[KatG]

On feedback: yes, it's great to get it. No, no sense in crying if somebody doesn't want a story, although occasional frustrated banging on the wall might help. Yes, quite often editors react to a story in a way that makes no sense to you and they seem to have been reading a different sort of story altogether, which makes the feedback less than helpful, even if appreciated. And yes, if you've got enough editors seeing a story in the same way, it might be worth canvassing your friends to see what specifically might be going on.

Banger recited the traditional definition of comedy, and then pointed out that people didn't necessarily follow it. Lin says that is nonsense, though whether he means that the traditional definition of comedy is nonsense or that people who don't follow the definition are writing nonsense is not clear. Obviously, the classical definition of comedy isn't always a lot of help these days.

When it comes to satiric mockery, light farce and black comedy, which someone will see your story to be is pretty much up for grabs, no matter what you are doing with tone and content.

Which is why it is helpful for you to guide them sometimes. While you are not necessarily copying either Vonnegut or Pratchett, Banger, sometimes mentioning a well-known author's name gives them an idea of where you were headed and helps them read it as you intended. Of course, when submitting to magazines, you are frequently not doing a cover letter or covering e-mail where you can say that. Subtitling it "A Black Comedy" might help, but if somebody wants to see cannibalism as light, that's how they are going to roll. Which is why humor is the hardest to do.

[Banger]

Yeah, I think the best comedy, or best stories in general, play with and defy genre classifications. If we just keep using the same old formulas, things get boring. I would think that it can make things hard for editors sometimes, though, for if they're trying to burn through a pile of slush they might mistake intentional juxtaposition for confused dissonance. In the case of my sf comedy, it may be that the editors caught the humorous tone immediately and made certain judgments about it from the start, which caused them to overlook the darkness.

I've had the same workshop folks (a completely different type of readers) criticize some of my stories by saying that they (1) start out conventional ("I've read a bunch of stories like this..."), and (2) end in a manner that defied those conventions ("The ending didn't fit with the rest of the story... why didn't you do this conventional thing instead?"). So on the one hand, people want something different, but on the other hand, those same people want more of the same - but apparently not in the order I'm presenting it, because they didn't like it when it was familiar, and liked it less when it departed from convention later :D

I've tended to avoid saying much more than "here's my story for consideration etc." in cover letters because I thought the editors didn't want an explanation of the story. I guess saying something like "here's my black comedy XXX" might work though.

Any suggestions for other venues that welcome humorous sf would be welcome, and quite fitting for this thread, I think :)

[Holbrook]

Banger:

Ralan has a section listing mags with a humorous bent if that is any help.

http://www.ralan.com/

[Banger]

Thanks, Holbrook. Unfortunately, when I consulted Ralan's "humor markets" section for previous submission attempts, there always seemed to be a dearth of actual sf humor markets, and the few that are listed have length constraints that won't allow for this story (~5k words). So far I've sent it to F&SF, Writers of the Future, Asimov's, ASIM, Interzone and Space Westerns. The last one was a stretch, and the response I got from them is better off not mentioned :D

[Holbrook]

Space Westerns??? Now there is a cross genre if ever there was one lol

"Scratches head"

How about SGI? I did a quick search and came up with some.

http://www.spicygreeniguana.com/

[Banger]

I've never seen that site before. Thanks for the tip! :)

[James Carmack]

Space Westerns??? Now there is a cross genre if ever there was one lol

It's not all that rare here in Japan. Shoot, just in '98 they had three of 'em competing with each other on TV: Cowboy Bebop, Trigun and Outlaw Star. There have, of course, been others before and since, but those three in particular stick out.

I recall the title header for the Trigun manga: "Deep Space Planet Future Gun Action". Quite a mouthful, isn't it? At least Nightow didn't call it Kidou Waksei GUNSMOKE. ^o^

[lin]

please stop posting.

Please stop posting????????????????????

Now THAT is funny.


Are you trying to make a point or just trying to provoke?

No, I'm not trying to provoke. And I see by your subsequent posts that you are really bought into this academic analysis approach to humor. Okay, fine. I have a hard time seeing it getting you anywhere. It reminds me of the essay Robin Williams told his kids to tear out of the their books in "Dead Poets Society", and with good reason. Humor and comedy are notoriously, and more than any other of the antic arts, resistant, if not impervious to analysis... and much more so to a studied construction.

[Rocket Sheep]

Pull your head in, Lin... moderatorily speaking.

Banger was harking back to the early days when all was comedy or tragedy and there are a lot of schools of thought based on that. I don't know much of it but I know enough to know where he was going and that he knew more than me and that it was of interest. Most of these schools of thought support the value of comedy too.

If the "sheer nonsense" comment was a joke then forgive me for not getting it either. I told you to use lots of smileys if you were joking!

"Anything" is open to analysis. This is a forum. You can analyse things to death here. In the rest of the world tho, learning funny is pointless without timing.

[Holbrook]

I've never seen that site before. Thanks for the tip! :)

You are welcome. I find the advanced search function good for pin pointing various types of markets and it cuts down on the leg work.