Even Comedies Need Conflict

For a few months I've been reading EM Foner's Union Station series.  I bought the first book or two and then I've been borrowing one per month on my Kindle.  Last month I read the ninth book, Guest Night on Union Station.  It was a really bland entry in the series.

The main problem is shared by some of the other books in the series:  nothing significant really happens.  There's just some bland, mildly amusing stuff and then it ends after about 200 pages.  In this case there were a couple of spots where there was a potential for something to happen and the author quickly snuffed it out.

The series focuses on Kelly McAllister, an ambassador for EarthCENT, the diplomatic arm of Earth's governments.  Kelly is assigned to the titular Union Station that's managed by highly-advanced artificial lifeforms known as Stryx who maintain peace across the galaxy.  When the series starts, Kelly is alone and in her early 30s or so but as the series progresses she gains a husband, a daughter, and then a son and at the point I'm up to she's over 50.

Anyway, one thing in this ninth book is Kelly's parents are going to visit from Earth.  Her mother hints that her father might have dementia or something like that.  Ooh, that could be interesting, right?  Kelly might have to deal with some serious issues, right?  Um, no.  Her parents have a couple of brief conversations and then just leave.  It's implied that maybe her father isn't really all that senile but just pretending after a fashion.

Later Kelly's daughter pisses off a visiting alien.  The alien hunts her down at work and when she's alone confronts her and uses mental powers to abduct her.  Oh no, Kelly's daughter's in mortal danger, right?  Um, no.  Her daughter is rescued by the Stryx basically a page later with pretty much no effort whatsoever.  So that too fizzles out without anything of consequence happening.

And I suppose people could say, Well these comedies.  They don't need drama.  But even comedies have to have conflict!  Conflict is what builds events to an eventual payoff in some fashion.  The most basic example is that every joke needs a setup before there can be a punchline.  I mean if you just shout, "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?!" you might get laughs but only because you sound like a lunatic.  You need the whole "Knock, knock" setup first for it to make sense.

You can see examples of this in pretty much every comedic movie ever.  Take something as simple as Adam Sandler's Happy Gilmore.  We introduce the core concept of the guy who wants to play hockey but sucks at it and yet he has a mean golf swing.  Then we introduce the ticking clock of his grandma losing her house unless he raises some money.  Which he tries to do by playing in golf tournaments.  Then we introduce conflict with his rival, tour pro Shooter McGavin.  It sets up the conflict between them as Shooter gets increasingly jealous of Happy's success and popularity.  And then it escalates as Shooter pays a guy to rile Happy to the point he gets into a fistfight with Bob Barker.  There's the "all is lost" moment as Happy's grandma's house is sold--to Shooter.  The payoff then is a winner-take-all tournament between Happy and Shooter.  This has its own escalating conflict as they vie for the lead.  And then its own final payoff on the last hole, where Happy has to make an improbable shot.

That movie is about 90 minutes long, but it'd be about 9 minutes if it were written like an EM Foner book.  Happy's grandma would face foreclosure but it'd somehow get paid off in the next scene.  The End.  That's fun, right?  Or Happy and Shooter would come into conflict...but Shooter gets thrown off the tour a scene later.  Yay?

So yeah, even comedies need conflict to escalate the plot and built to the climax.  Unless you're just going to have 90 minutes of three stooges throwing pies at each other.  I guess you can go that route, but it doesn't make for much of a story.