Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction. Brian Stableford
engaging. When we are asked to think of a real event as a tragedy, we are being asked to consider it as if it were a refusal of moral order rather than a mere absence.
The feeling of tragedy is, however, not the only one associated with episodes in stories in which characters are frustrated in their aims, and there are other effects at which you might aim, the most obvious alternative being comedy. Although its emotional effect is nearly opposite, the essence of comedy is closer than you might think to the essence of tragedy. Laughter and weeping are so closely allied that one may lead to the other, and we are all familiar with such observations as “you have to laugh, or else you’d cry.” It is not only “black comedy” that has a hint of cruelty about it; “slapstick” generally features blows and pratfalls that would be very painful were they not fictitious.
If you can make the failures of your characters sufficiently absurd, or even sufficiently prolific, your readers will know that they are being invited to laugh rather than cry. Most comedies are, in effect, little more than extended chronicles of failure and frustration, in which the hapless heroes are battered and bruised by the vicissitudes of fate but always bounce back. In many such accounts—examples abound in animated cartoons, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels (whose most popular character is Death)—large-scale disasters and extraordinary acts of violence and cruelty are routinely made to seem funny, often deliberately emphasizing the thinness of the line which separates tragedy from comedy.
Many comedies confine the humiliations to which they subject their characters to the mid-sections of their stories, ultimately resolving their plots with conventional happy endings, but many are content to end with one more pratfall even more spectacular than all the rest. These variations serve to remind us that stories may serve several different functions, of which the ritual is merely the most common. Pain may be nasty, but it is vital to our well-being because it offers us warnings when we are in grave danger; were we incapable of feeling pain, recklessness would lead us quickly to destruction. We do need the feeling of uplift that is delivered by stories with happy endings, but we must also learn to cope with the fact that the stories we are constantly trying to discover or create in our real lives will continually run into difficulties.
For this reason, while writers who always write stories with happy endings may earn the undying affection of their readers, writers who can turn their hand to tragedy may also earn their undying respect. Comedians can go either way; those who cultivate respect rather than affection are usually known as satirists. All these options are open to you, but it is worth bearing in mind that the legendary last words of the famous actor—“Dying is easy; comedy is hard”—only apply to stagecraft. For writers, tragedy and comedy are both difficult to contrive, by comparison with conventional happy endings.
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