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I’m excited to host Gayle Carline, Author, Columnist, Maven-in-Training today! This  ‘cross-pollination’ idea was hers and I was happy to jump on it. Yesterday she hosted me at her place and now….heeeeeeere’s Gayle!

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When I started begging for guest blog spots to advertise my new book, Regan came to my rescue. Since she writes paranormal romance and I write humor and mystery, we tried to think of something we had in common. Being the impatient women we are, we chucked that idea after about two emails, and decided that I’d tell her readers about writing humor and she could tell my readers about writing abnormally – I mean, PARAnormally.

I never set out to write humor. (Actually, I wanted to be a painter, but we’ll leave that alone.) I did enjoy laughing, however. My first attempt at writing humor was when my high school English teacher gave us an assignment, to write an essay based on a personal experience. I had just discovered James Thurber, and my class had taken a field trip to our state capital (Springfield, Illinois), where we got to observe our government in action.

Let’s just say the humor wrote itself.

Over the years, I’ve written a few bits of serious flotsam that brought a tear to the eye, but given the chance, I always go for the funny. This is exasperating, for two reasons.

First, humor is probably the hardest genre to write. It’s very subjective, and what you might laugh at, I might not find funny. Almost no one critiques comedy by saying, “well, it’s just not my sense of humor.” They say, “I didn’t laugh, therefore you’re not funny.” So you put yourself out there in a big way when you try to make people laugh.

Personally, I scrub myself every day with steel wool, to toughen my skin for those moments.

There’s also a physical element to writing humor. The funny gets lost in long paragraphs, so you can’t afford to let your reader skim. Humor is all about the pacing. It’s usually a “set up, then punch line” kind of format. You’ve got to give your readers the kind of pause a stand-up comedian would have, only on the page.

So there are lots of one-sentence paragraphs.

Second (and this one burns me the most), for all the difficulty in writing humor, it’s the most undervalued. When’s the last time Oprah picked a comedy for her book club? How many awards are given to humor? People assume it’s difficult to move someone to tears, but easy to make them laugh. I disagree. If I smack you hard enough, you’ll cry. But if you’re not ticklish, I’ll never get you to laugh.

That’s called slapstick.

So when I tell you my murder mystery is funny, or that my humorous memoir will make you laugh, I’m hoping we have the same sense of humor. If you read it and don’t laugh, just remember, it’s not because I’m not funny.

It’s because you’re not. (LOL)

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Isn’t she fantastic?!

You can keep up with Gayle online at her website http://www.gaylecarline.com or blog http://gaylecarline.blogspot.com

And buy her books today. You will not be disappointed!

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