Writing Discussion II

[Forsher]

Exactly. If he were an original character in a novel, the author would seem terrible.

Not necessarily. I think that any character (or plot), no matter how ridiculous or unrealistic, can be written well by a writer of high enough caliber. Hitler would certainly make things difficult for all but the greatest writers, though.

Well, it depends. If you're adopting a serious tone, Hitler would be difficult to pull off. But there's another side to that. If you don't have a serious tone then...

Channeling Terry Pratchett is always a good plan, and I do see the influence on some of your stuff.

I've been more trying it more consciously since I wrote the one that 'I Write Like' interpreted as Nabokov actually. One of the last things I wrote (written when I really should've been suffering, er, studying for an exam in two days) began like this as well but, I think, towards the end it experienced something of a tonal shift. When I type it up (so as to not lose it -- it's unusual for me to finish things) I will see if this impression remains. But that will wait for at least the next fortnight as I have more important exams to deal with.

[Atomic Utopia]

I decided, partly out of my own want to write, and primarily because I had to write a three page story, to write this piece of garbage:

His arms were heavy, and his eyelids began to close as the first light of dawn began to reach him. He had been awake all of the night preceding that morning working on a narrative essay, however he still could not come up with an idea for his story. The ideas he had were all terrible, one about pirates, then another about war, all useless upon closer inspection. And thus he sat, waiting for inspiration of some sort, an inspiration (he was quite sure of it) that would yield the most terrific story he had ever written.
The clock struck 4:00. He was supposed to (on a normal day) gone to bed at 23:00, but his chronic lack of inspiration left him awake and pacing in his room. He could feel the slow passage of time. Far too slow to let pass, yet far too quick to allow for the completion of his essay. Now the time for relaxation was over, and he felt defeated. Then, then a glimmer of hope shone through the computer monitor.
Like a flare it went off, and he immediately began planning. His story was to be called “The Madness of the Mind”. He set off to write, and write he did. He covered ten pages with this writing in less than three hours minutes, his ideas going from concept to conception within seconds. He then re-read his paper. What had once seemed so beautiful and noble on the outside was in reality terrible. The words formed were confused and cluttered. What had once been a symphony in writing had become a clanging mess to read.
He highlighted the entire page and clicked backspace. In a flash, the work of two hours, gone, annihilated, impossible to retrieve. It was nauseating to him, what he had worked on for so long was now all gone, and he needed to complete it within the hour. He panicked and contorted his face, cursing at the creators of the word processor he had used, and wishing that a tree would fall upon each car those people owned.
No plan was forthcoming, no plot presented itself. His anger boiled over and he stamped his foot on the floor and swore “Fucking hell, this worthless piece of shit wont let me reload.”
He angrily looked at the computer screen as though looking for an answer. The song he was listening to, Till I Collapse by Eminem, only served to intensify his anger, for he had merely slacked off, merely relaxed when he should have been working, and now that was coming back to trouble him.
His mother and father had been awakened as they both lived on the first floor of their house, and he had made enough noise to awaken everyone in the house. Now his mother, irate with the noise he had made, stomped up stairs.
“Look, can you just be quiet, I was trying to sleep!”
He formulated an irate response “Fuck you, I am trying to fucking write and I cannot fucking get this fucking piece of shit to work”
To this his mother stood looking somewhat confused, but then, once understanding what he had said responded quickly.
“You are grounded, no vediogames, no computer, no cell phone use for three months.”
“You should not fucking swear goddamnit!” his little brother interjected.
His mother laughed a tiny bit, regained composure, and responded to his little brother’s swearing.
“And that applies to you too!” she said.
He was grounded, going to fail class, and defeated. His rage could not be contained to the realm of words so he punched one of his computer monitors, damaging it. He swore off a string of expletives cursing life, his teachers, his now dead grandmother, his father, and his mother. He did not say a single word for his own failures as he did not accept the result as of his own design. Instead he fancied it the result of the actions of others, of people who could not have possibly been involved or prevented what had happened. And yet it was all his fault, he had waited for a long time, half expecting it to write itself, and slacked off incessantly during the writing process. Thus he had now insulted his mom, failed his english class, and was grounded, all for want of a story of three pages.

[Zeinbrad]

Tells the story of Hitler and is effects on our world today, also going through his mental history and impact on everyone around him.

Well,Christopher Lee,if I remember, was some kind of spy during WW2, at least,he was in the military to some degree.

Christopher Lee was a minor British spy. Hitler wouldn't know or care about him.

And this whole project makes me uneasy. It requires an incredible amount of finesse, tact, and research. I'm not sure if it's something good for a beginning writer to start on. That said, if you want research material:

Read Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer. Also, take into account the little things. He had a raging amphetamines habit. He had Parkinson's Disease. Over the course of the war he became a paranoid recluse, manipulated by Martin Bormann. He could be generous - he did things like offer a gold watch to any associate who could quit smoking. He almost never stopped mourning his ex-girlfriend Geli Raubal, despite the fact that he'd been the one to drive her to commit suicide in the first place. He was domineering. He could be incredibly intelligent, and at the same time never see past his own biases. He was a compulsive risk-taker. Though he seemed capable of human warmth, he was blatantly lacking empathy. Albert Speer described him as someone, "incapable of emotional growth".

As a character, Hitler would be unbalanced in every way. I don't know if there's even a right way to write him at all.

I already knew these.

[Vozt Yurkova]

I decided, partly out of my own want to write, and primarily because I had to write a three page story, to write this piece of garbage:

His arms were heavy, and his eyelids began to close as the first light of dawn began to reach him. He had been awake all of the night preceding that morning working on a narrative essay, however he still could not come up with an idea for his story. The ideas he had were all terrible, one about pirates, then another about war, all useless upon closer inspection. And thus he sat, waiting for inspiration of some sort, an inspiration (he was quite sure of it) that would yield the most terrific story he had ever written.
The clock struck 4:00. He was supposed to (on a normal day) gone to bed at 23:00, but his chronic lack of inspiration left him awake and pacing in his room. He could feel the slow passage of time. Far too slow to let pass, yet far too quick to allow for the completion of his essay. Now the time for relaxation was over, and he felt defeated. Then, then a glimmer of hope shone through the computer monitor.
Like a flare it went off, and he immediately began planning. His story was to be called “The Madness of the Mind”. He set off to write, and write he did. He covered ten pages with this writing in less than three hours minutes, his ideas going from concept to conception within seconds. He then re-read his paper. What had once seemed so beautiful and noble on the outside was in reality terrible. The words formed were confused and cluttered. What had once been a symphony in writing had become a clanging mess to read.
He highlighted the entire page and clicked backspace. In a flash, the work of two hours, gone, annihilated, impossible to retrieve. It was nauseating to him, what he had worked on for so long was now all gone, and he needed to complete it within the hour. He panicked and contorted his face, cursing at the creators of the word processor he had used, and wishing that a tree would fall upon each car those people owned.
No plan was forthcoming, no plot presented itself. His anger boiled over and he stamped his foot on the floor and swore “Fucking hell, this worthless piece of shit wont let me reload.”
He angrily looked at the computer screen as though looking for an answer. The song he was listening to, Till I Collapse by Eminem, only served to intensify his anger, for he had merely slacked off, merely relaxed when he should have been working, and now that was coming back to trouble him.
His mother and father had been awakened as they both lived on the first floor of their house, and he had made enough noise to awaken everyone in the house. Now his mother, irate with the noise he had made, stomped up stairs.
“Look, can you just be quiet, I was trying to sleep!”
He formulated an irate response “Fuck you, I am trying to fucking write and I cannot fucking get this fucking piece of shit to work”
To this his mother stood looking somewhat confused, but then, once understanding what he had said responded quickly.
“You are grounded, no vediogames, no computer, no cell phone use for three months.”
“You should not fucking swear goddamnit!” his little brother interjected.
His mother laughed a tiny bit, regained composure, and responded to his little brother’s swearing.
“And that applies to you too!” she said.
He was grounded, going to fail class, and defeated. His rage could not be contained to the realm of words so he punched one of his computer monitors, damaging it. He swore off a string of expletives cursing life, his teachers, his now dead grandmother, his father, and his mother. He did not say a single word for his own failures as he did not accept the result as of his own design. Instead he fancied it the result of the actions of others, of people who could not have possibly been involved or prevented what had happened. And yet it was all his fault, he had waited for a long time, half expecting it to write itself, and slacked off incessantly during the writing process. Thus he had now insulted his mom, failed his english class, and was grounded, all for want of a story of three pages.

Heh, for my GCSE English exam I wrote about sitting in the exam hall trying to work with the shitty prompts they gave us. Worked out pretty well.

[Nazi Flower Power]

Tells the story of Hitler and is effects on our world today, also going through his mental history and impact on everyone around him.

Well,Christopher Lee,if I remember, was some kind of spy during WW2, at least,he was in the military to some degree.

Christopher Lee was a minor British spy. Hitler wouldn't know or care about him.

And this whole project makes me uneasy. It requires an incredible amount of finesse, tact, and research. I'm not sure if it's something good for a beginning writer to start on. That said, if you want research material:

Read Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer.

Do read it, but keep in mind Speer is not a 100% reliable source. He knew Hitler as well as anyone, he was a good writer, and he was mostly accurate because he didn't want people to call bullshit and stop listening to him -- but he still distorted things sometimes to make himself look like less of a douchebag.

He almost never stopped mourning his ex-girlfriend Geli Raubal, despite the fact that he'd been the one to drive her to commit suicide in the first place.

Or if you believe Otto Strasser, it wasn't suicide at all and Hitler was the one who killed her.

Otto Strasser is even less reliable than Speer, though. This is why you should read a variety of sources to get variety of perspectives before deciding how to handle him.

As a character, Hitler would be unbalanced in every way. I don't know if there's even a right way to write him at all.

It's hard to do well. I've always avoided writing about him because I realized I couldn't pull it off.

[Bontavation]

Christopher Lee was a minor British spy. Hitler wouldn't know or care about him.

And this whole project makes me uneasy. It requires an incredible amount of finesse, tact, and research. I'm not sure if it's something good for a beginning writer to start on. That said, if you want research material:

Read Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer.

Do read it, but keep in mind Speer is not a 100% reliable source. He knew Hitler as well as anyone, he was a good writer, and he was mostly accurate because he didn't want people to call bullshit and stop listening to him -- but he still distorted things sometimes to make himself look like less of a douchebag.

Absolutely. He claimed to not have known about the Holocaust. And during his trial, he claimed he was planning to assassinate Hitler. God knows what else he lied about.

Speer was a good source on every Nazi except himself.

Exactly. If he were an original character in a novel, the author would seem terrible.

Not necessarily. I think that any character (or plot), no matter how ridiculous or unrealistic, can be written well by a writer of high enough caliber. Hitler would certainly make things difficult for all but the greatest writers, though.

His friend described him as someone, "incapable of emotional growth". That sounds as much like a literary criticism as it does a judgment of an actual person.

Not necessarily. I think that any character (or plot), no matter how ridiculous or unrealistic, can be written well by a writer of high enough caliber. Hitler would certainly make things difficult for all but the greatest writers, though.

Well, it depends. If you're adopting a serious tone, Hitler would be difficult to pull off. But there's another side to that. If you don't have a serious tone then...

If you're not going for a serious tone, then you shouldn't have a story centered around Hitler.

[Respubliko de Libereco]

Not necessarily. I think that any character (or plot), no matter how ridiculous or unrealistic, can be written well by a writer of high enough caliber. Hitler would certainly make things difficult for all but the greatest writers, though.

His friend described him as someone, "incapable of emotional growth". That sounds as much like a literary criticism as it does a judgment of an actual person.

One problem doesn't sink a work if the rest holds together well, but I'm not even convinced that a lack of emotional growth absolutely has to be a problem - very few things are. Expert writers can get away with violating all sorts of "rules of writing", and have done so on multiple occasions. In a creative discipline like writing, all rules are essentially guidelines of varying strength.

In this case, a talented writer would probably focus, to some extent, on Hitler's lack of emotional growth, and juxtapose him with several more dynamic characters to really emphasize this major facet of his character.

When I type it up (so as to not lose it -- it's unusual for me to finish things) I will see if this impression remains.

You normally write stuff by hand, then?

[Conserative Morality]

If you're not going for a serious tone, then you shouldn't have a story centered around Hitler.

I dunno...

[Unitaristic Regions]

I realized that for all the venom I spit towards nobility, an overwhelming amount of my protagonists are nobility.

Hm.

There's a certain attraction to writing about things that you don't support in real life. I've definitely written poems espousing nihilism, painting war as glorious/heroic, and expressing other views that I don't hold. This might also be related to why NFP writes about the confederates so frequently.

It might have to do with the fact that writing gives you freedom to "adopt" all sorts of conflicting ideas without any real moral consequences.

TBH, I think that's mostly because most people view you as the Almighty Writer who can do no wrong and is always smarter than the Reader. Therefore, any of your writings are part of a grand plan or a majestic philosophical scheme and thus, for many readers, beyond his/her criticism.

[Vozt Yurkova]

If you're not going for a serious tone, then you shouldn't have a story centered around Hitler.

Why not?

[Forsher]

Well, it depends. If you're adopting a serious tone, Hitler would be difficult to pull off. But there's another side to that. If you don't have a serious tone then...

If you're not going for a serious tone, then you shouldn't have a story centered around Hitler.

I disagree. Just because something is not serious, that doesn't mean it cannot have serious points, doesn't mean it must be disrespectful or insensitive. US sitcoms and NZ comedians might give the impression that this is the case, but they are merely representative of the crudest forms of unserious.

When I type it up (so as to not lose it -- it's unusual for me to finish things) I will see if this impression remains.

You normally write stuff by hand, then?

Mixed bag really. It really depends, in some sense, what's closer to hand... my laptop or an exercise book/refill... and in another, one whether I've written for me (hand) or someone else (type). The spoiler contains elaboration on this point because I like talking about me a lot (and am not keen on deleting stuff)

This particular piece was done by hand because I had left my laptop downstairs to avoid being distracted but ended up procrasti-cleaning and when I'd cleared my work space I looked out the windows (it's a corner room with a lot of glass), thought, "All I survey" and suddenly had an idea so I grabbed the refill that was going to be marketing/accounting* notes and turned it into a story instead. Remarkably, it sort of kinda mostly, had a natural sort of endpoint that I reached.

I also used to be quite slow at typing so writing by hand was faster for me. This is not the case any more (although I am not fast at typing by any means and, in fact, have a very right-hand centric style**) but the thinking is ingrained. And, in any case, I really like the feel of the written word. There are, however, some issues though because, as I noticed in my marketing exam, sometimes I think sentences and then write the one after it down. That is, I think faster than I write and perhaps this results in missed things. Also, there are quite a few things I've written in the wee hours (mostly alleged poems) that, even when in pen (as opposed to pencil or felt), are more difficult to interpret later on (as far as I remember, in, is and as have a tendency to look the same).

In general, when I write primarily for myself, it's by hand. This means a lot of stories, poems, lecture notes, exam study notes etc. etc. If it is typed, it is intended to be read by a wider audience. There are some exceptions (there are a few stories in my folders from even half a dozen years ago when I was much much slower at typing) but that's a good rule of thumb, I think (assessment aside***). I've lost track of which short story contest stories were done by hand first. The first two (Tea Pyd and the Song of Roland) started out as ones for school (homework and an internal respectively) so they were originally hand done and then typed out. The last one I entered I believe was typed first.

*Two exams, same day, quite unfortunate really.

**My left hand covers all the keys as far as f and r, but basically my left hand is grounded and my right hand is substantially more mobile.

***Stats, Accounting, History assignments have all been typed. Maths ones not. All exams I have ever done have been handwritten. Internals at school were mostly digital if they weren't tests, unless they were for English (which, in the case of Year Eleven was because I was being a short-sighted stubborn fool: I now have no copies of most of my final work from this period... in Y12 I typed up the final copies so I did learn) or Drama (the writing component of drama, is, in fact, substantial but is/was done in booklets). But the bigger regret is that three of the six main lost Y11 things are dialogues.

There's a certain attraction to writing about things that you don't support in real life. I've definitely written poems espousing nihilism, painting war as glorious/heroic, and expressing other views that I don't hold. This might also be related to why NFP writes about the confederates so frequently.

It might have to do with the fact that writing gives you freedom to "adopt" all sorts of conflicting ideas without any real moral consequences.

TBH, I think that's mostly because most people view you as the Almighty Writer who can do no wrong and is always smarter than the Reader. Therefore, any of your writings are part of a grand plan or a majestic philosophical scheme and thus, for many readers, beyond his/her criticism.

I'm not so sure that applies with purely digital texts.

[Bontavation]

If you're not going for a serious tone, then you shouldn't have a story centered around Hitler.

Why not?

Because the only humor comes from making edgy jokes, and you can't sustain an entire novel or an entire movie with those. Edginess is a nonrenewable resource. There's a reason why most teenagers grow out of it. It's like dead-baby jokes: they stop being funny after Middle School.

Maybe one throw-away joke about Hitler could work. But having your entire novel centered around him? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

It's like having a comedy about rape. One rape joke could be acceptable. Two hours of them is awkward, boring, and painful for everyone involved.

[Zeinbrad]

Why not?

Because the only humor comes from making edgy jokes, and you can't sustain an entire novel or an entire movie with those. Edginess is a nonrenewable resource. There's a reason why most teenagers grow out of it. It's like dead-baby jokes: they stop being funny after Middle School.

Maybe one throw-away joke about Hitler could work. But having your entire novel centered around him? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

It's like having a comedy about rape. One rape joke could be acceptable. Two hours of them is awkward, boring, and painful for everyone involved.

Watch me.

Shit, I can't think of anything that's actually funny

[Respubliko de Libereco]

Why not?

Because the only humor comes from making edgy jokes, and you can't sustain an entire novel or an entire movie with those. Edginess is a nonrenewable resource. There's a reason why most teenagers grow out of it. It's like dead-baby jokes: they stop being funny after Middle School.

Maybe one throw-away joke about Hitler could work. But having your entire novel centered around him? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

It's like having a comedy about rape. One rape joke could be acceptable. Two hours of them is awkward, boring, and painful for everyone involved.

The humour doesn't necessarily have to come from edginess. I mean, when it comes to "[x] jokes" I think there's a big difference between jokes where the punchline is "I mentioned [x], lol" and jokes where the punchline draws its humour from a reversal of expectations, or wordplay, or whatever it is that normally makes things funny, with the edginess serving a lesser role.

An example of the former would be saying something like "I'd love to live with a midget because it would be funny to put things on high shelves and watch him try to reach them." An example of the latter would be Jimmy Carr's "I'll tell you what I know about dwarves: very little. ... If you find that offensive, grow up. ... (It's okay, I can say that because they look up to me)." It's wordplay, certainly in poor taste, but "they're short, lol" is not the entirety of the joke.

The same can go for Hitler jokes.

[Bontavation]

Because the only humor comes from making edgy jokes, and you can't sustain an entire novel or an entire movie with those. Edginess is a nonrenewable resource. There's a reason why most teenagers grow out of it. It's like dead-baby jokes: they stop being funny after Middle School.

Maybe one throw-away joke about Hitler could work. But having your entire novel centered around him? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

It's like having a comedy about rape. One rape joke could be acceptable. Two hours of them is awkward, boring, and painful for everyone involved.

The humour doesn't necessarily have to come from edginess. I mean, when it comes to "[x] jokes" I think there's a big difference between jokes where the punchline is "I mentioned [x], lol" and jokes where the punchline draws its humour from a reversal of expectations, or wordplay, or whatever it is that normally makes things funny, with the edginess serving a lesser role.

An example of the former would be saying something like "I'd love to live with a midget because it would be funny to put things on high shelves and watch him try to reach them." An example of the latter would be Jimmy Carr's "I'll tell you what I know about dwarves: very little. ... If you find that offensive, grow up. ... (It's okay, I can say that because they look up to me)." It's wordplay, certainly in poor taste, but "they're short, lol" is not the entirety of the joke.

The same can go for Hitler jokes.

So, lame puns and edgy jokes?

I still don't see this working. Can you imagine a market for a comedy novel about Hitler? At best, your relatives buy it out of pity.

[Respubliko de Libereco]

So, lame puns and edgy jokes?

I still don't see this working. Can you imagine a market for a comedy novel about Hitler? At best, your relatives buy it out of pity.

I feel like puns of the "you deserve to be punished, lol" variety have tarnished the reputation of wordplay in general. There's nothing clever about noticing that part of a word sounds similar to another word, but that doesn't mean that all puns are "lame puns." Jokes which involve entire phrases or sentences that can be interpreted in two clearly-different-but-equally-contextually-valid ways, with one usually being a bit unexpected, deserve more respect. The phrase "I'll tell you what I know about dwarves: very little" is, in my opinion, a decent example. For something less distasteful, consider the headline "Stationary Store Moves".

Obviously, a book full of "I do Nazi where you're Göring with this, Anne Frankly I don't find it funny" jokes would be terrible, but that's not what I'm advocating here. I firmly believe that someone with enough comedic talent could write a decent comedy about Hitler, as long as the humour wasn't derived entirely from the fact that "it's a comedy about Hitler, lol!"

[San Llera]

So, lame puns and edgy jokes?

I still don't see this working. Can you imagine a market for a comedy novel about Hitler? At best, your relatives buy it out of pity.

I feel like puns of the "you deserve to be punished, lol" variety have tarnished the reputation of wordplay in general. There's nothing clever about noticing that part of a word sounds similar to another word, but that doesn't mean that all puns are "lame puns." Jokes which involve entire phrases or sentences that can be interpreted in two clearly-different-but-equally-contextually-valid ways, with one usually being a bit unexpected, deserve more respect. The phrase "I'll tell you what I know about dwarves: very little" is, in my opinion, a decent example. For something less distasteful, consider the headline "Stationary Store Moves".

Obviously, a book full of "I do Nazi where you're Göring with this, Anne Frankly I don't find it funny" jokes would be terrible, but that's not what I'm advocating here. I firmly believe that someone with enough comedic talent could write a decent comedy about Hitler, as long as the humour wasn't derived entirely from the fact that "it's a comedy about Hitler, lol!"

Maybe this is my inner middle school self speaking, but a raunchy, pun-filled comedy about Hitler could fall into the "so bad it's funny" category.

Then again, it probably would become unbearable after a couple pages.

[Forsher]

So, lame puns and edgy jokes?

I still don't see this working. Can you imagine a market for a comedy novel about Hitler? At best, your relatives buy it out of pity.

I feel like puns of the "you deserve to be punished, lol" variety have tarnished the reputation of wordplay in general. There's nothing clever about noticing that part of a word sounds similar to another word, but that doesn't mean that all puns are "lame puns." Jokes which involve entire phrases or sentences that can be interpreted in two clearly-different-but-equally-contextually-valid ways, with one usually being a bit unexpected, deserve more respect. The phrase "I'll tell you what I know about dwarves: very little" is, in my opinion, a decent example. For something less distasteful, consider the headline "Stationary Store Moves".

Obviously, a book full of "I do Nazi where you're Göring with this, Anne Frankly I don't find it funny" jokes would be terrible, but that's not what I'm advocating here. I firmly believe that someone with enough comedic talent could write a decent comedy about Hitler, as long as the humour wasn't derived entirely from the fact that "it's a comedy about Hitler, lol!"

Yes. I feel as if this conversation has been hampered by this strange view that comedy is edgy. That's a bizarre characterisation when you think about. Classic humour was physical, built on timing, wordplay, reliant on subverting expectation or some combination of these. The funniest humour is still built on playing with these rather than taking something and trying to push it. You also get observational humour (I do watch that, the punch line won't make sense if you haven't seen the whole thing before).

I feel like puns of the "you deserve to be punished, lol" variety have tarnished the reputation of wordplay in general. There's nothing clever about noticing that part of a word sounds similar to another word, but that doesn't mean that all puns are "lame puns." Jokes which involve entire phrases or sentences that can be interpreted in two clearly-different-but-equally-contextually-valid ways, with one usually being a bit unexpected, deserve more respect. The phrase "I'll tell you what I know about dwarves: very little" is, in my opinion, a decent example. For something less distasteful, consider the headline "Stationary Store Moves".

Obviously, a book full of "I do Nazi where you're Göring with this, Anne Frankly I don't find it funny" jokes would be terrible, but that's not what I'm advocating here. I firmly believe that someone with enough comedic talent could write a decent comedy about Hitler, as long as the humour wasn't derived entirely from the fact that "it's a comedy about Hitler, lol!"

Maybe this is my inner middle school self speaking, but a raunchy, pun-filled comedy about Hitler could fall into the "so bad it's funny" category.

Then again, it probably would become unbearable after a couple pages.

You see, that wouldn't work. Hitler is still too close to home for too many people (which is why we can dismiss any hypothetical Hitler humour as consisting entirely of making people laugh at the "too soon?" comment). It'd never get off the ground.

If it were done and if it were done well, it would not be dissimilar to Blackadder Goes Forth. More likely, though, because we were talking about a Hitler character, it would be satirical.

[Respubliko de Libereco]

Attempted Hitler-doggerel #1:

How The Devil Made Off With Adolf.

In his bunker he was preppin',
with a musket for a weapon,
but he couldn't fight the Roossian
'cause he only had one ball,

and he rather lacked volition
to attempt a martial mission
so he tried an old solution -
it was final after all!

This is really bad poetry in pretty much every way. Sorry about that.

[Vozt Yurkova]

Why not?

Because the only humor comes from making edgy jokes, and you can't sustain an entire novel or an entire movie with those. Edginess is a nonrenewable resource. There's a reason why most teenagers grow out of it. It's like dead-baby jokes: they stop being funny after Middle School.

Maybe one throw-away joke about Hitler could work. But having your entire novel centered around him? That's a disaster waiting to happen.

It's like having a comedy about rape. One rape joke could be acceptable. Two hours of them is awkward, boring, and painful for everyone involved.

The Producers was a successful comedy film and continues to be a successful stage production. Now, granted, it isn't directly about Hitler, but it uses Nazi humour by proxy as it's about two people producing a musical called Springtime for Hitler.

Inglourious Basterds is considered by many to be Tarantino's masterpiece, and while it perhaps isn't an outright comedy it is far from somber.

Chaplin's The Great Dictator didn't even acknowledge Hitler's existence, but it was most certainly about Hitler.

Danger 5 is a fairly well received TV series that spoofs pulp spy fiction and features a special taskforce that tries to kill Hitler every episode.

There's many more examples, but comedy about Hitler has been done, and done well. Good comedy is often not about things that are inherently funny - it makes us look at the funny side of things that are otherwise serious. I'd say most comedy deals with pretty serious subject matter - loss, illness, dysfunctional families etc - but this does not mean the writer is seeking to offend. Rather, they engage us with the lure of humour so that we think about the tragic from a different angle.

[The New World Oceania]

You normally write stuff by hand, then?

If you don't use exclusively a fountain pen with a leather-bound notebook then what is the point?

[Claanyad]

I decided, partly out of my own want to write, and primarily because I had to write a three page story, to write this piece of garbage:

His arms were heavy, and his eyelids began to close as the first light of dawn began to reach him. He had been awake all of the night preceding that morning working on a narrative essay, however he still could not come up with an idea for his story. The ideas he had were all terrible, one about pirates, then another about war, all useless upon closer inspection. And thus he sat, waiting for inspiration of some sort, an inspiration (he was quite sure of it) that would yield the most terrific story he had ever written.
The clock struck 4:00. He was supposed to (on a normal day) gone to bed at 23:00, but his chronic lack of inspiration left him awake and pacing in his room. He could feel the slow passage of time. Far too slow to let pass, yet far too quick to allow for the completion of his essay. Now the time for relaxation was over, and he felt defeated. Then, then a glimmer of hope shone through the computer monitor.
Like a flare it went off, and he immediately began planning. His story was to be called “The Madness of the Mind”. He set off to write, and write he did. He covered ten pages with this writing in less than three hours minutes, his ideas going from concept to conception within seconds. He then re-read his paper. What had once seemed so beautiful and noble on the outside was in reality terrible. The words formed were confused and cluttered. What had once been a symphony in writing had become a clanging mess to read.
He highlighted the entire page and clicked backspace. In a flash, the work of two hours, gone, annihilated, impossible to retrieve. It was nauseating to him, what he had worked on for so long was now all gone, and he needed to complete it within the hour. He panicked and contorted his face, cursing at the creators of the word processor he had used, and wishing that a tree would fall upon each car those people owned.
No plan was forthcoming, no plot presented itself. His anger boiled over and he stamped his foot on the floor and swore “Fucking hell, this worthless piece of shit wont let me reload.”
He angrily looked at the computer screen as though looking for an answer. The song he was listening to, Till I Collapse by Eminem, only served to intensify his anger, for he had merely slacked off, merely relaxed when he should have been working, and now that was coming back to trouble him.
His mother and father had been awakened as they both lived on the first floor of their house, and he had made enough noise to awaken everyone in the house. Now his mother, irate with the noise he had made, stomped up stairs.
“Look, can you just be quiet, I was trying to sleep!”
He formulated an irate response “Fuck you, I am trying to fucking write and I cannot fucking get this fucking piece of shit to work”
To this his mother stood looking somewhat confused, but then, once understanding what he had said responded quickly.
“You are grounded, no vediogames, no computer, no cell phone use for three months.”
“You should not fucking swear goddamnit!” his little brother interjected.
His mother laughed a tiny bit, regained composure, and responded to his little brother’s swearing.
“And that applies to you too!” she said.
He was grounded, going to fail class, and defeated. His rage could not be contained to the realm of words so he punched one of his computer monitors, damaging it. He swore off a string of expletives cursing life, his teachers, his now dead grandmother, his father, and his mother. He did not say a single word for his own failures as he did not accept the result as of his own design. Instead he fancied it the result of the actions of others, of people who could not have possibly been involved or prevented what had happened. And yet it was all his fault, he had waited for a long time, half expecting it to write itself, and slacked off incessantly during the writing process. Thus he had now insulted his mom, failed his english class, and was grounded, all for want of a story of three pages.

Heh, for my GCSE English exam I wrote about sitting in the exam hall trying to work with the shitty prompts they gave us. Worked out pretty well.

That's just brilliant!

[Bezombia]

You normally write stuff by hand, then?

If you don't use exclusively a fountain pen with a leather-bound notebook then what is the point?

Writing by hand is a lot faster.

I mean, as a typeologist, I get frustrated when my typesetting isn't 100% on point. This means that when I want to type something literary, I usually spend an hour in LaTeX getting it to look just right, and by that time I no longer have the will to write anything.

[The New World Oceania]

If you don't use exclusively a fountain pen with a leather-bound notebook then what is the point?

Writing by hand is a lot faster.

I mean, as a typeologist, I get frustrated when my typesetting isn't 100% on point. This means that when I want to type something literary, I usually spend an hour in LaTeX getting it to look just right, and by that time I no longer have the will to write anything.

Times New Roman, 12 point, double spaced, omit orphans and widows.

[Bezombia]

Writing by hand is a lot faster.

I mean, as a typeologist, I get frustrated when my typesetting isn't 100% on point. This means that when I want to type something literary, I usually spend an hour in LaTeX getting it to look just right, and by that time I no longer have the will to write anything.

Times New Roman, 12 point, double spaced, omit orphans and widows.

More like EB Garamond, 11.7bp (because points are for plebeians) font size, 13bp line spaces, 20bp paragraph breaks, with a custom-fitted lettrine on every chapter start and a table of contents that's stylized as to make the most use of the available page space.