My nephew called me the other day and he asked me to tell
him a funny story from something I’d written. My response was to say, “Kid, you’re
better off asking your mom.”
He simply kept asking me to tell him a funny story from what
I’ve written. Giving up, I tried to relay to him my “easy as pie” scene.
This scene is in the middle of one of my finished novels but
the setup is this: a group of girls including the heroine, her two young
cousins, two sisters of the hero, his nephew, and one of his cousins. The
heroine, the older of the two sisters, and cousin are working on sewing and
chatting, while her cousin’s and the little sister were playing, the baby nephew was
napping. Also, this room is on the third floor.
Anyway, while they are in there, a man who was trying to usurp
power, tried to kick out everyone in that room. (I might point out the mother
of the nephew was not in the room.)
Well, the heroine and her friends moved a huge piece of
furniture against the door to keep this guy out, but then the hero’s cousin climbed
out the window to get help.
That’s the setup.
Once the guy is dealt with and hauled away, the hero and his
entire extended family show up to calm down the little ones and just be
together as a family, and they asked about the cousin climbing out the window.
She said, “Well there’s a ledge there, and I was able to get to the balcony, easy as pie.”
At this, the hero looks out the window, studies the barely-there ledge then faces the roomful saying, “I take it pie isn’t easy.”
Okay, that’s the extent of my being funny.
Konnie (the mom of said nephew) can write funny scenes, and
she does it all the time. And clearly said nephew can because he is the son
Konnie wrote about a while back because she’d learned he made up these hilarious
tales about a fictional hero and the people around him, which he had claimed
was a show he was watching.
But see, the one thing I didn’t get is the family funny bone.
While Konnie on the other hand did get it. This would be one way we are
different.
Another way we are different is that Konnie has trouble
writing from a male POV. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to tell her she
has her male characters all wrong.
I promise if she didn’t have me helping her with her male
POVs she’d never be able to finish a believable story.
The converse of that is that I have problems with shy or
scaredy-cat female characters. Konnie has had occasion to correct me on that.
Strong female characters I’m great at.
Let’s just say I don’t do shy and retiring.
Maybe this difference is that as a kid, my best friend for many
years was a male cousin of ours. I played with the boys more than the girls
until around the time I hit puberty.
Konnie on the other hand always played with the girls, and
for that matter, she used to be very shy. That was never me.
I was the one protecting her.
Though I can remember one time when it was the big brothers
of my friend who protected us.
This would have been in like first grade.
We were on the playground, and I noticed Konnie and her friend
(the one time her friend was the boy) were surrounded by fifth and sixth graders.
I ran in to protect my sister, my friend run in to protect
me, and well, two of her older brothers were also on the playground but another
two were on the football field at the junior high next door and all four of
these boys came running to defend their baby sister.
Needless to say, the bullies scattered at this point.
I might also point out this was one of the few times I made
friends with a girl, not a boy, but in this case, she was a bit of a tomboy since she
only had brothers.
I can’t remember anymore, but as far as I recall, she was
the youngest and only girl, of five or six kids. And no, they were not
redheads!
But like I said, I usually played with the boys back then.
Actually, that year was an anomaly for both of us, since she
was the one with a male playmate that year, and I was the one with a female
playmate.
Anyway, now I need to get back to work on my sci-fi.
So, happy writing everyone!
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