Posted by on Sep 20, 2006 in Uncategorised | One Comment

Funny – or not?

Humour is a difficult thing. We’ve all sat through the cringingly embarrassing Best Man’s speech; the long, complicated joke recounted by our boss, that isn’t funny when we get to the punchline; the borderline offensive story told by our elderly uncle … ouch!

And yet, humour done well is an absolute delight. Humorous fiction is one of the toughest acts to pull off. The writer needs a light touch, but a tough judgement. He or she must never indulge their own preferences at the expense of their audience and have to always judge the timing perfectly; hard enough for a stand-up comic but almost impossible when writing for publication.

I’ve just been reading slush for a humour contest. Let’s just say that well over 99% of the writers didn’t make the ‘funny’ grade in my opinion. But the slightly less than 1% who got it right, have made me laugh so much in the past two days that my smile muscles ache with the exercise.

One of them will win. But I think I’m the overall winner this time – what a job, to laugh for a living!

1 Comment

  1. kathrynoh
    20th September 2006

    I think that any writer that can make you laugh out loud while reading is brilliant!

    Reply

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