Let's discuss humor in our fiction!

I’m not good at jokes, but friends and family tell me I’m funny. I don’t use jokes for humor though. Just silliness. I see a big car with a giant trunk and say to my mom very casually, “Probably got dead bodies in there” like it’s no big deal and that cracks her up.

I also say “boop” and idk why she laughs until she bends over. My mom is easy to please :stuck_out_tongue:

Aside from my mom, I tend to be able to gage someone’s laugh levels? Humor meter? I test things with people to see what will make them laugh and then do it again and again to make them laugh. But not too much. Humor gets old fast.

I try to make people laugh because if they laugh then they will hopefully remember me more and find me a little bit delightful.

The problem with fiction is you can’t tell what will make someone laugh. I laugh at silliness, so when I write, I might put some silly humor in. I might laugh (because I’m oh so funny :roll_eyes: ) and just hope other people find it funny.

Same with WackyWriters. I just hope the thing meant to be funny is actually funny. I hope my typed-up words tickle someone and make them blow more air out of their nose than usual.

This is getting long, but I have to say more things: many of my characters, like me, use sarcasm as a big part of humor as well as the silliness I mentioned. This is mostly because I can’t crack jokes and neither do I find r-rated things funny.

If everything fails, I become ridiculous. Because at least people might do the half-smile or give a dry laugh if you’re ridiculous enough.

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Don’t stress about it. I used to and it only made everything sound forced. If it’s the right moment, you’ll do it. If your characters think a sudden stupid thought, and it turns out to be kind of smile-worthy, maybe someone will laugh at it. And you might find that there’s something in your story that you don’t find funny, but others do.

There was a scene in one of my stories that wasn’t supposed to be funny in particular. But people in my comments laughed at it. I was only talking about how this popular high school girl labels her hot guys. And it was funny? Okay :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

So…:woman_shrugging: I didn’t even try and it was funny but that’s not because I’m naturally funny or anything. And it’s a rare occurrence, btw.

Let your story flow naturally. Maybe something will come up. Maybe it already has.

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Yeah, that’s natural to me as well, but I take on an edge of cruelty sometimes which isn’t about humor but about cutting down egos a peg. Have to watch the overuse of that because a lot of people can get up in arms about it. That is a place I curb quite often.

While I need a major rewrite on Begging is for Losers, it’s seen right off the bat with the MC.

For example:

“Standard bet?”

Standard fee, ya pimp.

Nathaniel nodded. Rick placed a hundred dollar bill in his hand, right under my nose. The whole cafeteria went silent at the exchange of hands–everyone’s seen it before, but they wanted to see me squirm.

Damned if I can fake that. Where’s my cut?

The italics are her own thoughts she’s trying to keep to herself, but she’s just snide about this whole thing. It’s not necessarily funny, but there will be a percentage of an audience that will at least smirk at a girl thinking of a bet between idiot boys as merely sex work .

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