suehealy

Jokes! Jokes are a great source of plot ideas. An established writer gave me this tip years ago and it has served me well.

Jokes, you see, are plots in miniature. Stories sealed up and ready to go. You’ve got your beginning, middle, end, your conflict, your characters – flaws and all. All you’ve got to do is flesh it out. Expland on it. Change gender and setting if possible. And no, it doesn’t have to be funny because many jokes (indeed, stories) need an element of tragedy to make comedy (and vice vearsa) and you can just crank up the aspect you want to emphasize.

Here’s a joke that gave me an idea for a radio play I once wrote “The Angel of Trafadden” (see urls to podcasts listed on sidebar)

“It was Ryan’s funeral and the pallbearers were carrying the casket out from the church. When they bumped into a pillar, one of them heard a moan from inside the coffin. They opened the lid and found Ryan alive. He lived for another ten years before he properly died. Another funeral was held for him and, as the pallbearers were carrying out the coffin, Mrs Ryan shouted “Now, watch out for that pillar!”

OK, it’s the way ya tell ‘em… But the point is that they don’t have to be the funniest jokes – just so long as there is a story in there, a universal truth with which your readers will react and engage. Wordplay/puns won’t work so well, go for the story…

Here’s another one you can chew on for a story idea (it used to go down well in the creative writing classes I taught in an English prison…)

The defendant knew he didn’t have a prayer of beating the murder rap, so he bribed one of the jurors to find him guilty of manslaughter. The jury was out for days before they finally returned a verdict of manslaughter. Afterward the defendant asked, ‘How come it took you so long?’ the juror said, ‘All the others wanted to acquit’.

My Great-Grandfather Lance Corporal Joseph Bohan-O’Shea, killed 1916, Battle of the Somme. 

It’s been a week. Please forgive the wooziness of this post but I’m lying in bed post-operation and full of pain killers. My surgery followed seven tumultuous days here in the UK, where I’m currently based. The country went to the polls and opted to leave the EU. I’m still reeling from this result. Not that my operation had any relation to the referendum, but it was a suitably crap way to cap a crap week.

As a staunch pro-European I believe Brexit a sad and misguided mis-step, that will eventually deliver to the little Englanders exactly that, a little England. I’ve rarely experienced the anti-Irish prejudice here that was so prevalent during my grandparents’ years in the UK, however it does appear that the monster of intolerance and prejudice is raising its ugly head here again and all of this marks a deeply lamentable sea-change in the consensus in Britain. I am pessimistic for the future.

Of course, the wake of the Brexit vote saw the PM resign and his assassin in turn stabbed in the back, whilst the opposition party Labour imploded. And England were kicked out of the Euros by Iceland. Strange days indeed.

Meanwhile, my country Ireland saw its fans awarded a medal for sportsmanship by the mayor of Paris. There’s a scramble for Irish passports by worried Brits with an Irish grandmother (Irish grandparents turn up in the most surprising and diverse family trees: Margaret Thatcher, Sophie Wessex, Che Guevara, Mohammed Ali… to name but a few). Whilst we worry of the re-emergence of the physical border between Ireland (now the most Western outpost of the EU) and the UK, which does not bode well for the peace process.

And somewhat indicative of the historic ties between the UK and its neighbour, Ireland, this day, July 1st, commemorates the Battle of the Somme, where my great-grandfather was killed 100 years ago, wearing a British uniform. It should be a day upon which we remember why the EU, however imperfect, exists – instead, Britain seems intent on issuing divorce proceedings. It’s all wrong.

http://www.myadoptedsoldier.com/archive/myarchive.php?county=Waterford