Writing humour in fiction

Someone telling a joke aloud has tone, pauses, facial expression. A writer has only words, in the order they put them. That's why humour is one of the hardest things to pull off on the page, and one of the most appreciated when it works. You don't need to write a comic novel: even a dramatic book gains a lot from a few moments that raise a smile.

Contrast

Almost all narrative humour comes from contrast:

• between expectation and reality: readers expect one thing and get another;
• between tone and content: recounting a catastrophe with the calm of official minutes, or a triviality with the solemnity of an epic;
• between character and situation: the pedant in the middle of chaos, the shy person forced to give a speech.

When you try to make a passage funny, ask where the contrast lies, and how to sharpen it.

Rhythm and the final word

On the page, comic timing is set by sentence construction. The most useful rule: the funny word goes at the end. If the surprise arrives mid-sentence and the sentence carries on, the effect dissipates.

He had prepared the speech for weeks, rehearsed it in front of the mirror, learned every pause. Then he stood up, and the microphone wasn't on.

Brevity and cleanness matter: a joke that's explained or stretched dies.

Humour that comes from characters

Jokes inserted by the author show, and often age badly. The most lasting humour comes from the way a character sees the world: their quirks, their exaggerated convictions, their personal logic applied consistently to situations where it doesn't work.

A character who takes everything literally, one who complains elaborately, one who is always optimistic at the wrong moment: put them in a situation and the humour arrives without any jokes.

Understatement

One of the most effective techniques in fiction is understatement: describing something enormous in minimal words.

The evening hadn't gone to plan. The house, for instance, was now smaller than a room.

The effect comes from the distance between the gravity of events and the restraint of the words. It works especially well with a dry narrative voice.

Humour and drama together

In serious novels a light moment doesn't weaken the drama: it strengthens it. It gives readers breathing room, makes characters more human, and makes the blow feel harder when it lands. Real people joke even in their worst moments, and characters who do are more believable.

The risk is mistiming: a joke at the heart of a painful scene can break the atmosphere, unless it's the character using it to defend themselves against the pain.

What to avoid

• Explaining the joke, even just with a "he laughed heartily" afterwards.
• Stacking jokes one after another: readers tire and stop laughing.
• Humour that belittles characters without affection: readers sense the author's contempt.
• References too tied to the moment, which nobody will get in a few years.

Frequently asked questions

Can you learn to write funny?

Largely, yes. Humour on the page is mostly technique: contrast, rhythm, economy of words. Sensibility matters, but revision work on sentences makes a big difference.

How do I know whether a passage is really funny?

Reread it a few days later, when you've forgotten the joke. If it doesn't make you smile, it probably won't make the reader smile. An outside reader is a good test too, as long as you don't tell them it was meant to be funny.

Does humour translate well?

Humour that comes from situations and characters does; wordplay much less so. If you're thinking of readers in other languages, lean on the first kind.