Activity

@obrian-of-the-surface-world

Hey Brian, nice to see you around again. Hope 2022 will be an easier year for you 🙂

Would any of you be willing to share a book title of something funny you have read, or a passage in something you wrote that you found comical?

So, I do my best to be funny in my writing, and there are several comedic techniques I like using.

I wouldn’t say I’m “laugh out loud” funny but I am at least “snorts in amusement” funny, which is quite a lot already.

This will be a rather clinical covering of comedy in writing more than recommending something funny, but I bet there are other people who can do that. 🙂

So, the key to comedy tends to be relatability and subversion of expectations. A joke has to be at least slightly unexpected to be funny, whether in actual content, which character makes the joke, or the timing.

As for relatability, that doesn’t mean it needs to be a cliche joke like “why did the chicken cross the road”, it means there needs to be some element of familiarity in it.

Even if the joke is about something completely unfamiliar, people can relate to having stupid conversations with their friends, or making a terrible joke just to see everyone cringe, or trying to lighten the tension with some remark that isn’t even especially funny.

Banter

I don’t mean snarkiness or snide belittling remarks, but something that is laugh-out-loud funny.

So, you kind of mentioned this isn’t what you’re looking for but it’s still worth mentioning. I love it to bits, it’s one of my favorite parts of writing dialogue. Not every remark needs to turn into banter, serious conversations are important too, but there’s nothing I love more than characters teasing each other.

It can also set up tension if the characters don’t particularly like each other and it turns into bitter insults instead of friendly teasing.

This is particularly effective because it sets up relationships between the characters and you can slip actual necessary information in between while also amusing your reader.

Comic drop

Another good one. It’s completely about subversion of expectations.

Often it will mean you set up something to be very serious or grave and then it turns out to be completely unfounded. (Or the alternative, but that’s less common)

An example from my own writing is when the main characters go in search of a group of rebels/spies and when they actually get there they find them arguing about some extremely stupid thing I have not yet decided on. (It might be whether birds have knees, you get what I mean)

I’ll spend time setting up how the main characters expect them to be dangerous and well-organized and that they’re actually kind of scared of them and then they get there and they’re basically a bunch of teenagers.

This one needs a serious caveat. Do not, do not, use this during a moment you actually want to be serious or epic. It will completely ruin both the comedy and the scene. Just, don’t.

If I were to try to use the previous scenario, but after the drop I tried to set up the spies as dangerous and intimidating and the lot it would lose all of the effect. The point is that the main characters’ perceptions have set up a certain expectation that turns out to be false.

Inside joke

A really excellent trope but much harder to set up. It takes time and effort. It’s when characters have some kind of inside joke with each other about some event that previously happened in the books and they keep calling back to it. It can be amazing when used well because it makes the reader feel like they’re part of the joke, but it takes effort to set up.

Narrative humor

This one is harder to describe, but can be very effective. It’s essentially when the narrator (whether a pov character or an external narrator) has opinions about events that are happening.

(Or alternatively just describing things in an amusing way.)

It’s funniest when it contradicts whatever the characters are doing. For example, the classic:

“I’m fine!” He was not fine.

Or when characters indulge in a long, dramatic tirade about some very minor inconvenience without showing anything externally.

This was often used in “The sweetness at the bottom of the pie”. The main character has an extensive vocabulary and extensive opinions but seldom voices them out loud, so the narration often includes vehement tirades against very specific if irrelevant matters.

An example I remember almost verbatim is:

“I hated Mrs. Mullet’s seed biscuits the way Saint Paul hated sin. Perhaps even more so. I wanted to clamber up onto the table, and with a sausage on the end of a fork as my scepter, and shout in my best Laurence Olivier voice, “Will no one rid us of this turbulent pastry cook?”

As Erynne mentioned, senses of humor differ and you’ll never manage to amuse everyone, but if you have a variety of jokes you will probably have at least something.

As you keep writing, you will find it coming easier. It takes practice but before long it will naturally seep into your writing.

I’ve often seen with authors who essentially make humor their trademark that they start really forcing it in later books, as though humor is the only reason people are reading. So, humor is great, but never at the cost of tension or character 🙂

I hope this was at least somewhat helpful!

@erynne

However, what happened in the scene was the girl got so embarrassed by being caught talking to her horse like it was a human which made me laugh so hard.

Psst, I can confirm that literally everyone does this. Whenever I’m at the stable you can hear others having literal conversations with their horses. It’s hilarious to listen in.