How to Write a Dramedy: A Conversation with Byron Lane
How to write a dramedy is more than simply mixing jokes with the tear-jerking moments. Combining comedy and drama is a tightrope act that, if done wrong, can lead to tonal disparity within your story. But done right and you’ll have your readers going from crying to laughing (and crying laughing) page after page.
(How to Self-Edit Your Novel: A Chat with Tiffany Yates Martin)
In this final episode of season two of the “Writer’s Digest Presents” podcast, editor-in-chief Amy Jones and content editor Michael Woodson sit down with bestselling author Byron Lane (A Star Is Bored, Big Gay Wedding) to chat all about how to write a dramedy.
On mixing comedy and drama: “In my life and in my writing, comedy and humor are such a big part of it. I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through so many things that I’ve gotten through without comedy. They really are like the actor faces.”
On his little gay wedding leading to Big Gay Wedding: “I had just gotten married to my partner Steven, and we’d had a little gay wedding. Because COVID was happening, we couldn’t invite everyone, we couldn’t have a big party. So, we had a little gay wedding, and my editor saw that and was like, ‘What if there was a story about a big gay wedding?'”
On having the ability to change: “I heard this thing a while back about people with dementia—that sometimes, people with dementia, for example, forget that they are smokers. And they’ll wake up in the morning and just never have a cigarette again. And I had the thought, What if they’re a bigot or a racist? Because those things are also made-up, it’s just how you choose to see the world or who you choose to hate. So, what if someone wakes up and forgets that they hate gay people or that gay people make them uncomfortable?”