My work-in-progress YA manuscript is a dramedy. Comerama? Basically it’s a comedy with some heart (comedy + drama). It’s a story that’s been in my head and on my hard drive for years. It’s the manuscript I come back to whenever I’m between projects. Now I’ve put it on the front burner and making it the project.

Here’s the thing about writing comedy: humor is hard. For me anyway. That’s because (1) it’s tough to pull something funny out of your head when you’re not feeling particularly hilarious at the moment you sit down to write, and, (2) it’s a fine line between figuring out what’s truly funny vs. stupid. I’ve always been amazed by comedians, but I have a whole new level of respect for them now.

To get better at it, I’ve been doing a lot of research. In this case, that means reading a lot of humor.

It’s a rough job.

Here’s what I’ve learned: while there a million ways to make something funny, there are several tricks authors use again and again to make you laugh. They’re the same tricks scriptwriters and comedians use too. So if you’re writing a comedy, or just trying to inject some humor into your manuscript, try some of these ideas.

• Character with low self-awareness: Funny characters are often blind to key traits about themselves that are obvious to everyone else (most notably, the reader), and it’s used to hilarious effect. The perfectly oblivious Georgia Nicolson from Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison is an excellent example.
• Character has a fixed point-of-view on certain topics/issues: Funny characters are sure they’re right and it heavily influences their take on the world. Think Greg Gaines, the main character from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. Or Catherine, from Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman. Or the curmudgeonly Ove from A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.
• Character with behavior that isn’t “typical”: Along with having a unique perspective on life, funny characters’ behavior sometimes flies in the face of societal norms or expectations. Professor Don Tillman from The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion is a great example of this, as are almost all of the characters in Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Marie Semple. 
• Character with unique hobbies, habits and/or tics: For a master class on this, check out the thieving, drinking, six-inch-tall, heavily tattooed Nac Mac Feegles in Terry Pratchett’s terrific The Wee Free Men.
• Absurd situations: It could be literally absurd, like a scene where the characters are riding around on dinosaur-sized turkeys (as in Milo Speck, Accidental Agent by Linda Urban) or kissing hundreds of frogs to save the day (as in the aptly named Frogkisser! by Garth Nix) or using a bottle of milk to ward off aliens (as in Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman). Or it could mean putting a character in a setting that’s in stark contrast to his/her usual life (as in The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, and Going Bovine and Beauty Queens, both by Libba Bray). Or, basically read anything by Roald Dahl and/or Douglas Adams, they excelled at this.
• An author who isn’t afraid to make a character look foolish: Sometimes I care so much about my characters, I don’t want to let them take a prat fall or do something embarrassing–though hilarious–because I don’t want them to look bad. But, in order to wring the most laughs out of a scene and fully unleash the tricks noted above, you’ve got to do it. And the best humor authors do. Along with many of the titles already mentioned, read The Porcupine of Truth by Bill Konigsberg and A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban for examples of this in action.

That’s what I’ve picked up so far. What tips do you have for writing funny?

For more on what makes something funny, check out this Slate article about a scientist and an author’s attempt to find a “unified theory of comedy.”

© 2018 Rachel Martin. All Rights Reserved.