Putting Humor Into Your Story When You Aren't Funny

Humor is one of the most important writing tools there is and even if you have no interest in writing a comedy having a few chuckles or at least making your reader smile from time to time is useful for breaking tension and creating connections between readers and characters. But while I am aware of this, I know also that my natural style of humor doesn’t translate all that well into written humor. So how do those of us who aren’t naturally funny on the written page still use that vital writing tool?

The first step is to understand why humor is important. Laughter is one of the oldest ways in which humans bond. It likely predates human speech and is one of the few things we know is entirely natural. Babies laugh, blind and deaf people laugh. And more than that when someone who laughs with you is part of your tribe. Making your readers part of your character’s tribe, or part of your tribe as a writer, is a worthwhile bond.

Just like anything else in writing, the first step is to understand the basic elements. Humor is too broad a subject to fit into a single theory, but there a few theories that are useful because even if they aren’t technically correct they typically can help us understand types of jokes.

The first is relief theory. That is to say that laughter exists to help release tension. This is why you might laugh in an awkward social situation and why my reaction to life and death situations is to laugh. It’s also why humor defuses tense situations. A lot of jokes use this, creating a dangerous situation with the setup of the joke and then releasing the tension with the punch line. A broad example of this might be a joke that appears to be dangerously inappropriate with a punchline that reveals it is not. In a book, this might be the sudden revelation that the seemingly dangerous situation that the protagonist is in is actually not dangerous at all.

Another theory is the superiority theory. This is schadenfreude, or laughter at the misfortunes of others. It’s simple. You laugh at someone slipping on a banana peel because of the superiority theory. In writing this is most often the comic relief. A seemingly or helpless character who bumbles and fumbles his way through the story making the reader laugh, just make sure they have some personality and reason to be in the story. It can also be useful to make the seemingly powerful protagonist more human by making them look silly.

Third is the incongruous juxtaposition theory. Basically, it’s laughing at something so bizarre that there is nothing else to do but laugh. Typically, the laughter comes when you understand what is happening. You assumed that something made no sense, but then suddenly you understood why it happened or have some shift in perspective that clarifies that you had misinterpreted what was being said. In the case of the written joke, this is often intentional.

But while understanding that is fairly useful, that doesn’t help you craft a joke or make a character funny. Hitting your character in the face with a pie might technically be a joke, but it’s probably not going to seem like one to a reader unless the context is right.

That is where we move onto a few basic tricks that humor writers often used to make these things easier. Perhaps the most famous of these is the rule of three. The idea being that three events are more satisfying or in this case funnier than other numbers. The reason for this at its most basic because three of something is the smallest amount you can use to create a pattern. So by creating an obvious pattern in the first two, you can disrupt that pattern in the third. The reason that three is better than four, five or ninety-six leads into the next point.

Brevity is the soul of wit. If you’ve ever heard someone tell a joke, you know why this is vital to humor. So while it may not be vital to itself, getting to the point is vital.

Also worthwhile is to remember that unless you're specifically writing a comedy that it’s probably worth keeping your humor both subtle and not to put in too much. Your goal need not be to make someone fall out of their chair laughing. A smile is enough, and it is far less likely to disrupt the story.

As a fiction writer, I think it’s important to consider the type of humor that your character uses. Different people are funny in different ways. You can do the same with your characters. Having everyone in your book throw out terrible puns will not make them interesting, even if your readers laugh. But if you have one character who does that while the others roll their eyes, then you’ve hopefully made your readers laugh in two different ways. You can build up characters through humors in a lot of ways. Being clumsy can be funny and create valuable character information that can become useful later in the plot. A character who makes fun of another character differs greatly from one who makes fun of himself.

There is far more to this subject than can be found in a single blog post. But I’ll leave you with a few minor points that might be useful. Specificity is generally funnier than generalities. Also, according to more than one source, the k sound is funny. I don’t know why k is funny, but I am assured it is, and if you’re aiming for humor, you might as well grease the wheels.

Finally, put the punchline at the end. This is important in most writing, but even more so in writing humor. Consider the difference between these two lines. “Please, take my wife,” and “Take my wife, please.” by putting please at the end you create tension and have a surprise reversal. People also remember the last thing best.

I will never create a book that sits in a comedy section of a bookshelf. It’s just not how I’m wired. My first thought in a situation isn’t how is this is funny, but how is this dramatic, or how does it move forward the plot. But if you keep an eye out, you’ll sometimes stumble into a situation that is funny or remember some tidbit from your research that made you laugh and you can share that with your reader.