A writer can create drama and suspense since the writer is in charge of what the reader knows and when it's available in the story. As long as the writer plays fair with the reader, ie doesn't introduce the guilty character late in the story or flash a new clue that solves everything that only the protag knew about all along. Readers enjoy a fair surprise.
Humor seems impossible. It doesn't play by rules and it is ultimately subjective. What I find funny, you might think is obscene, racial, crass or mean.
We don't all "get it" at the same time and in the same way.
Humor depends on timing, delivery and a common background to find humor, but all readers read differently and the writer has limited control how that happens.
Writer's Digest has an excellent and brief article at https://www.writersdigest.com/improve-my-writing/comedy-writing-techniques-how-cliches-are-used-in-writing-humor I recommend it.
They list seven humor categories: double entendre, malaprop, oxymoron, pun, reforming, simple truth, and take-off. Geez, I'm just trying to be funny and take a little tension out of my suspenseful story, not earn an MFA in writing.
A mystery story is not naturally funny. My genres of Hard Boiled, Noir and Private Eye are serious, logical, emotional, gutter, blood and brains. As the quotation (which I can't find, dammit) says, a hard mystery isn't hard "unless the threat of death is behind it." My stories are about sour motives, human failings, the characters acting mean, the resort to violence, deep/hot/tragic emotions, double-cross and the Ultimate Price. What's funny about that?
Some readers of one of my earlier stories think a specific passage is funny. I can't see it. I wasn't "writing funny." Intentionally. Whenever I try to do that, it doesn't work unless the characters are funny to begin with. Murderers and the men and women who chase them are generally Not funny people. Puns and sarcastic comments can pass for humor, I guess.
I intend to try a funny mystery story of five to seven pages. Let's see if anyone else gets it.
Have you found a mystery story humorous?
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