Fun\Humor\All the Jokes! 😎😜

[whaley]

…I hope this doesn’t post twice… eeek…

Humor is probably one of the most fun (I mean, that’s almost literally it’s definition) things to write in your story. I personally LOVE it, and I thought other people might too, so here we are.

I know some books where those moments of laughing kept you reading on, whereas if they hadn’t been there, my eyes would have trailed off and given up not long after. Because sometimes those are also the most loving and connected moments. Maaaaybe sometimes we dwell on the sad moments too much… and the reader isn’t going to stick with us through all that crying unless we have a promise of good vibes to come.

But dudes, we each have such different kinds of humor! Isn’t that so cool??

I like creating characters that are easy to have fun with, because their very existence is slightly ridiculous. I also love writing confident characters, who know perfectly well their existence is ridiculous, and flaunt it anyway. It feels like that classic scene where the heroes are striding slowly and dramatically, but it’s absolutely hilarious… Like, a combination of outward childishness, but also self-awareness? I don’t know, but it’s sO FUN TO WRITE.

What’re some of the funniest snippets in your story? Or just cheerful and laughter-filled in general! Or, what are your favorite joke techniques? (They’re SO fun to research!!) Like satire, slapstick, sarcasm, puns – your own special style! ;P

@lydibug @loopylin @hybridlore @highscribeofaetherium @euodia-vision @freedomwriter76 @godlyfantasy12 @esther-c @mineralizedwritings @keilah-h @everyoneelsepleasepostifyouwanttoweloveyoutooooo

“Everything is a mountain”

[MineralizedWritings]

@whalekeeper

Lol this is so interesting! I personally love your style of humor, and I totally get what you mean by the kind of self aware cringy/cool scenes.

A lot of my humor takes from manga. I’ve gotten the best laughs out of it’s absolutely ridiculous running jokes, and besides some of them are really well thought out. I still remember one of the best ones in the 43rd volume of haikyuu, where a younger character is trying to copy one of his old senpai’s and fails horribly… the whole joke goes all the way back to vol.32 before the timeskip, so it was just so well thought out. Like the kind of thing you might do irl.

A lot of my humor has to do with relatable stuff we might all do… like Milly being embarrassed about her romance novel and hiding it in her history book despite the fact she really likes it. Then there’s the running joke of Layson can never get a girlfriend, but he actually learns a lot from that one so idk if it’s a joke lol.

There’s a type of humor in manga that comes just from the drawings too, like the facial expressions, that I can’t entirely explain. One of my favorite methods of this though is drawing the contents of the characters mind, because often times it reflects their opinions of other people. You get to see what the world (and the people they despise) look like through their own eyes… it can be pretty funny. Oh, and then there’s my irl humor style.

 

What’s brown and sticky?

 

 

 

A stick.

"And so I left this world just as I had entered it. Confused."

[Allison]

@whalekeeper

I do feel like my book has to much sadness and have been trying to figure out how to make it more funny and have been asking my little brother to help, since he loves jokes and slapstick (Me too). His idea of humor is throwing pies at people and things like that and is currently trying to make one of my characters throw a pie at Rosie.🤣 Mine seems to be mainly sarcasm in my book, which is pretty funny, but there might be to much, so I will try to add a bit more slapstick and other to it. But like @mineralizedwritings said “Oh and theres my irl humor style” (Ours seem kind of the same 😀 ) Sorta lame jokes 🤣 😂No offence 😁

Here is a little piece of humor from my book, not crazy funny, but still 🙂

“We got seven hours on the road. You better find something to entertain yourselves because that’s not my job.” Sam said as he opened the glove box. “I’ll see if I can find any puzzles or bingo or something.”’ He pulled out a stack of papers which slid off the upholstered leather seat onto the floor making a huge mess.

“Aww Sam, do you always have to make such a mess?” I asked, grinning at him.

“Or sound like mom? Talking about games on the road?” Scott said, trying hard to keep a straight face.

Everyone laughed, which felt good.

 

"Would you kindly...?"

[Loopy]

@whalekeeper

You always make such great topics, I love this!

I don’t usually try to write humorous scenes, but I keep doing it anyway, which I think is better than if I tried writing it on purpose.

I think my humor usually comes from characters teasing each other or getting frustrated with each other or things like that. It also shows up more with facial expressions and actions than actual words. Also, just showing really contrasting personalities can be pretty funny. For example, I have two characters in Paper Stars named Lemonhead and Meena. Lemonhead is quiet, intimidating, and considers herself the coolest person around (no one dares disagree). Meanwhile Meena is sweet, hospitable, trustworthy, seemingly harmless, and gives the best hugs. The two don’t really seem like they’d get along, but they are actually so close, they consider each other sisters. The scenes of people meeting them for the first time end up being pretty comedic.

I think my humor is mostly based off of the way I act around my closest friends sometimes, when we start talking about something that no one else in the room understands so we end up sounding crazy, but we make perfect sense to each other.

I also have a different wip that is mostly a comedy. If anyone wants, I could post about it later. (And, if no one wants, I might just post it anyway.)

“Nothing says autumn like slurpin’ apples.” -my uncle

[Koshka]

Aha! Wit, humor, sarcasm, the very air I breathe! Oh how I do love a well written pun, a dead serious word battle, and the occasional subtle jab. Authors that can do such naturally are among my highest esteemed! Here are a few somewhat random thoughts:

I don’t really enjoy cringy embarrassing situations which just set the character off and don’t seem to be of any purpose in the story. I’ll usually cringe and skip if the character doesn’t respond well.

My favorite types of humor to read and use would be Wit, Sarcasm, Situational Irony, and general goofballness. Add in some word battles and facial expressions and the whole this is complete.

It’s amazing how that humor, like every little tidbit of storytelling can move the reader toward the plot point, the theme, the meaning of the whole thing, without blatantly saying it. They may laugh, but they get it.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Koshka. Reason: Ato-correct needs to be pummeled

First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the Gork

[Loopy]

@koshka

Personally, I don’t enjoy the cringy embarrassing situations which just set the character off and don’t seem to be of any purpose in the story. If it was just to make me laugh, it didn’t. I’ll usually cringe and skip if the character doesn’t respond well.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I end up empathizing with the character and feeling embarrassed for them which is just painful.

“Nothing says autumn like slurpin’ apples.” -my uncle

[Koshka]

@loopylin

Exactly! Even when they deserved it it hurts.

Book life is confusing.

First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the Gork

[TheArcaneAxiom]

@whalekeeper

Whale, anyone who makes jokes deserves to be pun-ished, because jokes are like paper, their tear-able! It’s what professor Shakespeare made obvious in question 2b of the assignment last week, or was it not 2b? Anyway, I’ll prove my point with experience, like this one time I was at a restaurant and ordered a sand-witch, then the waitress came over, pulled out a wand, and turned me into a heap of sand! Or this other time I told someone that they just need to relish life, and later I found them covering everything with pickled vegetable condiment everywhere! Jokes are dangerous Whale, and they should be completely ex-pun-ged! With jokes, people sometimes don’t even pun-ounce the words correctly to make it work, it just makes me want to pun-ch something! Many think they’re so clever during a discussion on plants, and say they’d rather be a fungi, and I gotta say, there isn’t mushroom for such people in this world. How do you even tell what people are talking about half of the time? Make up your mind, are you a Mandalorian, or are you a man in a DeLorean? So I hope I’ve been solid enough to show that jokes are no laughing state of matter!

I guess I must now go jump in a river and chomp crocodiles in half like the hippo-crit that I am.

… … … 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣(I could keep going if you want)

All jokes aside (hehe), this is a great topic! As you can tell, I love the dad joke kind of humor, as well as irony. That being said, as a sci-fi fantasy worldbuilder, things like puns that the readers would find funny wouldn’t work as well in a setting that would function on fundamentally different culture and language structure. Many authors ignore this, but I’m an extremist. I’ve had to argue about this with my sister a whole lot sense our books are in the same universe😂 The rational I let her use though, and many other authors that recognize this, simply say that it is the English approximation of a different joke made in that moment by some witty character. It works, but I avoid it, opting for other types of humor. I really like the humor of characters that are socially oblivious, and sometimes making them hyper intelligent characters to compound the difficulty to convey things right. You’ll also find a lot of Irony in my writing, and stark character dynamics.

Here’s some samples:

(for context this is Tailen and his robot companion)

“Well that was weird… I like her!” The little robot beside me chirped. “You’re not ignoring me like she said, right? You’re just… oh, you must be making jokes! Hahahahaha, your so funny”

“Sure…” what a strange encounter, what was she going to say, what even happened?

“Are you going to name me?”

“Huh, what?”

“Name me, like her. She named her companion Ria. I’m guessing because of the R at the end of her number. You could do the same, my number is 137-1618Z, so what if you called me Zia, or maybe just Z?”

Memories pierced my mind, Zainya weeping, the water seeping from her eyes. Those eyes looking into mine. Pain compressing my chest, knowing what I’ve done. “No! You will not be called that.”

“Oh… ok… my apologies, is there anything else you would like to call me instead?”

I didn’t have time for this “…Thing, I’ll call you Thing”. The robot paused.

“Hmm, Thing… Definition: ‘A general reference that can be applied to any subject’, hmm, that fits me perfectly! I am a subject that you can make references to! Thank you, thank you!” The robot spun around me. “Thing, Thing! I am named Thing!” I wasn’t completely surprised by the reaction, but I was… surprised. “Did you know that names create stronger mental attachment to things? Hey that’s my name, Thing! Wait, did I make a joke? Ha ha ha ha, this is so fun!”

Here’s another in Liren’s story when he had just stabbed someone in their perspective:

So this is death… nice to meet you my friend! I always wondered when we’d meet. I suspected it would be a little later, I would at least have preferred to eat that pie first, but I guess that’s life… or, not life? Well I can’t wait to tell my old Granny Jein about how cool my death was. ‘You’ll drown in a puddle before anything interesting happens in your life.’ She often said, until she herself tripped into a ditch. Wait till she hears that I was stabbed by a tall muscly guy with the coolest sword ever!

These are both very serious stories, and I think it’s important to sprinkle humor like this in them to lighten the mood from time to time like you were pointing out earlier. It’s important to not overdo it though (unless it is a comedy), otherwise you’ll make your audience expect it, even when a moment is supposed to be serious.

Now, I’m going to stop talking, or else I’ll die of choking around too much.

 

 

He is perfect in Justice, yet He is perfect in Mercy, even when we fail Him. For this, He is good.

[whaley]

I apologize, peeps. I forgot all about this in the midst of ✨ first day of school ✨. Notifs are… bleeeegggghhh… But here I am now.

@mineralizedwritings

Well, thank you, Min!

It sounds like you enjoy… I don’t know how to describe it… that kind of inside-joke humor I see between my classmates. Teasing, but kind of cozy, where literally everyone can relate to the character and love them for it.

Yeeeees I love drawing funny expressions! They sometimes make the joke entirely!

And… as for your extra special bit of Min humor…

You know, I’m not sure how to punch back at that one 😂😂

@acancello

THROW A PIE!!!

(I have written a pie-throw before and it is enjoyable, I guarantee)

What a little bit of cozy! ☺️ They’re as close as siblings, yeah?

@loopylin

Thanks, Loops ❤️

Ah, yes, the contrasting personalities. It just comes so much more naturally that way. Literally anything is quality material for humor in those relationships.

Craziness is also quality. *chef’s kiss*

And DO post your comedy. This is what you are here for, and I am all here for it as well. DO.

@koshka

Yes, humor with a purpose is so important. Even if it’s just to set up expectations for a character’s emotional state. I’ve found that’s what I use jokes the most for. Showing the reader how to gauge the character’s feelings.

Smart jokes are often the best jokes. *Nods* Have you watched the Princess Bride? You seem like the kind of person who has.

@thearcaneaxiom

Dude, I never saw your post until just now…

I need to recover…

😂

I loved it.

I see… let me guess… are PUNS your forte?

Did I get it right??

I especially enjoyed that second snippet. Honestly if I died in a fantasy book and was able to look back on my death, that is how I would react.

“Everything is a mountain”

[GodlyFantasy12]

@thearcaneaxiom AHH I LOVE THOSE SO MUCH!!

 

so being honest I struggle so much writing dialogue, and also writing humor….

 

Maybe it’s just because I haven’t been able to get past first drafts and such, but yea. It’s weird because I love dialogue and humor in stories but writing it? I just find it so difficult….

#IfMarcelDiesIRiot
#ProtectMarcel
#ProtectSeb

[GodlyFantasy12]

Oh! Are we talking about the kinda of humor we like in books?

 

So sometimes actual jokes in books are a bit cringy for me lol (unless done right lol)

I like humor that is actually brought on, or only humorous, because of the characters quirks or the characters themselves, if that makes sense.

 

For instance if a character does something so many times, or it’s a nuanced thing that the reader knows “Oh this character does this alll the time” and it’s played on sometimes as a joke, that makes me laugh 😂

Characters’ personalities make me smile and laugh just because I’m like “Oh man I love that.” Or because I become so attached I go “Gah he would totally say that.” A lot of times too, it’s because I have my own friends who I’m always like “OH MY GOSH THEY WOULD DO/SAY THIS….”

XD

 

idk if that makes any sense lol, but yea.

#IfMarcelDiesIRiot
#ProtectMarcel
#ProtectSeb

[whaley]

@godlyfantasy12

Yes yes yes!

I really agree; if your book is comprised of jokes that literally anyone could tell, and could be swapped between characters with no effect, what’s the point of the joke? I mean, yeah, it makes you laugh, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the character’s personality.

Character quirks being messed around with are SO my thing. Love it. Breathe it. Exist for writing because of it.

It’s very much the knowing, that pleases us. Knowing this mood fits a character – and maybe not knowing exactly what they’re going to say, but definitely knowing it’s going to be them. Their personality, their quirks.

It doesn’t even have to be a joke, per say. It might be just a certain element of their style, that screams, “hey, this is me!” And you can’t help but laugh XD

You have amazing taste, my friend XD

“Everything is a mountain”

[TheArcaneAxiom]

@whalekeeper

Dude, I never saw your post until just now…

I need to recover…

😂

I loved it.

I see… let me guess… are PUNS your forte?

Did I get it right??

I especially enjoyed that second snippet. Honestly if I died in a fantasy book and was able to look back on my death, that is how I would react.

Thank you! Yes, I am a punster like my father before me😂

Yeah, it’s the humor of irony I love. It’s often said that you get to know a character the best when they are truly put under the pressure of a moment, and so it is actually interesting narrative wise and shows a particular kind of strength if the character can simply laugh at it, not mockingly, not hysterically, but simply accepting things as they are, but not letting that ruin their day.

@godlyfantasy12

AHH I LOVE THOSE SO MUCH!!

Why thank you! You know, I’ve always loved to partake of artichokes… I mean… uh, the art-of-jokes🤣

so being honest I struggle so much writing dialogue, and also writing humor….

 

Maybe it’s just because I haven’t been able to get past first drafts and such, but yea. It’s weird because I love dialogue and humor in stories but writing it? I just find it so difficult….

I wouldn’t say that writing humor is a problem for me, but I defiantly struggle with moving past the first draft, because I’m more into perfecting my current writing rather than generating more writing, which is a very bad habit.

He is perfect in Justice, yet He is perfect in Mercy, even when we fail Him. For this, He is good.

[Allison]

@whalekeeper

Don’t worry, Ill throw a pie 🤣 LOL! (I dont gets notifications for this topic. Sorry it took me so long 🙂 )

"Would you kindly...?"

[hybridlore]

Not even going to tag people for this since notifs aren’t working and I’m not sure who would want to see it lol.

I haven’t really ever thought about this before, but I think I like when characters tease each other. It just seems realistic and it can be really funny, too, as long as they’re not being mean. I honestly don’t even really write too much humor outside of sarcasm, though, at least lately. And yeah, when characters go off at people it’s just super awkward and embarrassing.

Loopy – I’d love to read your comedy WIP if you’re still up for posting it!

"Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out." Eccl. 12:12

[Author]

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