Comedic Action: Keep Language Cool
When description and funny banter might need to take a back seat.
One of the more useful pieces of writing advice I’ve received was from an advisor who told me, “When the action gets hot, the language gets cold.” (Thank you, Bret Lott!)
This is the idea that when the action in a narrative occurs, readers would likely prefer short, tight sentences focused on the events transpiring over heavily descriptive scene setting.
Imagine if a protagonist is attacked while leaving the grocery store, and instead of telling us what’s happening in the ambush, the author goes on for a few paragraphs about the color of the store’s front door or what kind of sweater the assailant is wearing. Lovely scene setting, but probably not what the reader wants to focus on at that moment.
The same desire to understand what’s going on during a moment of action can also be true for comedic action. When comedic action takes place, it might benefit authors to keep the funny banter to a minimum and let the humor be generated by the moment itself.
James Thurber achieves this feat multiple times in his 1939 short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” as the protagonist shifts from reality to multiple different fantastical environments.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
The story is about a seemingly unremarkable protagonist named Walter Mitty, who is daydreaming about different, more interesting versions of his life while running errands with his wife.
What is particularly significant about this story in terms of comedic action is that Thurber is tasked with setting the scene in two very different environments (reality and Walter Mitty’s fantasies) without jeopardizing the energy the comedic action creates.
Therefore, it is a fantastic example to illustrate the challenge of situating a reader while also using cooling language and brevity during times of comedic action.
Comedic Action: Keep Language Cool
When trying to remember one of the things his wife asked him to pick up while she is in another store, Mitty hears a “newsboy” shouting about an ongoing trial, and he imagines himself on the stand as the defendant.
Mitty’s imaginary defense attorney says that Mitty couldn’t have fired the gun in the crime because his right arm was in a sling at the time. Below is the comedic action that follows the turn.
Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. “With any known make of gun,” he said evenly, “I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.” Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman’s scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty’s arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. “You miserable cur!” . . .
Notice that Thurber doesn’t describe the “pandemonium” immediately and instead encourages the reader to use their imagination to see it.
However, even when he gets a tad more specific with the next sentences by describing the “dark-haired girl” somehow falling into Mitty’s arms in the courtroom, the language is not flowery or rife with adjectives. Instead, it’s cold and brief and does not distract from the ongoing momentum of the comedic action on display.
Thurber also uses cool language and light descriptions in Mitty’s real world during moments of action.
Following the ellipses, Mitty interrupts his fantasy when he remembers what his wife wanted him to fetch.
Here is part of that next paragraph:
“Puppy biscuit,” said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. “He said ‘Puppy biscuit,’ ” she said to her companion. “That man said ‘Puppy biscuit’ to himself.” Walter Mitty hurried on.
Notice again how Thurber situates the reader by explaining, “buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again,” but then pivots away from description and allows comedic action to do its own work in the woman’s laughter.
He does not describe the woman or even who she’s with beyond “her companion,” yet the reader does not feel disconnected. On the contrary, Thurber has the action of the woman’s laughter and dialogue draw the reader into the scene rather than rely on overused metaphors or heavy-handed scene setting.
Overall, there are times when readers may crave vivid descriptions, but they might not want tons of details right in the middle of a heightened moment of action. Therefore, many writers might want to keep the language cool and the description brief in moments of humorous action.