Writing Saturday; 10 Ways to Create Funny Moments

7:43 AM

One of the things I like to add in my books is funny moments. They keep intense parts of the book from being overwhelming, they give your readers a good feeling inside, and it gives you a great opportunity to use your writing skills.

1. Have a comic relief character. This can be someone who is always making well-intentioned mistakes; it can be someone who takes their job too seriously or it can be someone who is a bit rough and blunt. These types of characters give you great opportunities for making funny moments.

2. Have kids in your story. Children do some of the funniest things. If you don’t believe me, go watch a group of kids at play. They will say and do things that will have you on the floor in stitches.

3. Have and intense, scary, life threatening scene that leads to…. nothing. Think about it, we often worry about a situation or think something is going to be awful, and it ends up being no big deal. If written correctly, these can be really funny moments.

4. Have your main character make mistakes. Not only do these mistakes make them human, but they also can be very funny.

5. Have someone tell a joke in your story, but have it be poorly told so that no one laughs. This can be a little tricky, but also very funny.

6. Get off your computer! Half of creating funny moments is to have real life experiences to draw from. If you spend all your time on your computer you will miss a lot of life.

7. Have food moments. Have things spill at the wrong moment, get a guy covered in mashed potatoes, let the main character take a sip of tea and realize she put salt instead of sugar in it. How funny is that?

8. Have some silly misunderstandings. Have the Dad buy lamb instead of ham or the daughter get enough plates for two hundred instead of two dozen.

9. Let your characters have their habits and pet peeves. They could always wear something pink, make a big deal out of how you should eat pizza, or go on and on about one particular subject to the point of driving others mad.

10. Laugh more yourself. Watch more comedians, read a funny book, spend time with your younger siblings. Whatever it takes to make you laugh, do it.

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  1. That's great Sarah! Thanks for sharing! Just a tip... it can be tricky to make funny moments in books feel natural. That's one of the things we gotta remember to watch out for. Sure, we can put funny stuff into a book but we need to make sure it's not like a stop action movie. Writing, writing, writing and then... stop for a funny scene to lighten the mood. Then more writing, more writing, more writing, and stop for another funny incident. We as writers need to make sure that our writing has a clean and easy flow to it. :)

    Funny thing... I did accidentally put salt instead of sugar in my tea once. Let me tell you, it was disgusting! And the face I made when I drank it made my entire family laugh. (No, I was not set up. I just didn't pay enough attention to the label.lol!)