Perfecting Comedy: Lessons Learned from one KPDH Fic.
Hi everyone! I’m back with another lesson learned. This time it’s breaking down comedy in fics! Fair warning, I am not formally trained in any form of comedy but I am pretty knowledgeable about fanfiction and what makes certain fanfics funny.
Today, in honor of Kay Day, we’re going to be discussing one of the funniest KPDH fics: Wolfish Behavior! Written by Kayross. (@kayr0ss) This entire fic is hilarious, but by dissecting one scene we can see some elements of how to make your comedy really work.
So, basic context. Rumi is a werewolf. And has an at home vet appointment with her doctor, Zoey. Since dogs can’t open the door, she needs a human there to interact with Zoey. Her planned human, Jinu, couldn’t make it. So she calls her neighbor, Mira, who is also a client for Zoey.
Mira owns a bunch of cats, and knows Rumi by this point.
There’s a few key facts that really allow future situations to shine:
Rumi is not familiar with dogs, never having owned or been around one. Due to being a werewolf.
Mira is not familiar with dogs, but is with cats.
Zoey is familiar with dogs.
The main comedy from this scene comes from Kayross contrasting what everyone knows and doesn’t know to create disbelief between the characters, at which the audience can laugh at both the disbelief itself but also the character’s reactions. We can see this early on, when Mira arrives.
- "Do I need to feed her?" "Oh, no," Rumi's halfway out the door. "She had lunch already! Um, surf and turf, I believe?" Mira's probably making an obviously confused expression because Rumi starts waving her hands and goes: "It's a kibble flavor." They make surf and turf flavored dog food? "Very good for dog nutrition." "Okay."
-
This joke is really funny, but why? Mira and Rumi both know nothing about dogs. Rumi is the dog so just says whatever she had for lunch.
This is already funny because obviously a dog shouldn’t have fucking surf and turf.
What elevates it is that Mira barely knows anything about dogs. She knows enough to know it sounds wrong, but believes the “Kibble” excuse.
The main “joke” here isn’t that Rumi thinks dogs eat Surf and Turf, or that Rumi accidentally revealed her own lunch. The main joke is that Mira believed her, which is absurd. Since any audience member knows dogs shouldn’t eat surf and turf. This pattern continues for the entire chapter, Kay stacks unexpected reveals and interactions on top of themselves to reach an even more absurd conclusion.
This may seem obvious, but think about what didn’t happen.
A pretty common crutch for people writing comedy is to write arguments. They’re easy to write. Kay could’ve designed the scene where the joke is Rumi arguing with Mira over what flavors of kibble exist. Or Mira arguing that Muri shouldn’t be eating that. But, this would be out of character for both of them, and I don’t think it would be funnier than the conclusion.
These are two very silly women being kind of dumb, and I find that so much funnier. It’s also important to mention the concept of a straightman. A lot of times in comedy, you have a serious, non jokester character. Normally the most qualified one who can point out the wacky situations as contrast. If someone is acting a fool, you kind of need someone to point out that they’re acting a fool. Kay does something really smart here- the straightman evolves. It starts out as Mira. Rumi is acting a fool, and Mira is the confused one. But then Mira believes this wolf is a dog, and Zoey arrives. Now Zoey is the Mira looks oddly proud of her. "I think she can add, too. One plus one?”
Muri baps the floor with a paw twice. “One plus two?” She does it thrice. “What the fuck.” Zoey whispers. “What’s next? The square root of nine?” Muri hesitates—then taps the floor thrice. “What the fuck.”
straightman and Mira is the fool. Then, Jinu arrives, who actually knows Rumi is a dog, which feels kind of obvious. Now, Zoey is the fool. And Jinu is the straightman! There’s this evolving ladder of Rumi is more absurd than Mira, who is more absurd than Zoey, who is more absurd with Jinu. And notice how that’s the order these characters enter the scene? Kay keeps the scene fresh (and funny) by evolving who is the idiot at any given moment. Of course, the ultimate joke is that they’re all gay idiots.
Moving on, Rumi rushes to the bottom of the stairs to loop back into her room. Mira makes herself comfortable. The joke here is the conflicting tones. Mira being nonchalant and relaxed, slightly awkward in this home that isn’t hers. And Rumi is panicking. This is almost slapstick, you can picture a movie scene rapidly cutting back and forth between Rumi running and Mira sitting doing nothing. The humor here is in the contrast. It’s not laugh out loud funny (like Kibble), but it is a background level of funny that keeps the pacing and primes the reader for the upcoming absurdity. An appetizer, if you will.
The changing povs get shorter and shorter, making tension. At this point in the story, Mira walking in on a naked Rumi is not out of the question. It would be funny! But Rumi makes it, gets undressed, and transforms.
The humor here, as said before, is that neither of these fucking idiots know what a dog is. Mira sees a whole ass wolf and shrugs. The humor here is especially complimented by Mira’s internal dialogue:
“For starters—she kind of doesn't look like a dog? Mira's no expert though, and she can hardly imagine what else Muri might be if not a dog. She's got a muzzle, paws, adorable ears, and a tail. Standard dog ingredients in a typical dog arrangement—so probably a dog. Maybe one of those strange, lesser-known kinds. Dr. Choi would probably know better.” One, points for reminding the audience about Zoey and foreshadowing the future humor. Two, “standard dog ingredients” is really funny.
The next few lines are more plot and character focused than humor focused, besides the ironic humor of Mira recognizing intelligence and talking about “Your mom” right in front of Muri’s mom.
Now that Mira’s dumbassery is fully established, Zoey enters!
Small note, I love the difference in prose here. “Zoey’s hyped up” is perfect to prime us to her mind. Kay (and lots of talented authors, Ev does this really well too) makes it obvious which pov you’re reading without names just by the things they notice, the pacing of their thoughts, how they react to things.
“Okay. So. The first thing Zoey notices about Rumi's dog is that it's not a fucking dog.”
Notice what I said earlier? Zoey is now the straightman, to play off of Mira, who is the fool. Poor Mira, trying to defend Rumi and her own ego.
The humor of this scene is the audience knowing that Muri isn’t a dog, she’s a wolf. And a human. Versus Zoey and Mira debating over what the fuck she is. Zoey’s internal panic is just extra to even further push the humor. But still, Kay doesn’t make them argue! Zoey’s frustrated, but pushes that towards someone who can’t currently argue back. Except the sad little baby face (which is another subversion! Rumi doesn’t try to argue or disagree, she’s just… pathetically sad.)
Now, the funniest part of the chapter happens. I think. Mira revealing that Muri is “trained.”
- “Zoey whips her head around to stare at Mira. "She can do what?" "Look," Mira holds out her hand. "Muri—shake hands?" Muri somehow stares at Mira with a deadpan expression, sighs, then dutifully lifts up her heavy paw and gently places it atop Mira's palm. They shake on it. "Other hand?" Muri executes it flawlessly.”
- This is funny because we know Rumi is a human, so the deadpan expression and sigh are funny as fuck. Especially picturing Human Rumi doing this. But the added layer is Mira’s insistence and Zoey’s disbelief.
Here’s the setup, from a rational/normal pov.
Zoey is an expert in animals. She knows its a wolf. Mira is not an expert. She knows Rumi is trained.
Muri can perfectly execute commands.
So the absurdity of the situation is an accomplished vet being proven wrong by Mira and Rumi. And Kay doubles down in the best possible way.
Mira looks oddly proud of her. "I think she can add, too. One plus one?” Muri baps the floor with a paw twice. “One plus two?” She does it thrice. “What the fuck.” Zoey whispers. “What’s next? The square root of nine?” Muri hesitates—then taps the floor thrice. “What the fuck.”
Rumi is an idiot for thinking dogs can do math and not just staring at them.
Mira is an idiot for thinking this wolf is a dog and can do math.
Zoey is an idiot for finding these two attractive enough to put up with this bullshit. They’re all being idiots! And that’s the humor of it. These are three characters we know are rational, intelligent, smart. And they’re all acting like fucking idiots in a believable way based on what we know about them.
The scene continues and is still fucking funny, but the humor itself doesn’t change form too much. They’re all still idiots.
The next evolution of the humor is when our new straightman arrives! Zoey is thoroughly a fool at this point, deluding herself into thinking Muri is a dog and doing the inspection. So of course, a character that knows what the audience knows, finally enters. Jinu. And Kay doubles down again. She adds a new element of humor by making Mira fucking despise him.
The humor shifts into mainly focusing on how Jinu knows, Muri knows, but the other two don’t know.
Not much to say here, it’s pretty obvious why its funny. Rumi being distressed at anyone implying she’s in a relationship with Jinu but can’t prove she’s not.
The chapter ends with more plot and character work.
So the humor here was focused around idiots and experts, conflicting off each other, and the scene continually evolving who is the idiot and who is the expert. Notice how it wasn’t just 5k words of arguments. It wasn’t quips, “Erm, that just happened.” or puns. It wasn’t out of character. And, the plot still moved during the humor and around it! I could say sooooo much more about this fic, but. Go read it! Not just the humor is excellent. The pacing, the prose, the characterization, god. It’s amazing, really.
Seriously, if you want your fics to be funnier, read this. Great, great lessons.
