Language Challenge #6– What makes a good long replacement:

• Specificity (bizarre specifics are great)
• Setting up a particular scene (create a character)
• Incorporate a twist
• Don’t make them too long
  • Might feel like a digression
  • Don’t want to make it hard to read/distract from the essay as a whole
• Two main principles:
  • Anticipate what the reader is expecting, and replace that with fresh & surprising language
  • Replace abstractions with some thing that models that abstraction (ex: replace low self-esteem)

Flat and Round Characters

• Flat characters: don’t have much change/depth to them. You know what to expect; easy to make fun of the character; predictable
  • “Act the way they act” → not driven by their psychology, but by the story
  • Machine-like
• Round characters: more nuance to their personalities; more jokes about them adapting to the environment
  • Know details about their background or how they think/how they see the world
  • Psychology– what has happened to make them see the world that way?
• What kind of character is funnier?
  • Juxtaposition of flat/round character (straight man vs. crazy man)
  • “Laughter requires a temporary anesthesia of the heart” → if we laugh at someone, we are less likely to feel for them
  • Round characters can allow us to be more creative versus flat characters don’t have as much depth
  • Laugh at flat character/laugh with round character
  • Flat characters are less self-aware than round characters, which can be funnier
  • In summary: both can be funny– just in different ways
• Flat characters tend to be unsentimental; round characters tend to me more likeable
  • “Unprotected” is rare because it manages to pull off “sweetness” in a flat character. Also tells a cliche story, but the strange angle is what makes it so funny
  • Even the most normal, cliche narratives can be made funny through a unique character frame
• Dern– I Like All Types of Music, and My Sense of Humor is So Random
  • Starts off very flat (but thinks they are round), then gets rounder than we’d expect
    • The changed meaning of “random”
  • Incongruity between perceived self and actual self
  • Does the piece stay as funny/ get funnier when the character gets rounder?
    • Surprise creates humor
    • The twist makes the essay more complex (rather than being so simplistic)
    • Makes us feel bad for judging the character in the first half of the essay
    • Dramatic irony of us knowing something about the character that they don’t know
    • Pieces tends to get less funny when they get more sentimental
• Saunders, I CAN SPEAK!
  • How it uses form to develop character/ how form creates a dramatic situation
  • Form (customer service letter) reveals narrators quirks: slightly passive aggressive tone, robotic professionalism (at first… then we see more and more of the narrator’s quirks), love, belief, and defense of the product
  • Relates a normal customer service sales pitch to his weird life (super specifically)
  • Middle part of the piece: runs through the features of the product and describes how to use them based on his own experience → few line jokes. Intent is to be reassuring, instead is disturbing
  • Mix of disturbing and funny
  • Punctuation reveals character (sounds frantic)