How To Use Humor as a Literary Device Effectively in Your Writing

There is always a time and place for humor. When it is the right time for elements of humor in your writing, it can change the mood. It also affects how your message is received. With the perfect timing and delivery you can tell a joke or create a scenario that people recall for years on.

When it comes to books, literary humor can balance or contrast a scene. It can also give a character more depth. Additionally, literary humor helps deliver lessons and explain ideas in a memorable way.  If you want to use it, you need to use humor as a literary device effectively or else it will fall flat.

Understand Your Audience’s Humor

Your literary humor should match your readers’ age, interests, and cultural context. Humor in a horror is going to be different from humor in a cozy romance. To make your humor feel natural, deliver it in a realistic way. This may mean learning current slang.

Also, think about how your character behaves. They might tell a joke differently than someone else. 

When Using Humor as a Literary Device, Balance is Key

Humor should enhance your story, not control it. Use literary humor to lighten tension or provide relief without detracting from the main plot. We don’t want to overshadow the story or have our readers hate a character because they’re always delivering forced lines.  They’re called one-liners for a reason.

Leveraging Situational Humor in Writing

Place your characters in funny scenarios that feel natural. When something happens at school or work that makes everyone laugh, there’s not someone in the corner with a “audience laugh now” sign. Sometimes you can’t even explain why something is funny but everyone agrees it just is.

Imagine a messy accident in the kitchen. Picture a serious character in an awkward situation. Or think of a group finally finding Twinkies in their headquarters after searching the whole post-apocalyptic city.

Humor And Wordplay Go Hand In Hand

Characters who are written to sound smart and are having witty banter with some scientific or historical jargon and suddenly, you realize they’re making puns! It always a good laugh because puns are basically the dad jokes of humor but almost no one can resist telling a pun.

While puns are entry level humor you can also use clever dialogue and unexpected turns of phrase. Just be careful not to overdo it - too much wordplay can tire readers. This is about using humor efficiently, not eliciting endless groans.

Make Your Humor Efficient By Being Relatable

Draw on universal experiences like the awkward dance people do when they can't decide how to pass each other in the hall or telling the waitress “you too” when she tells you to enjoy the meal. Relatability makes your humor more accessible and more likely to land. 

Build Character Through Humor

A character's sense of humor should be unique to their personality. A dry and sarcastic character will joke differently than someone who’s sweet and bubbly. On the other hand, you can use a conflicting sense of humor as foreshadowing. For example, the sweet bubbly character makes mean jokes at peoples expense giving you the sense her personality is fake. 

Master Timing

Good humor depends on timing. Let a joke land without feeling forced or having the characters explain it. Give readers time to absorb the punchline. If there’s a lot of action going on, humor should be short quips. 

Edit without Remorse

Not every joke will land and some will have more set up than necessary that takes away from the more important parts of a scene. Be ready and willing to cut or revise humor that doesn’t fir or slows the pace of your story. 

Well placed humor can balance scenes, create a shift from high tension to low tension scenes, and give characters more depth and personality. Ready to get started on your project? Find critique partners and beta readers on the StoryForge writing website. We can't wait to see your work!