the essence of a story is a joke

I’m not saying “the essence of a story” is a joke, but that at it’s core, everything necessary to writing a story is contained within a joke.  It has a setting, characters, action, dialog, and it ends with a perfect (if unexpected) conclusion and doesn’t linger a moment longer than necessary.  It gets in, does it’s business, gets out, show over.

Which is why I think kids are drawn to telling jokes.  They are contained stories, manageable in length, work with shorter attention spans, and requires the smallest of audiences and is guaranteed instant feedback.  How far we drag ourselves as writers into plot, character arcs, subplots, natural sounding dialog, choice of narrative voice, when all we’re trying to do is capture that joy of being able to tell someone a story and get instant gratification.

Check it out:

 A piece of string walks into a bar, climbs up on the bar stool and orders a drink from the bartender.
The bartender looks at the string and says, “We don’t serve your kind in this place.”
The string gets up and walks outside.
He ties himself into a knot, frays up the ends of himself and walks back into the bar.
He climbs back up on a stool and says, “I’d like a drink please.”
The bartender says, “Look! I told you before we don’t serve your type. You’re that same string who was in here earlier aren’t you?”
The string says, “Nope! I’m a frayed knot.”

A piece of string walks into a bar…

How evocative!  You’ve just introduced a fantasy character and the setting in just seven words

climbs up on the bar stool and orders a drink from the bartender.

Only the necessary details of the setting, and a piece of action, and it’s all in the first sentence.

The bartender looks at the string and says, “We don’t serve your kind in this place.”

Second sentence and we’ve introduced the secondary character, and a piece of dialog with the central conflict.  How will the piece of string get his drink now? Is there something deeper to the “your kind” comment?  Does our little piece of string represent a minority of some kind, or is he a generic stand-in for all ropes, cords and wires?

The string gets up and walks outside.
He ties himself into a knot, frays up the ends of himself and walks back into the bar.

Okay, now our main character has taken the reigns, and in a bit of action that suits the logic of a piece of string.  We assume he knows what he’s doing because he does so with confidence.  Does anyone care to read “ties himself into knots” as an emotional struggle? Why is this piece of string so determined to purchase alcohol?  What would cause a piece of string to want to get drunk?  Is he simply line dry, or does he just want to unwind?  Many questions.

The bartender says, “Look! I told you before we don’t serve your type. You’re that same string who was in here earlier aren’t you?”

Confrontation and more dialog. The bartender has shown himself to be a bully, bigoted, aggressive.  We can just see his pugnacious frame leaning over the counter and into the face of this porr little piece of string.  Conclusion has to be just around the corner…

  The string says, “Nope! I’m a frayed knot.”

A pun!  A denial!  A challenge to the bartender to actually define what “his type” is!  Hooray for the little guy!  The punchline signals the natural conclusion of the story yet we know these characters will continue on without us.  Whether the bartender appreciates the joke, whether he can justify his discrimination, or perhaps with the intervention of the other barflies the string gets to stay, we’ll never really know.  But we are satisfied that that little piece of string didn’t back down, showed some moxie, and went after what they wanted.  There is satisfaction in the struggle and attempt, even if the main character didn’t get what they set out to get.

These are the undercurrents in a joke, these are the stories that resonate with children precisely because the are concrete in their goals and satisfying in their conclusions.  The “art” of modern storytelling comes in being able to mask these basic elements, to make them seamless to the reader so that they appear to be swept up in the action.  Formulaic?  Perhaps.  So it is incumbent on the writer to mask the formula and entertain, like a magician pulling slight-of-hand making you look one place while, over here, something entirely different is going on.

What is it the aliens tell Woody Allen in his movie Stardust Memories?  “If you want to do mankind a favor, tell funnier jokes.”