Funny Up Your Fiction: How to Add Light, Shade and Laughs to Your Novel

There are exactly four million guides called something like How To Write A Novel.

However, there are no books at all telling you how to write a Funny Novel, like Three Men In A Boat or Bridget Jones’ Diary or A Confederacy of Dunces or One Day. Each of these is unique, tied so inextricably with the author that it feels like the only advice I can muster is “be the one-of-a-kind, quirky extraordinary individual, the only person who could possibly write anything remotely like this specific book.”

If by funny you mean you’d like to write a murder mystery, or a young adult novel, or romantic or historic, with layers of humour that help to bring your characters to life, that’s more straightforward.

That’s about adding humour to your fiction. It’s something you can learn, like adding suspense, or creating a sense of place.

There are a number of rudimentary essentials that apply to all novels that include humour.

Funny characters go on the same journeys as everyone else, they fight battles on the way, they even triumph at the end. The only difference is they don’t learn anything.

They may not be capable of self-improvement, they may not be smarter but they can be heroes, just for one book.

“Dave knows his onions. He can probably write jokes about onions that’ll have you crying with laughter. (Don’t worry he didn’t write that one)” Lee Mack