POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS: Can I Use SF To Tell Sad Stories With A Sense Of Humor?

On October 7, 2007, I started this blog. Eighteen years later, I am revising and doing some different things. My wife and I are now retired senior citizens, our kids are both married, we have a bonus daughter and her wife and we have three grandchildren, (with a fourth on-the-way!) the oldest of which will soon finish his first year in high school, one smack in the center of Middle School; the third almost done with kindergarten. I have forty-five professional publications, plus countless other publications as a slushpile reader, and sometime essay contributor to Stupefying Stories https://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/.

These days, I write whenever I want to – or when I’m not busy exploring the world with my wife or kids or grandkids. I write and read constantly. Then I discovered that I was writing longer and longer pieces. My new focus is to write shorter; and to write HUMOR. On purpose. Maybe I can still irritate people while being funny. It works pretty well for John Scalzi! We’ll see what happens.

FOUNDATION FOR THOUGHTS ON WRITING HUMOR: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-every-writer-should-t_b_5811562

I just finished reading a second draft of a soon-to-be-published biography called BANANITO: The Lost Boy the Toughest Street Couldn’t Kill…

For those who don’t have a good grip on Spanish (like me!), a bananito is literally, “little banana”, but it became the writer’s name for the rest of the story. He was nine-years-old, tiny, and when his family lost their home and livelihood, they had to live “on the street” in Guatemala City.

What followed was a sad story (duh! Of course it was!) But because I knew one of the people who came later in the story, I kept reading to find out what happened.

Some really horrible – and sometime graphically explained – things happened. Death, murder, abuse, loss, hopelessness…and sometimes hope…happened in quick succession. But it was only quick for me. BANANITO covers some truly horrific events in his relatively short life: the book covers his experiences from 8 to his late teens. As I texted my Famous Friend who encouraged Bananito to write his story, I realized the wisdom and perspective in this book might make a worthwhile foundation for SF stories…

Could I possibly turn such a sad story into something that might not ONLY create a fascinating narrative that takes place on an colony world – but could I make the events and stories similar to those of Bananito’s, and use them as a foundation for stories that take place off Earth AND make people think of the poor, destitute, sick and hurting and inspire them to help change the world through the love and faith in Christ?

OK – that was a very dense sentence! Lemme break it down!

The book was terrifyingly sad.

Also, writers have asked, “If laughter is indeed the best medicine, it may allow us to cope with the trauma of being in the world.” The book was traumatic – certainly for the people who lived through it (my friend as well as Bananito). It was uncomfortable for me. And I have to ask, “What’s funny about trauma?”

That’s the point – there IS nothing funny about child abuse, prostitution, poverty and starvation. But if THEY could laugh: “We laughed because wanting hurt and laughing patched that for a second.” – even in the midst of a horrible life filled with rats, disease, death, and hopelessness, perhaps there might be more ways to laughter. Maybe we can work harder to heal the world’s pain when we can laugh – not AT those who suffer, but WITH those who suffer.

That’s the rub, ain’t it? How can you tell the difference between laughing AT someone and laughing WITH someone? The answer is actually easy: if you feel like crying on the inside and they START it, then you’re laughing with them. If you’re laughing alone and they turn away, then you’re laughing AT them

I saw that as a school counselor. After tears, it wasn’t unbelievable for laughter to follow; sometimes I even initiated it – like by blowing my nose. Or them by farting (you tend to swallow air when you’re crying hard, and your stomach can’t handle it, so…you know…it escapes (also, belches are funny, too!)

If I can mix humor and horror on an alien world, or a nearly-abandoned space station, or – then maybe I can lead people to be interested in helping those on Earth – people we share a world with – if not a continent.

Sounds really difficult. But, but I’m going to start with trying. After that, we’ll see how many people’s feelings I hurt or how many people look at me in horror and ask, “How could you even WRITE that?”

Inspiration: https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/02/possibly-irritating-essays.html, “Why Every Writer Should Take a Humor Writing Class”
(Whatever or whoever you are, there's one very enjoyable step you can take, right now -- or at least, fairly soon -- to make yourself a better writer: Take a course in humor writing.) (by Siobhan Adcock); https://lithub.com/why-horror-needs-humor/ “Why Horror Needs Humor” (Tyler Malone; 10/31/24)
Science Fiction and Humor (besides HITCHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY): https://electricliterature.com/7-new-sci-fi-comedies-you-dont-want-to-miss/ Image: https://t3.ftcdn.net/jpg/14/61/31/10/240_F_1461311036_MViWj3gBpw4LNjp4h0mdikU2gho7a51c.jpg