I have a sense of humor…
…yet it might not seem like it. I’m also something of a romantic. But only the dearest and nearest people in my life have seen much of those aspects of me. I mostly avoid blatant humor and schmaltzy romance in my reading choices in my informal relationships and that avoidance carries over into my stories.
It’s a matter of degree, of course. For writing, while I suppose it could sell more stories (as if that were a goal), a focus on humor or romance doesn’t appeal to me. The only time I set out to boldly write (and purposely split an infinitive to rub it in to strict editors who haven’t read the new rules!) a pure romantic comedy (isn’t modern courtship always romantic comedy but rarely pure?) was mostly a failure: The first part of The Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse, based on a short story about a mad and atypical female physicist (“mad” in the English sense and “atypical” because girls aren’t supposed to be good at math—of course, I know they can be, because I’ve taught math and science to both females and males!); she hires a brilliant black techie (I wanted to piss off both misogynists and racists); and the story expands to what becomes a “classic road trip” where the two time-travel without creating paradoxes.
I’ll admit that there’s more humor and romance in that novel than most of my other stories (and maybe less quality sci-fi?), but, whether sci-fi, mysteries, or thrillers, or some combination, there’s enough humor and romance in all my tales to make the characters seem human (or believable ETs, as the case might be—sentience requires both humor and romance). One of my favorite authors from my childhood, Isaac Asimov (also an ex-scientist), was a lot more serious than I am, in fact; and another favorite author, Robert Heinlein (you guessed it: also a scientist), in Stranger in a Strange Land, flaunts conventional Christian mythology with irreverent humor and romance that should be a model for sci-fi romantic-comedy writers everywhere (that novel became the hippies handbook!).
After finishing The Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse, though, I realized that writing sci-fi romantic comedy isn’t that easy. Even Heinlein, a master of sci-fi writing, tended to the bawdy and sacrilegious and departed from the humor all around us in our daily lives. (Asimov’s seriousness is also a bit tempered by a few references to android-human sexual relationships in the robot trilogy. From his impish smile, he probably thought that was a great joke!)
In my mysteries and thrillers, Detective Castilblanco’s quips and Esther Brookstone’s penchant for collecting husbands often add humor—he’s a Latino, after all; and she’s an atypical Englishwoman, quite unlike Christie’s prim and proper Miss Marple. Perhaps my Esther deserves to be called that American term, cougar. I play Esther against type like I do Dao-Ming Chen, Castilblanco’s longtime partner, especially in Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder. I love to do that! It makes characters more interesting. And atypical characters often can add humor even though humor isn’t the goal.
Of course, humor comes in many forms. What makes a reader chuckle isn’t easy to predict, so maybe a good humorist should sprinkle different types of humor throughout a novel? What do you look for in humor?
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A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. Ever heard of the “Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics”? It’s not really a theory but a convenient interpretation of that strange theory describing atomic phenomena; it’s often associated with the Nobel prize-winning Richard Feynman, but it was actually invented by Hugh Everett III in a Princeton thesis subsequent to Feynman’s. For the scientific fans among my readers, the key words are “many worlds,” i.e., parallel universes, if you will; and it should theoretically allow you to time-travel without paradoxes. (Nothing says the parallel universes have to run at the same rate, right?) For those who just want a sci-fi rom-com that’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, though, sit back in your easy-chair and ride along with the heroes of this novel as I poke fun at much of human society’s conventions and culture. Available wherever quality ebooks are found. (You don’t have to be a physicist or engineer to enjoy it, by the way.)
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
