I have an agent who can shapeshift into anything and probably is a demigod from original fiction... I know your problem.

The big thing to me is that powerful people are people too. And people make mistakes. Or are tripped up by outside forces. There's no such thing as a serious character, really. Circumstance can make anything funny.

Lore is a somewhat serious character, but one of his greatest flaws is that he prefers to stay in a more bestial, animal form... without thumbs. Whenever anything needs thumbs, hilarity ensues.

Eventually, I hope to get an ESAS team going consisting of a DBZ Sayian, a Dragon age Mage, and a My Little Pony (g4) unicorn. YES they all have various powers, and two of them are from somewhat serious setting (OK, DBZ isn't serious ALL the time...) but that's the beauty of it. It's more about putting a typically boy-targeted character and a grimdark-setting-character next to a character with a light and soft series... The potential for funny arguments is boundless.

Personally, I find 'serious-type character faced with absolutely ridiculous stuff' to be one of the funniest things the PPC has to offer.

Basically, I think it boils down to not being afraid to let your characters look silly sometimes. It sort of goes along with not being Sues. They can be serious, talented, badass, whatever—but the Narrative Laws are there to make them fall on their butts once in a while, and so they should, because they're not perfect. There are some situations that demand a pie in the face, for instance, even if the recipient is a member of the proud and ancient race of the Noldor.

I struggle with this myself, but my strategy has basically been "straight man and fall guy" partnerships. With Nume and Ilraen, we've got Nume as the straight-laced veteran agent and Ilraen the bumbling newbie—and yet, the joke is very often on Nume, since his seriousness sets him up to go down hard when he does take a fall, and Ilraen gets more savvy every mission, enough to be the cause of humor rather than the victim of it every once in a while. That's the idea, anyway. I don't know how well I pull any of it off.

Derik's partner has been a kender. Enough said on that score. In his case, though, I'm trying more to play up his mood swings and general unpredictability for laughs.

A lot of the humor of a PPC mission comes from the badfic, though. The thing is, bad writing is funny. Typos and the effects of clumsy wording and bad logic—the real effects, the ones the writers miss by not checking their work—can be hilarious. One of my favorites right now is Gandalf's "Very relieved am I to know you are very much undead mellon-nin," from "Ring Child." That mission was full of stuff like that. Made our job . . . not easier, really, but definitely worthwhile. *g*

I still struggle with spending too much time in my characters' heads, though. What I like about writing is getting in there and working out what makes them tick, which isn't necessarily interesting to anyone else. *shrug*

Anyway, I don't know how helpful that is, but at the very least you're not alone in tending to a serious writing voice. One good thing to keep in mind is a piece of advice Phobos and I got at our wedding: "Nothing is ever as serious as you think it is."

~Neshomeh

The Law of Narrative Comedy is not meant as a "real" law - it's more like a guideline in the sense of "don't take this stuff too seriously, write your missions and have fun doing so," and there's nothing worse than forced comedy for the sake of comedy, mind you.

So if you're feeling uncomfortable with making a serious character funny, just write them as serious. The fun will pretty much automatically come from putting this serious character into absurd situations they are not used to (i.e. missions), and playing out how this character would react to this nonsense.

And maybe you would like to do co-writes with other Boarders - most of the time, even the most serious character will be funny when partnered up with a total klutz.

And keep reciting the MST3k mantra: it's just a show, you should really just relax!