There are plenty of benefits of adding comedy to your stories. For example, humor can elevate the mood of the book after a particularly tense and stressful scene for the protagonist and other characters. Humor can make an action scene or a fight scene hilarious if the characters meet obstacles that are ridiculous, but plausible. It is not easy to add humor the right way in a story, though. This is why we’ve shown below some ways of adding humor that might just not work for your story.
1. Unnecessary situations
When you’re focusing on creating a funny situation, you could end up writing a scene with the protagonist and the characters that might seem outrageous and improbable. On the other hand, you can use a different approach to a much better effect: look through your manuscript, and see if there are scenes where there isn’t enough tension. This means that the scenes are not serious by nature, and can be improved upon by making them a little bit funnier. Adding humor to a tepid scene can increase the tension – but in a good way. It might make the characters tense, but the overall scene will amuse the readers.
2. The goofy character
Adding a goofy character just to add humor to a story might be a big mistake. First of all, the character will end up one dimensional, with very little backstory and every time he appears on the pages, the readers will know that he is there just to provide humor. And every scene that is supposed to be funny wouldn’t be, because that kind of humor is forced upon the readers seemingly for the entertainment of the writer, not the readers. However, you can save a goofy character in two ways: first, make the goofiness a mask behind which the character hides something, and second, make him so important to the plot, that the readers wouldn’t question his presence in the book.
3. Too much sarcasm
Sarcasm in general is a type of humor that not everyone enjoys. This is not to say that using it is a bad idea, only that using too much of it can alter the tone of the book and make it less enjoyable for the readers. Sarcasm implies bitterness in a character, especially if said character uses sarcasm to bring another character down. It’s okay once in a while, maybe as a way to show a character’s minor trait, but not too much, because the character would come across as arrogant. And it’s really difficult to redeem an arrogant character.
4. Bickering for the sake of humor
Good dialogue should have several different markers, but the best lies in surprise. Nobody likes predictable dialogue. Lately, bickering, or arguing about petty and unimportant things has become a sign about a developing attraction between two characters, or to shown playful enmity between siblings. However, if you take it to the extreme where the characters are unable to have a normal, serious conversation, and when the development of the plot is slowed down because of it, it becomes a problem, and might put off the readers.
5. Adding too much
In the end, you must decide what kind of a book you want to write, and then control the amount of comedy and humor in it. If you add too much comedy to a book that deals with serious issues, it will probably not generate the effect you want. In a serious book that has plenty of humor; the tension is lowered, but if you use too much of it, your book runs the risk of being too funny, and not taken seriously. Also, if the characters use too much humor when referring to their situation, that means the characters themselves don’t think that what is currently happening to them is life changing, or meaningful. In order to avoid this, decide on the nature of your book, and then decide the amount of humor you want it to have.
Image credit: Pixabay
Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.