In celebration of Rantlister’s new Advice and Peer Editing section am I continuing our series on improving your mad writing skills. Last week, we talked about the dangers of passive voice, how to properly title your work, and the importance of maintaining a certain level of badassity. This week we’re going to learn about proper use of comedic exaggeration and the importance of comedic slant.
So, you said, “Let there be a short story.” And the short story appeared, and you saw that the short story was good. Then about three pm all your loser friends crawl out of bed and read your webpage, and they leave comments like: “That sucked so hard, mate, I can’t believe you write such bullocks.” “ROTFLOLMFAOBBQ jew has teh gays!!!!!!11!!!!One.” or “TL;DR, keep your gAIDS away from me mate!!!!!!11one111.!!!.”
That’s okay, we’ve all been there. Here’s what you do. Rewrite your story to be more awesome. Now, since your name isn’t DrakeGTA, I don’t expect you to just automatically know how to write awesome rants, so I’m here to help. Let’s look at what you’ve written:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Okay, dammit, why do you write all this poetry shit?! I’m going to fucking give up on your weak ass if you keep this shit up! Okay, calm down, I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, I take it back, *muttering under my breath*fucking pansy. So you’ve written The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost?! Great, we can work with this.
Follow the steps you learned last week about form, title, and ranting name. It should now look like this…
“Why Don’t We Do It in the Road Less Traveled”
by rFrostyNuts
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay, In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Okay great, it’s starting to look good, but we’re still going to need some work. This is where our friends “comedic exaggeration” and “comedic slant” come in. These two concepts are infinitely related, and if two things are infinitely related, they must be, by definition, the same thing. Comedic exaggeration is where we make our story more interesting. For example, if I said “My friend John got laid” no one would care (except John, he’s very proud of himself.) If I said: “My friend John got laid by Jewel Staite, the hot chick from Firefly” no one would believe him; this isn’t comedic exaggeration, this is pathetic exaggeration. However, if I carried that one further and said “My friend John, was abducted by aliens, and they took turns gang rapping him, but it was cool because they were all Jewel Staite and Summer Glau, all 50 of them” people would say “Pics or didn’t happen.” This is comedic exaggeration, you take it beyond the point of being pathetic, to the point where it’s kind of funny.
For example, in the five minutes I’ve been working on this article, I’ve had about five shots of whiskey. That’s not impressive, no one cares, everyone knows five shots of whiskey doesn’t mean a lot for alcoholics like The Drake. If I said, I’ve had a fifth of whiskey, people would know I was lying about my drinking, trying to sound cooler then I really am, and that would be pathetic. However, if I said, that I’ve drank two fifty-five gallon drums of Russian Vodka and then smoked a box of Cuban cigars to get the taste out of my mouth, in the last five-minutes, that would be comedic exaggeration.
Before we can add comedic exaggeration to your short story, we have to talk about comic slant. Comic slant isn’t when DrakeGTA has had 5 shots of whiskey in 5 minutes and he’s walking a little funny; we call that most days after 4pm. (Okay, I lied, most days before noon.) Anyway, the point is that you hold a special and unique world view, just like everyone else: this is your slant. For your slant to be comedic, it has to be diametrically opposed to the most commonly held world views. For example, if I said I think that the JFK assassination was committed by Lee Harvey Oswald, that’s a slant, but it’s not very slanted. If I said that I think JFK was killed by the CIA to further their foreign policy interests, that’s a pretty good slant, but it’s not funny. However, if I said that fat Elvis killed JFK because Marilyn Monroe had told JFK the secret that Elvis was planning to fake his own death, and come back calling himself “Prince” in the late 1970s so he could get the hot young chicks again, that would be a comedic slant.
Notice that I said slant and exaggeration are infinitely related, it’s because they are the same damned thing. There are basically three types of comic slant that are used in writing rants. The first one, and the most common, is that you are sane and rational, and the world is fucking crazy (or stupid.) You might use this one when you explain why you are better then everyone else; because you drive a Lexus, while the world drives Kias. (Kia is fucking gay and stupid anyway.) The second one is where you are insane (or stupid) but the world is sane and rational. This is when you get to play the odd duck who either doesn’t seem to understand the rules of society, or you understand them plenty, you just don’t care. (Yea, I ran the old bitch down, but I was in my Lexus, that means the normal rules don’t apply to me.) The last one is where you are insane, (or stupid,) and the world (or another person) is also insane (or stupid,) but in an opposite ways. This might take the form of you explaining that the democrats are evil communists who want to team up with Canada to form a socialist republic so they can use the labor to build a giant statue of Al Gore that will block out the sun and prevent the robot rebellion, to your friend who thinks that republicans are controlled by the robots who run the Illuminati and seek to establish an American caste system similar to 1800s India so they can build The Matrix and use your body heat to power their computers.
So what you do is pick a slant, and you pick some exaggerations, and you reevaluate your story using these slants. If you are following the lessons from last week, it also helps to write as if you are hungry, horny, pissed off, and piss drunk. Let’s see what that story looks like now.
“Why Don’t We Do It in the Road Less Traveled”
by rFrostyNuts
So I’m running from the cops through a yellow wood, it turns out that Jewel Staite was completely serious about that restraining order. I’ve got my dick in my hand, running as fast as I can, and I’m thinking about the last thing she said to me: “Dude, get the fuck out of my house, can’t you see I’m trying to take a shit here? What’s your problem you fat, ugly fuck up? Get my umbrella out of your ass!” and I come upon a fork in the trail. I couldn’t go down both paths, because I’m not the fucking Multiple Man from Marvel Comics.
So I hear the LAPD and their hound dogs off in the distance, and for a long time, and I’m looking at both paths and wondering which one leads back to my black van with the kidnapping supplies. I took the road that looked less trodden, I didn’t want anyone to see me, I might be too recognizable in my Dr. Frank N. Furter outfit. I wished I’d thought this through a little better, I would have worn something besides my work clothes.
The path I chose ran up the hill, which was a bitch to climb in my pumps. I doubted then, that I would ever come back this way, rejected, I would not darken fair Kaylee’s door again. I arrived at my van as the cops on foot were beginning to close in. I told my mom to step on it, and vanished into the night.
I said I’d never come back, but I was wrong, I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence. Kaylee is beginning to adjust to life in mom’s basement. She hasn’t even tried to chew through the leather straps lately. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
See, as I said before, you can work with anything.
