By Cindy Sproles @CindyDevoted

I’d like to say my claim to fame is humor – but it’s not. My claim to fame is “Queen of Angst.” I know! As much as I hate to admit it. This title is true. The stories I write are hard – and not hard as in “hard to understand.” They’re hard as in “life is hard.” When you put my novels in a contest against a sweet Appalachian story, I’ll lose every time because my stories are hard! It doesn’t mean they aren’t good because they are good (personal pat on the back – all authors are allowed to do that upon occasion.)

There is, however, redemption in being dubbed the Queen of Angst and it is the ability to drop in humor where it’s needed. 

I’ve often told the story of my Mamaw Lochiel and her job as a young woman. She would travel around the mountain and record the names of any new babies that were born for the local county Justice of the Peace. Now, this man not only served as the Justice of the Peace, but the Mayor, Judge, and official record keeper for the towns around the mountain. It’s no secret that many of the families tucked away in the deep crevices of the mountain were short on education. Their families were generally large, having 8-12 children per household. These kids grew up to help around the farms. 

Now, up about a mile on the mountain, lived Marcus and Melba Mae True and their eleven children – in fact, they had eleven boys. Needless to say, they’d nearly exhausted their list of names for children, so when Melba gave birth to a daughter (child number twelve), neither she nor Marcus could come up with a good name. 

A few days after Melba had given birth, word trickled down the mountain that a baby was born and Mamaw tied her leather tote around her shoulder and headed to the True family home. When she arrived, she asked Melba, “It’s a girl, right?” 

Melba smiled. “Yes ma’am, it’s a girl. We was all surprised as a thunderstorm in December, but we got us a girl.” She uncovered the baby in the tiny bed for Mamaw to see. About that time Marcus came into the house. 

Mamaw took her book and pencil from her tote and said, “Congratulations, Marcus. You got yourself a girl. What’s her name?” Mamaw asked. Marcus nodded and gave the child a little tweak on the cheek. 

“Appears-to-be.” Marcus rubbed his dirty knuckles across the baby’s hand.

“Appears-to-be? What kinda name is that?” Mamaw asked quite candidly. “Can you spell that?”

“A-p-p-e-a-r-s  t-o  b-e.” He stuck his chest out and grinned a proud grin. “Melba here showed me this youngin after she was born and said, ‘It’s a girl.” I said, yep. It appears to be a girl. So, we named her Appears-to-be.”

Stunned, my Mamaw jotted down the baby’s name in her book. “Appears-to-be True.” She laughed all the way down the mountain.

I share this somewhat humorous story as an example of dropping a touch of humor into a hard scene. Humor plays a vital role in our writing. When a scene is intense and the angst keeps dumping on the characters, your readers need to breathe. They need to be able to stand up, stretch, and take in a deep breath because if they can’t, your story can become so intense that the reader refuses to return. Remember, our stories are a fictional bubble where our readers reside away from the world and even their own difficulties. When we lock them into our bubble and begin to strangle them with angst, once they break loose, they may not return. 

Humor is important.

Your insertion of something humorous doesn’t have to be a story like I shared it may only be an internal thought of your character. It might be over exaggeration, incongruity, slapstick. Maybe it’s an expression, an eye roll or an over emphasized sigh. Surprise, irony, or even a pun. The point is, we need to allow our reader a moment to regroup in a hard situation. 

Even romance loves a dab of sarcasm. 

When your very serious character can poke a self-deprecating jab at themselves to create a cheerful moment, readers will enjoy your read so much more.

Of course, every story requires the appropriate type of humor, and it means you do your homework on the elements of inserting humor into your work. This is only a generalization of the elements found in humor, exaggeration, incongruity, slapstick, surprise, irony and puns.

Allow yourself and your reader to find joy and laughter in your story. Use it sparingly or use it in length but take time to use it correctly. Learn to insert a little dab here and a little dab there. After all – a little dab will do ya.

Cindy K. Sproles is an author, speaker, and conferenceteacher. She is the cofounder of ChristianDevotions.us and the executive editor of ChristianDevotions.us and InspireaFire.com. Cindy is the managing editor forStraight Street Books and SonRise Devotionals, both imprints of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. She is an award-winning and best-selling author and the director of the Asheville Christian Writers Conference. Visit Cindy at www.cindysproles.com. @cindydevoted