You Wanna Be Funny? Be Very Serious.

The Secret to Great Comedy

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who never likes to laugh. In the world of storytelling, humor is perhaps the fastest way to hook someone into your work. I have found - in my own reading experiences - that if a character makes me laugh, I care about what happens to them. They could be unredeemable in every other way, but I’ll still root for them a little more with every time I chuckle at their turn of phrase. I think there’s something about understanding a character’s sense of humor that makes them feel real, and not only that but brings them close to you and makes them relatable. It’s the fastest way to connect to the most people possible for the simple reason that we all like to laugh.

The issue, of course, is that a ‘sense of humor’ is incredibly difficult to define, much less teach. It’s something that emerges naturally through each individual’s unique experiences and opinions. It is so intangible that when many writers try to add some humor into their work, they often get frazzled and overwhelmed, and they resign to the idea that they ‘simply aren’t funny.’ Or, perhaps, they turn their nose up at the thought because they want to write ‘serious work.’ To those worried about their reputation, I’ll remind you that Shakespeare’s portfolio is filled to the brim with sex and fart jokes, and I’d wager that his reputation is still a bit shinier than yours.

To those who are nervously stepping into the realm of comedy, the most frequent error I see people make is that they try to be funny.

In my offline hours, I work with a narrative improvisation company and, while we advertise our shows as Improv Comedy, we are constantly telling each other in rehearsals “Don’t try to be funny.” We work very hard to never crack an unmotivated smile and maintain the utmost genuine emotional sincerity in every scene we perform. The result? The shows are fucking hilarious. AND we tell genuinely emotional stories with characters the audience cares about. The humor arises from the situation, not individual punchlines. It arises from sincerity.

So here it is, the secret to great comedy:

If you want to be remarkably funny, every character must be remarkably serious.

That is of course not to say that they all need to carry an air of doom and gloom and be overdramatic, but they do all need to contain authentic emotion and care very deeply about what happens to them. In Comedies (with a capital C), the premise of the story and the character’s front-facing personality traits are often large and absurd and, yes, even overdramatic. In these, it is particularly important that the characters treat their situation with grave sincerity because having to host the emperor’s pet giraffe at your Christmas dinner is only funny if the emperor really cares about that giraffe and will execute you for treason if you fail to express sincere gratitude when Mr. Polka-dot licks your face. In these types of works, it is often the case that the reader laughs while the characters scream and cry.

But what about works that aren’t Comedies? What about your tragic fantasy epic or that family drama novel? I would argue for the importance of humor in these works as well. In these, it is not necessarily the case that the situation surrounding the characters will be funny in itself, so here it is the characters that have to bring the humor. Note: I said characters, not the writer. I think one of the most incredible things about writing fiction is the ability to allow genuine new consciousnesses to emerge into the world. Allow your characters to develop a personality and sense of humor from their life experiences the same way real humans do. More often than not, even in their darkest times, people want to laugh. Realistic emotions tend to be more subtle than those of capital C Comedic characters, but to be funny they still have to be genuine. If you study the people around you, you may notice one of the most authentic ways people deal with tragedy and drama in their real life is by trying to make themselves laugh about it. So what do your characters think is funny? Allow your characters to find what makes them laugh, let it out in realistic doses, and your reader will laugh right along with them and love them all the more for it.

A lot of musical theatre is known for making you laugh in Act One and then cry in Act Two, and this is why. Laughter makes us care, and once we care, you can make us feel any feeling you want. And isn’t that kinda the whole point?

Humor is one of the most powerful tools in a writer’s toolbox.

So, go ahead. Be funny. I’m serious.

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Thank you for reading! Wanna see me put my money where my mouth is? My primary project is the serialized novel The Legend of Leanna Page with Cedar Flyte. New chapters are released every week. Please go check it out and subscribe to keep up with the story.