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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24863
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24863
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think this very much depends on the narrative tone and style that have been used up to this point. If this is the first time you have done such a digression in what has otherwise been a straightforward narrative, the result is likely to do exactly what you reader says: take them out of the story. To fix this problem, you will need to introduce this narrative device earlier.

Then there is the question of where the dramatic tension comes from in the story. Sometimes (in the simplest form of fiction) the dramatic tension comes from the physical action. If that is the case, interrupting the physical action breaks the dramatic tension. (It does not, as you might think, increase it by creating a cliffhanger and making the audience wait. There is a reason people PVR shows and fast-forward past the commercials.)

A cliffhanger that is not associated with an enforced hiatus (commercials, season break) is only an effective dramatic device is something else, other than the resolution of the immediate action, hangs in the balance. This gives the narrative somewhere else to go and something else to do while outcome of the previous action hangs in the balance. This builds dramatic tension rather than breaking it.

But if the dramatic tension in your story comes from something other than the physical action (as it does in more sophisticated stories) then the digression can pull the reader into the story rather than taking them out of it, but only if it increases the dramatic (or, in your case, comic) tension of the story.

In short, you need to figure out where the arc of dramatic (or comic) tension in you story lies and how your proposed digression fits that arc.

Original score: 3