this is that being funny is going to take longer than doing something serious. Not a bad thing but it is something to consider when writing or coming up with anything you happen to be making. So read his thoughts, let them marinade in your minds, if you disagree or take away something different let me know.
It's damn hard to make jokes work. In Cat's Cradle, for instance, there are these very short chapters. Each one of them represents one day's work, and each one is a joke. If I were writing about a tragic situation, it wouldn't be necessary to time it to make sure the thing works. You can't really misfire with a tragic scene. It's bound to be moving if all the right elements are present. But a joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.