A touch of humor sells a novel or memoir, even when you are writing about the most serious of topics or in a serious genre.
Humor provides a moment of relief. Humor is memorable. It resonates with us long after we’ve finished a novel, memoir, or watched a movie.
Every Writer Has What It Takes To Be Humorous.
Humor draws on our backgrounds, our cultural understandings, our knowledge of history and facts. Humor is also often just about being honest. And being brave enough to try it.
Have you had lackluster or no response from agents or readers to your manuscript? Humor can save your project and it’s simple to learn and use.
I encourage you to find a way to put humor on your opening page or certainly by page 2. Here are ways to do that:
Try the “Rule of 3” from Comedy.
A list of three things should end with something surprising or different. That’s the “punch-line effect.”
Example: “Charley loved dogs, cats, and alligators.” If you put the “unexpected” as the third item it allows for humor AND resonance with readers. You can then continue writing about Charley in a surprising way, or not. No matter what, your readers are now intrigued.
Perhaps you are writing a serious thriller. You say humor seems an odd choice for page one or two. That choice is not odd at all. Let’s say this is on page one of a suspense book about a thief:
“Charley felt he was ordinary. He hated his job as a financial adviser, enjoyed a cranberry cocktail after office hours while he polished his weapon, and collected cookbooks he stole from historical libraries.”
Charley feels he’s ordinary but we know he’s not. Why is he collecting cookbooks? There’s the 1-2-3 momentum on page 1 or 2! Readers—who might be an editor, agent, or reviewer—will be intrigued and read on.
Let’s Explore Two Other Easy Humor Techniques.
Go back to the alligator guy. Your next sentences might be these:
Charley Smith was a Wall Street banker of golden reputation with a problem—his pet alligator had outgrown Charley’s penthouse. Alligators in the Excellent Tower were illegal, and harboring such animals would doom his reputation. Charley loved Ansel the alligator but lately Ansel had been eyeing the dog and cat as if they were a French dish just waiting to be served with croissants and Champagne.
That passage illustrates these tricks that create humor: EXAGGERATION and a PERSONAL CONNECTION/IMPRESSION.
I gave the alligator a name for a more personal connection for readers, and brought in a comparison to French dining for a bit of exaggeration. If you had only said “Charley had an alligator in his penthouse,” that falls flat and misses the opportunities for humor.
Have you noticed, too, how bringing in these tricks “loads” your page with more storytelling weight? In short order, we feel 1) ATTITUDE, and 2) your STYLE, and 3) a sense of A WRITER BEING IN COMMAND of their prose and ability. Editors, agents, publishers, reviewers, and readers like those things.
There are many, many other tricks for creating humor.
Good how-to books on how to create humor include The Comic Toolbox by John Vorhaus.
Christine DeSmet: Author 